Another Manchester park ticked off the bucket list this evening with a litter pick in Heaton Park today! While much of the UK was baking, we had a nice evening with a gentle breeze for a nice stroll in the park while clearing up any dropped litter and discarded waste.

The magnificent seven: Peter, Gaynor, Fanette, Scott, Victor, Esteban, and Ben donned their gloves (some were leftover lab gloves admittedly) with a few litter pickers and bag rings to share around to scour the park following Parklife over the weekend.

While we had a map showing litter hotspots, the park was surprisingly clear, albeit we couldn't access the Papal Fields with the Parklife hoardings still up, but we still filled a grand total of 13 litter sacks with a couple of laughing gas cannisters. We met Steve from Prestwich Pickers too, also out for a stroll and a litter pick, and made friends with some members of local wildlife, including Highland cows, rabbits, squirrels, plus a few birds. Lots of thanks from those in the park (including a few cyclists and a running group).

We'll be back in a few weeks for some balsam bashing (there was plenty of that around...) so sign up if you'd like to go back for some more active volunteering in Heaton Park.

Plenty of digging and lifting this evening for Esteban, Sanjeev, and Ben!

Katie from Gorse Hill Studios was looking for some help sprucing up the Gorse Hill Studios garden, with plenty of plants getting delivered soon and events coming up over the summer.

After the 4.5 km jog from the city centre along the canal, our first task was to unload one of the bags of compost that we prepared last year and to construct a mound of soil. Lots of the plastic matting was removed but the heavy lifting didn't end there.

Next up was to replant some of the trees that had been planted last year after getting dug out during the fence construction around the outside. With more digging over of a patch ready for planting of the incoming plants, we weeded what we could. The plastic matting, broken bench, deadwood, and other bits of rubbish were carried around to the skip, with the bags of fresh compost carried around to the front for people to use this week.

Lots of jobs and Katie seemed very happy with the day's work, not just from us but also from other volunteers at the Studios. Looking forward to seeing the end product in a week or two!

Great effort on the jog to the task and back this evening! Super effort!

Welcome to Esteban for your first GoodGym session! 👏

This evening was a Manchester Post delivery around a residential area in Longsight. After the morning rain, we were both very thankful for blue skies and sunshine in the evening for a stroll, criss-crossing the streets in between deliveries.

300 newspapers containing local news and community events, with some residents very happy to receive some good news media! In just 75-80 minutes, we managed to deliver them all, discussing jobs, volunteering, GoodGym, running clubs, and other topics in between.

Next week we have a litter pick planned meeting in the city centre for a gentle run out to Ardwick or Hulme where known litter grot-spots exist.