You can tell that the clocks have changed when the head torches stay in the bag and six Goodgymers from Nottingham can venture outside without hats, coats and gloves!

Rachel, Peter, Tom, Leah, Nigel and Hannah made the trip to St Stephen's churchyard to help with a spring clean and "log" another good deed!

Winter had taken its toll and our job was to gather up the fallen branches and pile them up in one corner so Johannes, the caretaker, could have a clear run with the mower.

In true Goodgym style we got stuck in and carried, dragged and cut down to size a great number of branches and left behind a very happy caretaker. A "treemendous" effort indeed!

For once the winter weather gods were smiling on GoodGym Nottingham!

Six of us wrapped up warm and headed out to the wilds of Sneinton to clean up St. Mary's Rest Garden.

We welcomed GoodGym founder Ivo who'd come up to see us, then donned our headtorches and hi-vis and paired off to tidy the park under the light of a gorgeous moon (the pictures don't do it justice).

It's a bit harder to find interesting stuff for the "Weirdest Item Wins" competition in the dark, but we got quite a lot of clothing (how? why? who's stripping off in the park?), an umbrella, the usual cans and bottles, and Ivo found a chunky silver key we left on top of the bin just in case anyone's missing it.

Special shoutout to Hannah who completed her 10th GoodGym task!

For our first weekend task of 2025 we returned to a chilly Sneinton with the wonderful Kathryn Cooper. We were meant to be helping out in the primary school's allotment, however the recent freezing temperatures meant that we couldn't really do a lot of gardening. So, in true GoodGym spirit, we instead decided to turn our hand to a spot of litter picking around the local area.

Lucy, Hannah, Matthew and Rachel met Kathryn and her children at the allotment gate where we collected our pickers and bin bags. We were also joined by one of the local residents who helps out regularly with various community initiatives and litter picks.

We spent an hour filling several big bags of rubbish covering Windmill Lane, Sneinton Road, Green's Windmill carpark, and the area outside the Salvation Army centre and Johnno's Mini Market. Lucy even managed to get a broom from the mini market so that she could sweep up all the cigaratte butts and smaller bits of rubbish that were hard to pick up. Luckily, Rachel had already collected an old broken dustpan so she dug it out of her purple bag and put it to use one final time to collect the sweepings.

Most of what we collected was the usual bottles, cans, sweet wrappers and the like, but Matthew did manage to find an in tact coffee cup discarded on the floor. Obviously this created the perfect mug shot! And yes, that is his breakfast also in his hand - not wanting to let us down when running a little late, he picked up a snack on the way and continued to eat it whilst picking litter!

On this task we also got to take a look at the beds outside the Salvation Army centre which Kathryn and some of our volunteers had worked on at a task last year - see the report from that task here.

It was great to welcome Lucy back with us after a bit of a break, and in doing so she completed her 5th GoodGym task - woo hoo!! Hannah and Matthew are also both closing in on 10 tasks - who will make it first....?