It was an early start for our Goodgymers this morning who arrived at the Colchester Recycling Centre ready to lend a helping hand at the 6th year of the annual Christmas Tree Treecycle for St Helena's Hospice.

On arrival we heard that this year's collection would be bigger than ever, with 2400+ trees booked for collection from across Colchester and the surrounding areas. This meant £23645 had been donated to St Helena Hospice - an amazing figure that will go towards helping to families and their sick loved ones accessing the hospice and support services.

The other amazing thing about the Treecycle is that it saved 2400 trees from going into landfill waste! Instead they will be broken down and turned into mulch, so that it can help other plants to grow.

Our Goodgymers Alex, Chrissie and Ian split into two teams, joined by Chloe and a couple more volunteers from Blowers and Mowers (who generously let us use their vehicles for the tree collection) and raced to see who would be first to complete their route! Whilst Ian's team completed their route first, we believe Alex and Chrissie team collected more trees and covered a greater distance!! Everyone is a winner in our eyes! And most importantly everybody's arms got a workout today.

Between them nearly 200 trees were collected from Blackheath, Layer, Lexden, Birch and central areas of Colchester. Catherine ran to join them at Colchester Recycling Centre to help unload the trees from the vans.

An treemendous effort from everyone - well done!