Tonight we started by welcoming back Christine and George to goodgym, by celebrating Barbara 800th good deed and by awarding Becca the goodgymer of the month! 🤩

We warmed up by saying who our 80s icon was then headed off to York Cemetery, with a quick pause for a photoshoot on blue bridge.

We were met by Clive upon arrival and also welcomed Leonie to her firsf task. We then headed up to the back of the cemetery 🪦💀 to remove poplar suckers. If these are left there would be a poplar forest before we know it and that won't do! Between us we sawed, hacked, snipped and dragged until there were considerably less of the little tikes. 🌳

We then enjoyed a fitness session of circuits which included some skipping lessons!

Then back to base for some of Barbara's brownies and a liquid refreshment in the pub. 🍻

Seven superb GGers braved a frosty morning making their way to Kimberlow Hill for another Treemendous morning planting, staking & protecting 450 native species whips (donated by The Tree Council). By mid morning the bare Kimberlow Slope was transformed and one day it'll be hard to see the wood for the trees 🌳 although in the meantime they're hidden by the biodegradable guards (essential rabbit 🐇 protection). The sun shone, spades & mallets were in abundance, chocolate was munched, wellies were muddied, folk chatted & laughed and a good time was had by all..... until next time (20th January)

On the final Monday of the January Challenge, our 3rd birthday group run and my last ever night leading GoodGym York, an amazing group of 75 pitched up to do a stonking amount of good!

In that enormous group we had:

• THREE brand new runners - big cheers for Charlee, Thomas and Francisco.
• TEN GoodGym tourists from Newcastle, Ealing, Leeds, Bath and Portsmouth!
• TWO people celebrating their 50th good deed and donning the Cape of Good Deeds Give some hearty Yorkie cheers to Emma (who has been running with us for almost the three whole years but just likes to spread out all her good!), Rich and also to Louise who couldn't make it tonight but also did her 50th last week.
• TWO people celebrating their 100th good deed and swishing the Centurion Cape! (massive cheers please for Debs and Al who got their wings over the last few days.

We split into three running groups and a walking group, on a collective mission to transform the Nunnery Lane residential area.. with this list of mini and not-so-mini tasks to tackle:

1. Digging up topsoil, laying a weed membrane and covering a large border with pea shingle
2. The lamppost task (we'll come back to this)
3. Digging up deep set rubble from a community garden (saving the one young tree), taking all the rubble to a skip and laying a new layer of three tonnes of topsoil
4. Locating all the broken and rusty road signs within the area which need replacing
5. Building three raised beds and filling with 5 tonnes of topsoil
6. Edging the path in Scarcroft Green
7. Digging and raking up weeds and ivy roots from the Scarcroft Green border
8. Litter picking every street and snicket
9. Locate and mark on a map the locations of all graffiti on the estate
10. Levelling the area where we dug up elders last year ready for a spring seed sowing session!

The walking group were split into three sub groups to tackle tasks 2, 4 and 9. It took a while to figure out who was going to go with who due to lack of reading glasses. The lamppost task was absolutely the most complicated as appropriate lampposts needed to be identified according to a strict set of criteria, and marked as to whether or not they'd be suitable to display a neighbourhood watch sign.

So we're looking for dark lampposts that are approximately 2.2m tall?? - Paul

Leanne's group arrived at the Task 1 location (actually Task 5: raised beds) and Max was delighted to be able to use the IMPACT DRIVER, imagine a nail gun but for giant bolts and you won't be far off.

Then Mitch's team arrived and were split up to litter picking, community garden rubble clearing and adding extra people power for the raised beds.

Jenny, one of the three task owners, did more running than most of the GoodGymers as she went back and forth between the zones retreiving various tools from the van.

I need a boltcutter! Jenny

Then pea shingle team finished and moved onto Scarcroft Green, they were shortly joined by the litter picking squad and eventually the community garden team (though a few of those went up to help the raised bed team too).

We had a crazy ten minutes of raking, edging, digging, standing around having a chat, and frantically attempting to put all the tools back into the van. Then we only had five minutes remaining for the biggest, fastest game of Cones of Joy, ever.

It's a two lane motorway of circular running!!! Katie

There was just enough time for a gigantic group photo before the short run back to base. That truly was an enormous amount we achieved in about an hour.

Massive thanks to everyone who showed up tonight, or has showed up any time over the last three years. It really has been eggcellent and I think you're all the best.

Don't forget to do your lunges.

This week's balsam bashing task at St Nick's involved the following:

• Scything
• Bashing things with sticks
• Wading/wearing waders
• Cape wearing (congratulations Huw on your 100th good deed!)
• Raking
• Limbo
• Nettle stings
• Forking
• Sunshine 🌞
• A new big stick for Carl
• Flapjack

Sign up next week for the last balsam bashing of the St Nick's season!