☔21 gracious GoodGymmers braved a rain shower for a very productive task this evening 🦸‍♀️🦸‍♂️

🐣We named and numbered alongside our favourite non-chocolate things about Easter. Food still featured (including chocolate hot cross buns), alongside bank holidays, Easter cake and chicks 🍰

🚶‍♀️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️We then had three groups heading to tonight's task - the walkers, the direct runners and the scenic runners. Our different routes, converged on the allotments where were instructed on our task - shifting branches of varying degrees of spiky-ness from one end of the allotment to the other, where it will be transformed into woodchip 🌿

💪We quickly got to work and the two smaller piles were shifted swiftly, leaving the whole group to tackle "the big pile". Not daunted by the scale of the task, we swiftly attacked it with gusto and made short work of it (sometimes literally, sorry Mitch).

🌹Speaking of Mitch, he quite literally got a thorn in his side (of his shorts), leaving a hole that may require a good few stitches to rectify (or could be left, to spark a new trend for holey shorts, who knows).

🧶Martin showed off his knotting skills, lashing various sticks together with rope to assist the carrying of them.

🙌Overall, everyone did a sterling job to ensure we got the task finished, which made Graham very happy. We also saw two very nice dogs at the end who tried to join our group photo, which made the rest of us very happy. And we probably all walked/ran as far at the task as we did there/back 👍

💃🕺Not content with all the strength exercising we'd achieved, we did some Cones of Glory when we got back to base. The dance cone yielded some impressive moves and the last group went to town, recruiting members for their rendition of New York, New York 🏙️

🎶And on that tuneful note (alongside the choir in the background), we stretched off and parted ways, some to the pub and some home 🍻

🐥I hope you have a really lovely Easter weekend and don't forget, we've got a group run next Monday evening so if you're around and looking for a way to round off the indulgence of the weekend, why not join us as we head to Greenfields Garden to continue the many jobs they've got for us there 👌

Thank you 😁

👋18 excellent GoodGymmers met for a two-task session tonight. After hearing about Tristan's impressive sub-3 hour marathon in Manchester and Mitch's Dad's excellent racing, we named and numbered off. We considered what we'd do with an extra hour in the day. Sleep featured highly, alongside guitar-playing, baking and extra eating 😴🧁

🍎Our two teams ran together to Holgate Community Orchard where we dropped off our group who were based there for the evening. Here's what Leanne had to say about their task...

🥕Our task was to clear a long- neglected allotment patch.

🍅Shortly after starting our assault on the nettles and roots, Vicky dug up a beetroot. Then she joined Martin who, as usual, found a carpet to dig up. Soon, most of the group were involved in pulling the carpet from under the weeds -with a short pause in the middle to give Dom a chance to get the camera out. 📸

🌱With the carpet rolled up and set aside, the ground became much easier to dig over. There wasn't quite enough time to finish the job but we certainly made a good start 💪

🌻The rest of us continued on to Acomb Primary School where we'd been asked to weed and clear their outdoor area. Left to our own devices, we spread out around the courtyard, tackling different planters and beds with the various tools available.

🌿Ben found quite possibly the smallest brush ever (Mitch-sized jokes were made, don't worry) while Pete and Mitch used some delightfully floral tools. After some classic "Is this is a weed?" conversations, weeds were removed, drains cleared and planters tidied up.

👍We returned everything to where we'd found it and were pleased to notice the difference from when we'd arrived.

🙌It sounds like there's more to be done at both tasks so thank you for having us and we'll hopefully be back!

🦊On arriving at Holgate Orchard to collect our friends, some of us spotted a bold and beautifully orange fox (hence the pun). After saying farewell to the fox, we ran/walked the rest of the way together.

🎲Dom had purchased some fitness dice that we used for our fitness this evening. Some adaptations were required to ensure it was suitable for the surface but it was fun interpreting the exercises and transforming them into various dance styles 💃🕺

⚠️We've got a busy week of tasks ahead so do join us if you can. More information about all of these is available here.

*Credit to Harriet and Lucy for the pun 😁

🌆We met for our group run at dusk on a lovely Monday, still in a bit of light, which was greatly appreciated.

👋We were thrilled to welcome Martha and Dan for their first GoodGym session.

