This week's Group Run was a collab with Matt from the Wildlife Trust and Sophie from the Friends of Dallow Downs all coming together to target the woody area at the bottom of the hill and orchard area for a lot of litterpicking and some bramble clearing from the orchard trees and even a small patch of goldenrod was pulled up to keep the area clean and clear for the wildlife.

We had a mix of people running, cycling and simply meeting us at the task as we welcomed Labiba to her first official GoodGym session and enjoyed the return of Niamh for her second. Amazing to have these two on-board!

After months of heatwaves, it was a slightly cooler evening that made for a pleasant run out and comfortable tasking conditions. We collected 23 bags of rubbish plus some assorted large items, a metal mattress frame and a complete badger skull that demonstrated the importance of keeping this area clean and green for our furry foragers! 🦡 🦔

It was the final task of a series trying to clear all the invasive Himalayan Balsam plants from the Lewsey Brook, one of the tributaries of the River Lea. Teaming up with Jen from TCV and some of Luton's regular conservation volunteers.

It was also the first task for Niamh joining us after seeing the session on Facebook and Petros returning for his second session.

With the continued drought conditions the brook was bone dry so we were able to climb in without getting wet and hunt for the balsam plants. They got pulled up, roots snapped off and left to dry out on the brook side. This section of the brook was thankfully quite light on the balsam so we got it all done in a couple of hours and was able to collect lots of litter as well and take a walk back upstream to double-check the areas we'd done in previous weeks.

This session completed the length of the brook, a whole kilometer! We'll see what pops up next year but we've prevented loads of new seeds from being laid so hopefully there will substantially less to do next year!