For once the weather forecast didn't lie and it was raining buckets on this Saturday morning. Not intimidated by the floods, we had a surprisingly great turn out for another mission at the Northern Slopes. Scything was nearly impossible in this rain but David gave it a go anyway and cut his way through the thick bramble. Others opted for loppers, probably a safer choice, but nonetheless still useful to remove branches at eye-height and making the "tunnel" (aka a narrow way between to hedges) more easily accessible to passersby and dog walkers. The tunnel also got a much-needed flooring/drainage upgrade to turn its muddy surface into a shiny new "yellow gravel road". The best way for gravel installation turned out to be "tap dancing" to smoothen out the new path. A selected group of GoodGymers couldn't get enough of dancing in the rain and stayed on a bit longer to make sure the final bags of gravel were securely installed. ...or maybe is was the combination of rain, mud and rhythm that got people to channel their spirit animal - seagull - since as a behavioural biologist I couldn't miss the parallels between the dancing Goodgymers and gulls which perform a very similar kind to tapping behaviour to attract rain worms (definitely NOT looking at you Christopher but you might want to youtube "Seagull riverdance" ).

The final crew did an excellent job in litter hunting and pulled out some seriously dodgy things from the hedges, including some graveyard flowers and a lawnmower. Massive shout out to Leo and Martin for attending their first ever GoodGym task despite the rainy madness.

Well done everyone for showing up that day!

We had a great turn out this Saturday! 14 brave souls ventured to the slopes on a morning that could only be described as 'like standing in a freezer'. Not wanting to stay still for too long, we spread out and got to our usual beatification and bramble demolition.

With such a large group, we managed to get a fair amount done. The strongest of the group started by adding more stones to the mud in the path, while others got to work scything the pathways and keeping on top of the brambles. A special shout out to Russ for carving out a huge new burrow in the hedges!

Litter pickers found the usual assortment of randomness; traffic cones, chocolate biscuits, and smashed up guitars.

And the stairs look much more welcoming after the lopper crew cleared back the overgrowth.

Also we had a secret 50th good deed! Tom has just reached this incredible milestone, and deserves a high five next time you catch him!

To finish up, we were treated with some vegan mince pies from Julia, who is very happy with the work we put in over the last year. Awesome way to finish up an awesome task! Stellar work all round everyone!

This visit to the slopes was slightly different that our usual jaunts. We had two new members join Good Gym, which was perfect timing as our first task was to shift 20 bags of gravel! The pathway we had opened up last time was getting a lot more use, which meant a lot more mud too. After a few rounds of wheelbarrowing & carrying the sacks, we had covered the deeper parts of the path and made the route through the trees a lot safer!

After this, Marion and James swept steps for litter while the rest of us got back to clearing the pathway from brambles. Newcomers Peter and Ben made fantastic bramble removal men, we hope they will come back and share that bramble bashing vigor again!

Thanks for coming along everyone, top job as always!

(We'll be coming back in December, will list on website soon)