This evening, a group of intrepid GoodGymmers gathered at Millenium Fields in York to help their team get the grass under control, helping create space for a wider variety of flora and fauna.

Scything grass is more wildflower friendly than many other means of cutting it, and it's jolly good fun. This article from St Nicks tells more about the value of scything.

The group put in a fantastic hour of scything, taking turns between scything, raking, and dragging the cuttings to be composted. In that time, we made quite the impact on the field - though there's plenty left to be done next week

9 GoodGymers (including new starter Hanna!) arrived at Millenium Fields to help St Nicks. Over the next few weeks we will be scything all the long grass from Millenium Fields to help wildflower growth.

It's the old classic GG scything mission so we got stuck in. After an hour of scything, sharpening, dragging, raking, stabbing (mainly Emma) and getting bitten by bugs (mainly me), we cleared a large area. It's a good start, but we need to keep the momentum up over the next few weeks!

🌫️ 24 glorious GoodGymmers met on a mildly muggy Monday for our group run this evening, several of whom were on an impressive double good deed quest, having done a pre-group run community mission at a nearby community garden 🍈

🤓 We chatted about our bumper week coming up, with many more opportunities to get fit and do good 👌

👸🤴We named and numbered off while saying what period of history we'd have liked to have lived in, given the choice. There was much contentment with the present, dreams of the future, nostalgia for the recent past and desires to walk with dinosaurs and forage with the Romans 🦕

🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️ Pete led the run to Greenfields Community Garden where Louise swiftly set us to work, dividing is into two groups to conquer tonight's tasks 👍

🥭 Some people were armed with litter-pickers to pick not litter (slightly confusingly - some people had already started doing just that as it appears to be an automatic conditioned response as a GoodGymmer, to start picking litter the moment a litter picker appears) but plums. A successful haul was gathered that will be distributed to the local community and food banks, with only a few disappearing (with permission) into GoodGym stomachs 😋

💪 Meanwhile, the other group were building their arm muscles moving the compost heap from one side of the garden to the other. Some people were armed with forks, shifting the compost into wheelbarrows, which were then barrowed to the new compost heaps by the barrowers. The question of why is (almost) always good to ask of a GoodGym task and Louise was able to offer multiple explanations. Firstly, it was a good opportunity to turn the compost, which is a positive thing anyway. Secondly, there has been a recent rat infestation in the nearby streets and although Louise was confident (and our work also supported) that these weren't originating from the compost heap, it was good to be able to show this and thus maintain good relationships with the neighbours 🙌 Oh, and despite the lack of rats, there was a notably huge spider uncovered, generating different emotions among nearby GoodGymmers 🕷️

🥒 When people had finished their official tasks, Louise sent some of us on some unofficial foraging (for ripe courgettes) and/or tasting (of mulberries) missions. There were some mixed reactions to mulberries but the overall verdict was probably positive and the impromptu renditions of "Here we go round the mulberry bush" made any slight tart taste bud explosions all worthwhile 🎶

🎤 At some points, this delightful nursery rhyme was the soundtrack to tonight's fitness season (once we'd remembered the words and tune). Fitness was a mash up of plank musical chairs with the addition of the fitness dice of doom for anyone not planking plus a few cones of joy activity. I'm not entirely sure if a sense of joy or doom dominated but it was hopefully a good workout at least 💪

⌚ And with that, it was time to head back to base and on to the pub for many of us 🍻

👏 Thank you for some brilliant work tonight everyone, and hopefully see you at one of our other sessions this week 🥳

🎉 Credit to James S for tonight's pun.

Finishing off the work we started on Friday, a team of 10 polished off the pile of woodchip in 15 mins, before posing for a team photo, with strong Grange Hill energy.