Today started with a massive round of applause for Leanne who has recently reached 800 good deeds. It means that Leanne was out 800 times volunteering in York! That is a huge achievement deserving a massive CHEER!

Following a Michal-Egg jointly run warm-up we split up into two teams and were ready to do more good in York.

A team of 11 ran over to Glen Gardens to clear the borders around the new accessible pathway.

Adi met them there and warned that the ground was hard and dry but that was a massive understatement. It was almost impenetrable.

There was one really cool spade with a point end and saw edges! Paul Kelly put it to good use and managed to make good progress on his patch.

Lucy and Max escaped with some loppers to cut back overgrowth further along the path and they missed out on an extraordinary range of conversation about ‘the longest fence in the world’ and the paint colour ‘forth bridge red’.

With a fairly decent area of border cleared, the team moved onto bark chipping, armed with only two wheelbarrows and a lot of leaf grabbers.

21 seconds to go!

They were being chucked out of the park because the gatekeeper needed to lock up, but not before Bec and Lucy completed an amazing jigsaw of getting all the tools and the two wheelbarrows back in the metal tool shed.

Er.. one of those is mine and I need it back - Adi

Let’s hope for some rain and softer ground next time!

Meanwhile a team of 13 ran to Danesgate School. Jackie and Carl joined us at the task, making the team 15 strong.

Some of us were familiar with the location as we have been here before on three community mission. Today we were determined to complete what we have started back in April, namley remove every remaining bit of the invasive grass and other unwanted weeds and make space for new plants.

Guess what, the ground was hard here too...

Be careful not to dig into the electric wire - Debbie the task owner

To be on the safe side Ros, Cara, Jenna and Abi opted for a selection of trowels as oppose to forks and went on weeding along the paving slabs.

Barbara and Laura wielded a fork each and focused on the bit of the garden close the the school wall and well away from the illuminated path.

Rich, Stuart, Vicky and Izzie dug and pulled at the weeds by the wooden fence and the rest of us worked around the edges.

About 20 minutes into the task the ton bag was looking like full and Stuart stepped in. With Leanne's and Carl's assistance he demonstrated very effective compaction technique which involved jumping on top of the green stuff to make space for more.

We are an efficient bunch and Michal, Louise and Carl even found time to list the next bench marking task on the website.

With all the unwanted roots and weeds removed and the landscape fabric expertly laid Debbie opened the remote controlled gate and bid us farewell.

Back at the base and with various degree of eagerness we did few fun exercises including walking lunges, spiderman walk, duck walks, crab walk and backward walking lunges, before heading to the Ackhorne for the traditional after run social.

Next week we are all going to Hull Road Park.

What a fantastic afternoon with a large group of GoodGymers we had today.

We welcomed our new member George, who made it just in time for the warm up. Give him a big Cheer!

The news announcements included a round of applause for Carl and other runners who took part in York 10K last Sunday, a cheer and a medal for Zinnie for taking part in the RunWithPride back in June and introduction of the 'milestone' cape. The cape will be used by us to celebrate milestones such as 200, 300, 400, 600 and so on good deeds. Paul had the honour to try out the new cape and celebrate his recently achieved 200 good deeds.

Following the news was the usual H&S brief and a warm up. Vicky departed earlier with the walking group while the rest went through a set of movements to get us ready for the run. With everyone warm and ready we ran to the York Medical Group community garden and caught up with the walking group just before our destination.

Anna, the task owner, welcomed and shown us around this hidden gem. No one knew about existence of this garden as it is located at the back of a building and surrounded with a tall brick wall. The decent size space is planned to become one of the social prescribing destinations and needed a clear up before the plans can be progressed. We were allocated a number of jobs including weeding a gravel path, trimming any overhanging brambles and other branches, removing unwanted bush and its roots, moving paving slabs and a massive clearance of vegetation from the very overgrown back of the garden. Under a close supervision of project volunteers and with use of the tools gathered for us by the York Medical Group staff we managed to complete the task in just over 30 minutes.

This time we were quick with putting the tools away, as everyone was eager for the fitness part of the day. We were thanked by the task owner and were on our way to the Memorial Garden where we stopped for the Olympics themed circuit. 10 minutes long session took us through exercises based on Olympic events including cycling, gymnastics, boxing, basketball, karate, swimming, running, rowing, synchronised diving and climbing. The synchronised diving was a lot of fun as we all tried to synchronise our high jumps bringing knees close to chest.

