Despite the gloomy weather and the fact it had been raining all day, that didn’t stop the sensational seven goodgymers from turning up - the plan was originally to harvest some acorns.

We met with Sophie Lack at Ockwells park, who was running this evenings task. Sophie gave us a briefing and warmly welcomed our new comer Donna. Unfortunately the acorns were not ripe enough and not ready to be harvested, so therefore another task was put in place.

Early this year the nature reserve team planted several 100 little whip trees, sadly not all of them thrived, only around 50% be-leaf it or not. Our task was to remove the wooden canes and the plastic protection around the trees that hadn’t blooomed. We ran and cycled to the nature reserve (when we finally found the correct place to be after a quick phone call with Alistair of Braywick nature reserve. He guided us to the big metal fenced off area where the planted trees were (which ensured the deers stayed away) and we set to work.

Stuck in A Rut...

It was very boggy and uneven under foot and there were even jokes of placing bets to see who would stumble 1st. Luckily no one did and all ankles are in tact!

Marie and Emma started picking out the good trees from the bad trees along the right hand fence doing a tree-mendous job. Claire started on the other side leaving piles of canes and plastic which Donna came and collected up ready to be counted by Ankur and Sara (of GoodGym Slough) who also did a sterling job of collecting canes and plastic.

Towards the end we were “caning” along and the counters had a great system in place. They counted 343 wooden canes and plastic protectors which Sophie reported back to Alistair for his stats.

Quality control inspector Sophie checked the trees and rescued some that looked to have lost life but were actually secretly thriving with leaves growing at the very bottom. The team then ran back to the car park and even a mini sprint finish was had.

Tree-rrific job team and well done for Marie and Emma running over 10k there and back! We hope you join us for another task very soon.

Donna added to the report:

It was good to help in the park but very wet..managed to do some clearing (despite the rain) as the acorns were not yet ready for harvesting. A lovely group of helpers and I will go again.