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33 Goodgymers helped their local community in Sheffield

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Sheffield

Monday 1st October 2018

Credits

Andrew Waters

REPORT WRITER

Find out about GoodGym TaskForce

Report written by Kim Longbon

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32 Good Gym runners ran 5k to pick apples for Abundance.

Before we headed off we gave a warm welcome to Francesca and Jen who were joining us for the first time and a round of applause to Tom 2 who was doing his 50th Good Deed – great achievement Tom.

The arrival of autumn was marked by the increasing amount of head torches and hi-vis gear as well as a noticeable chill in the air.

However, we soon warmed up under the guidance of run leader Kim, whose whistle kept piercing the Sheffield night as she gave us different exercises to do on the run to the mission. These included a raised leg walk which hadn’t been seen since John Cleese did it in Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks (Google it youngsters).

We were met by Lucy and Peter who gave us our task and told us a bit about Abundance. It is a volunteer based organisation that rescues, shares, cooks and processes fruit which may otherwise go to waste from across Sheffield. The fruit is then shared with the local community. You can find out more about Abundance at www.sheffieldabundance.wordpress.com

And if you’d like to become a volunteer by scouting, harvesting, sorting, processing or distributing fruit you can email them at abundance@growsheffield.com

There were so many of us that Kim had us split into two groups: one apple picking, the other sprinting up the road and doing even more exercises – and then swapping over.

The task concluded with a brave group of runners holding a large tarpaulin under the tree whilst Mike shook it as vigorously as he could. The result was impressive - like a firework display of apples falling to the ground. One or two runners were hit on the head, thereby reaffirming Isaac Newton’s apple inspired law of gravity.

A steady run back downhill to the Showroom, a quick stretch and a beer or two rounded off another great Sheffield GG evening.

Oh, and for those of you who were expecting lots of apple puns in this run report, sorry – other than the title there are none. Having used every apple pun I could think of in Saturday’s Apple Picking for Regather report I had no new ones left – and simply repeating them would have made a tarpaulin run report …

This task supported

Abundance

Abundance is in it’s 10th year of sharing skills in harvesting, sharing, cooking, preserving, juicing and storing fruit.

Abundance Founded in 2007 by Stephen Watts and Anne-Marie Culhane, Abundance is a volunteer based organisation that rescues, shares, cooks, and processes fruit which may otherwise go to waste from right across Sheffield. Most of the trees we pick are in private gardens, where we leave 10% of fruit for wildlife. Abundance If we pick a public fruit tree we leave at least a third of the fruit unpicked so it is available to the community. Tree owners have the first share, then they donate the fruit they don’t want, volunteers have some and we share the best fruit with the community (e.g. food banks, lunch clubs, support centres) The rest we cook, preserve or juice together in the community. We love exploring sweet and savoury ways to cook and preserve fruit and sharing recipes. Everyone who joins a preservation workshop gets the recipe and a jar of chutney to take home. All events are an opportunity to meet new people and strengthen social networks, as we are a friendly bunch!