Following the exercise it was a good opportunity for a team photo next to the war memorial monument and a jog back to the HQ where we wrapped the session up with some news about forthcoming community missions, next week's group run and a cool down stretch.

Despite the thunderstorm mid afternoon the sun was shining on us when we arrived at the YUMI allotment. Sara and two other members of YUMI who met us had been dismayed to find that the manageable weeds of last week had turned into more of a jungle this week, just in time for their visit from the Sheriff who is one of their biggest funders next Monday. Stuart and Jon started on the beds and then got to work clearing back the undergrowth at the sides whilst Zinnie, Graham and Laura carried on clearing the beds. Our only instructions were not to pull up the artichokes, which thankfully were very big and obvious. We also managed to rescue a few other welcome plants from amongst the nettles, bindweed, thorns and thistles. In an hour (and a bit because we got too carried away) the allotment looked transformed ready for the Sheriff much to the relief of Sara. It was a very satisfying evening's work.

Kristina asked us to help with a number of tasks today, but first were the announcements.

• We congratulated the #RunWithPride team for participation in the running and walking event over the month of June celebrating the fact that no matter who we are, or who we love we are all equal.
• Secondly last weekend’s Endure24 was a big highlight that could not go unnoticed. Special cheers went to our solo runners David, Angela and Hayden who have covered remarkable distances, respectively 12 laps (97km), 17 laps (135km) and the 14th place and 10 laps (80km).

We did not want to keep Kristina waiting for too long, so I reminded everyone to gather back at 7:30pm for the yoga session and to hear the last item of news from me and we quickly allocated people to task leaders Ellie, Barbara, Pete and Laura and went to work.

Pete’s team report

Pete, Cara and Stuart headed over to the compost bin for the time honoured task of move the compost pit upside down again. We were quickly at it despite all the bins being quite full and fairly loose. Shortly after we started Michal pointed out that they had been done recently and showed us where we should have been! Joined by Leanne who knew what she was doing we made quick work churning the more compact compost even if it did result in slightly bent pitchforks. With time to spare we headed over to soil mountain...

Ellie’s team report

Mud Mountain were excited to get on with a classic GoodGym task: dig up a pile of dirt (or two in this case!) and move it so it can be spread on the path, ready to be topped off with bark chippings in a few weeks’ time. Ellie, Ben, Nikki, Carl and James were the original diggers and they swiftly realised what a gargantuan task was ahead of them. Armed with mattocks and spades, they split themselves into two groups to tackle the two piles.

One of the piles (“Mud Mountain Priority 1”) needed to be cleared ASAP so other GGers could dump grass clippings in its space, but space was tight and was made even tighter when the pile of clippings started blocking the way to the mud! Mud mountain 2 was a little more tricky to dig through - Nikki, Ben and James had to deal with a range of rubble and rubbish mixed into the earth.

Soon enough, though, extra help arrived, and Pete helped dig whilst Jenna helped Kristina down the new path. However, this is definitely a job to be continued another day!’’

Barbara’s team report

After Leanne and Jenna left Barbara’s group to help elsewhere, it was up to Stef, Barbara, Paul and Helen to take on the compost bins near the bowling green (where a vey lively bowls match was taking place). Our task was to remove all the grass cuttings and wheelbarrow them across the park to where the mud heaps and other compost bins were. With a variety of tools - several forks, a shovel and a pitchfork, we moved all the grass within the hour to where Kristina wanted it.

Laura’s team report

The geranium team got busy hacking back the geraniums from the paths leading through the rose gardens. Liz, Jackie and Laura lopped geraniums while David swept and bagged them. By the end of the hour we'd filled two dumpy bags and cleared most of the path.

So you can see that we have completed 3 out of 4 tasks. Not bad I say! Especially under the circumstances that Ellie’s team was understaffed and the space was too tight.

Gathered back at 7:30ish (and that is a BIG ‘ish’) we went through some yoga movements helping those of us who ran long distances this weekend to recover. The exercises were aimed to help improve our balance, flexibility and build up muscle strength. Few core exercises were thrown into the mix to benefit our running form.

And yes, the last item of news was announced by me at the start of the yoga session. The news is that I will be passing the baton of leading GoodGym York to a new person. More about that in the email which I will be sending out to everyone tomorrow, that is on Tuesday 6th July.