6 GoodGymers met on a misty morning to help maintain the children's play area at Foundry Wood in Leamington.

The task was a real team effort with some people helping to prepare the play area by raking the fallen leaves, whilst others were shoveling bark chippings into wheelbarrows and wheeling them up the steep slope to the play train. These bark chippings were then spread around the train to make a safer surface for children to play on and around, helping to cover any trip hazards.

All this was covered within a speedy 40 mins so there was time for a mince pie and chocolate break before Kristie from ARC CIC gave us a tour of the wood. Kristie told us all about the groups that meet at the wood on a regular basis, some background on how the community woodland came about and a taster of all the hard work that has been put into the wood by volunteers over recent years to make it the beautiful place that it is today.

We then had some time left to start clearing an area of Old Man's Beard (wild Clematis) and Golden Rod which were strangling some of the smaller trees and piled the cuttings up providing a good home for wildlife and bugs.

It was great to have Marina along to her first ever GoodGym session - you certainly proved your skills with a rake!

We also celebrated Jackie getting her wings as she completed her 100th GoodGym task - go Jackie!

It was really lovely to wander around the wood and learn more about this project. We are looking forward to coming back in 2022 for more GoodGym tasks :-)