☘️We had an Irish-themed (for St Patrick's Day) naming and numbering tonight where we found that lots of us enjoy Irish food and beverages, and Irish people too. We then did a quick warm up and walked/ran to Rowntree Park 👍

⚡On arriving at the park, we spotted a GoodGym t shirt running past at lightning speed. On (eventually) catching up with them, I discovered it was Rob, the Area Activator for GoodGym Solihull who's visiting York at the moment. Although he wasn't able to join us tonight, we hope to see him again soon 🥳

🌊We were met at Rowntree by Kristina from the Council (and Michal and Rachel) who explained what we needed to do. Friends of Rowntree Park are hoping to be able to reopen the park on Wednesday but needed some help to be able to do that. We were therefore tasked with clearing the paths that the street sweepers weren't able to get to. Armed with brooms, leaf blowers, shovels and rakes, we quickly set to work, dividing and conquering to tackle all corners of the park 💪

🦸‍♀️🦸‍♂️After half an hour, we'd cleared lots of paths and made lots of areas more accessible. Oh, and Antonia found some nice frogs too 🐸

📸 We had a group photo before doing our fitness session on the area of grass by Millennium Bridge. This involved various relays (and some very impressive speed-skipping and hopping).

👌 With everyone just a little bit more tired, we headed back to base to stretch and go to the pub. Some of us were also lucky enough to be collecting some incredibly yummy biscuits baked by Ellie and Ben for their charity fundraising effort 🍪

🙌We've got a task on Friday morning needing a few more pairs of hands and various missions available so do please sign up if you're able to. There are also currently a couple more spaces for tree-planting in Haxby, which not only sounds really fun and worthwhile but also offers the possibility to win a bottle of wine 🍷

👏Thank you for your hard work tonight everyone, and hopefully see you again soon 😁

🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️24 glorious GoodGymmers met on a muddy Monday evening for our group run. There was lots of chat about the impressive rainbows earlier and the possibility of rain this evening, which fortunately didn't materialise 🌈

🙌We were thrilled to welcome Helen for her first session with us - hopefully see you again soon 👍

🐈In honour of national "love your pet day", we accompanied our name and numbering off with our favourite/spirit animal. From lots of people wanting to be sleepy cats to otters, sloths and red pandas, cute animals tended to dominate (along with the odd crow and two goats!)🐐

🍎After a quick warm up, we ran down to Holgate Community Orchard for our task tonight. Ali met us and split us into two groups - the pretty muddy group and the very muddy group (as it turns out, I'm not sure there was a huge difference between the amount of mud 🤫)

🌱Team Pretty Muddy were turning soil in an abandoned allotment so that it can be re-cultivated. With it being the opposite end of the allotment site, we got a bit of a tour! Ali told us that there are 1000 people waiting for allotments in York so hopefully it'll be snapped up and put to good use once it's ready. This group also found a frog that they rescued 🐸

🌲Meanwhile, Team Very Muddy were transporting spare wood chippings to the new compost heap, using an exceptionally large wheelbarrow and a wheelie bin. There was some impressive running with heavy loads and they made a decent dent in the multiple woodchip piles there 💚

📸After a good amount of hard graft, we posed for a group photo and headed back to base. We made use of a patch of grass by the wall to do our fitness game, of which Leanne was the winner before returning to CVS for stretching to the sound of sweet music from the choir practice 🎶

💪We've got a couple of sessions in need of more pairs of hands this week so do join us if you can...

🚂 On Friday morning, there are plenty of spaces for raking, mowing and staining at Naburn Station on the Solar System cycle path at 10:30am 🌠

🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️We've got a fantastically fun Saturday lined up, with parkrun and breakfast/cake at New Earswick 🍰 (NB There's a chance this parkrun may be cancelled by the mud so sign up on the website so I can let you know if we need to change our plans!)

🚸This will be followed by a session at New Earswick Primary School where we'll be clearing land for an outdoor space for the children. I've opened up lots of more spaces on this task as they'd also like our help with "a very unloved veggie area" if we can get a few more pairs of hands. It would be great to be able to help improve this area for the children too 🥕

🌲We really need some more people at 10am on Sunday 27th for spreading woodchip at Danesmead. They're getting a large donation of woodchip so could do with lots of help to spread it onto the paths 🌳