Ben, the caretaker met us at the gate and shown us to the wildlife space where a selection of jobs awaited. An assortment of wooden logs, sticks and tyres had to be moved from the wildlife area to make space for grass trimming. Laura, Lauren, Leanne and Michal did not wait to be told twice and went straight to work.
Meanwhile Zinnie and David started with removing roots from a pile of top soil. The soil had to be made root and weed free as it will be used to fill holes in the playing field in preparation for the school sports day in few weeks’ time. At the same time Cara and Liz went to start fishing out a variety of balls, chocolate bar and crisps packaging, yoghurt bottles, plastic cones, you name it from the school pond. They were soon joined by the log and tyre removal crew who did not want to miss the fun. A long stick and a cable loop attached to aluminium pole were used for picking out. Leanne’s catch, a plastic scoop racket, was used to make a 'super scooper'. This custom made tool has proven to be very effective for the task. Branches hitting faces and poking our bodies were not a deterrent enough as determined GoodGymers squeezed between young trees and the fence to go around the edge of the pond to pick up all the rubbish.

I found the net - Bob

The promised net materialised and was expertly wielded by Cara to pick up some remaining litter from the water.

David and Zinnie have timed their root removal task with such precision that they were putting away their forks at the very moment when the pond clearing people came for the team photo.
With all the wooden logs at our disposal it was an excellent opportunity for another photo for our log carriers calendar.

With all the tasks completed we advised Bob how to provide feedback and headed on our ways home.

Today we were called to spruce up the Ashton Avenue play park.

Two tasks awaited us, namely digging over bark chip and weeding.

Team one arrived at 18:30 and headed to the climbing frames area where a selection of mattocks, forks and spades was used to dig over bark chippings to make the surface softer and safer for children to play. Our activity attracted a lot of attention from the local youth, who were curious to find out what this is all about. While being careful to stay at a distance and not hit anyone with the mattock, or spade we spent some time chatting with them explaining about the task and GoodGym.

The second team arrived at 18:40 to weed within the fenced off play area part of the park. Few hoes and trowels have been useful to remove the grass and other weeds from the edges of the soft surface, while spades and brooms were used to scrape and sweep moss from the concrete around the perimeter. The sole wheelbarrow was used to transport all the green waste to a designated location by the park boundary.

Kristina promised a delivery of fresh bark chippings to top up around the climbing frames and the weeding team have left some weeds for the next day, meaning we are likely to be coming back here in the near future.

After the task some of us headed back home and some stayed for the training session. The training featured two sets of ten different movements (the first round being very short due to wrong timer...) and a socially distanced relay race. The relay taught us that Ben is a crab walk grand master.