The group welcomed Ewan for their first volunteering session with GoodGym Derby along with David from St Matthew's Church and Iris and Ian from the local community. It was great to have such a large number litter picking and helping to keep Darley Park looking its best for visitors.

Ashley found time out from his head to head competition with Mandy to see who could collect the most litter to take some fantastic photos and Pete was pleased to find common ground with a fellow Mancunian in the group, until the revelation that they were in fact a Liverpool FC fan.

The rain that had been forecast held off for the group and it was great to see so many people enjoying the park, from cricket being played to rowers on the river, dog walkers, runners and pub goers enjoying a warm evening riverside. Sadly, nobody could watch a film on the dvd player that had been collected during the session as it was so damaged from river water and there was no accompanying screen to use with it, still a contender for 'pick of the night'.

Rubbish that had been collected was left by some bins and it had been agreed prior to the session that the City Council would collect these the following day. Thanks to David for organising this.

Thank you to everyone who came, hopefully some of the volunteers can make the social event ahead of Volunteers Week.

Grant also joined the group and will be added to the register by the central team so he can have a deed logged.

Mandy, Grant, Lewis and Pete returned for another session at St Matthew’s church. The mission was to bring a little TLC to the Garden of Rest. We cleaned the commemorative slates around the boarder - these being local people who had passed away in the 1800’s. We also cleaned the more recent stones in the central area. We also checked on the boarders we had created on a previous mission - the local schoolchildren have started to plant flowers and bushes, and the area is starting to come a live. Great to catch up on a lovely evening, and as ever thanks to David for the tea and biscuits.

Along with Reg and Nat from Trees for Derby, a group of volunteers from GoodGym Derby made a big impact on a Tiny Forest on Saturday.

The sun was shining and the group welcomed Helen from Severn Trent for her first GoodGym session! It was fantastic to have Helen there as she had been at the planting for the Tiny Forest site so it was great to have her knowledge of the site and to provide a bit more background to it. Like the fact each Tiny Forest has been named after a Commonwealth country or nation, with the one we visited being named after the national bird of the Maldives, the white-breasted waterhen. Severn Trent created the Tiny Forests to give communities more access to green space and to leave a lasting environmental legacy of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. Find out more about the Tiny Forest the group helped here.

Mandy, Ashley, Grant and Rachel planned to clear the area of weeds, loosen some of the identification tags around trees and do some litter picking to tidy up the spot. On arrival, Reg requested the group helped to trim back some of the plants and focus on clearing weeds....which there were a lot of! In a joint effort, a huge dent was made in a short space of time to clear the site and get it to a stage where the trees that had been planted could flourish. Gardening gloves and leg coverings were welcomed as there were lots of thistles to pull out. Ashley had the find of the morning when he located one of the Tiny Forest tiles and looked underneath to see the insect groups that had made it their home.

We'll be back at the Tiny Forest again to help with regular maintenance and are hoping to join up with Trees for Derby again for a combined effort. Thank you to everyone for attending and helping make a big difference to this small green space in our community. The weekend held some exciting plans for the group as Helen was going to be welcoming a rescue dog into her home and Grant was going on a 100 mile bike ride on Sunday.

Rachel was joined by Ashley, Pete and Grant - some really fungis that will really grow on you.

The group were back at St Matthew's Church for a spore-itual session helping to clean up some mold and tidy away some important books, arts and crafts items and nativity figures.

Pleased to be inside on such a cold evening, everyone was made welcome with a hot drink on arrival and talk turned to how 2024 was treating everyone so far and what adventures the keen travellers, runners and cyclists of the group had been up to so far. The group made use of a hoover they found to quickly clean mold off some of the books they were cleaning and transporting to their new homes, meaning nobody had to clean the mold off by hand.

David is really keen for the group to return again soon and everyone commented on looking forward to spring and lighter evenings to be helping out in the garden of rest.

Thanks to everyone who made it out on a cold winter's evening when the sofa and a new tv series to binge is always an appealing option.