We had a full house this evening.....ten GoodGymmers to undertake a plethora of tasks on Snow Island. Its great to see so many keen people prepared to come out and do some good in our local community. Additional kudos to those who ran to the task this week too.

A lovely calm sunny evening made for great conditions for a little wildlife gardening on Snow Island. Jeff from Greenstreams who are responsible for the site had given us a few tasks to do and so needed a well co-ordinated team effort to get them done in the time available.

It was good to see Louise Galvin back with the group and she soon got stuck into removing Himalayan Balsam along with Kati Law. Meanwhile David Bilton was busy cutting back some branches overhanging the path, whilst first time GoodGymmer Jackie Cork got stuck into collecting rubbish with Catherine Gormley. Tom Elcock and Ben Godfrey had the tough task of digging out saplings and invasive Buddleia bushes from the wild flower meadow, whilst Andy Petrie and another first time GoodGymmer Jamilla Peteris-Shah were doing a stirling job of extracting various fly tipped items from the undergrowth.

After 60 minutes hard labour the whole site was looking better for a bit of GoodGym attention, and there was even a bit of time for the litter picking crew to pop across the road to Longley Woods and remove some rubbish from there too.

Well done and thanks to all this evening’s GoodGymmers....there’s snow beating a bit of teamwork!

After weeks of planning and arranging it was simply superb to finally get out and get GoodGym Huddersfield running. And what a stunning night it was!

With sunshine to start and a full moon to finish, even the weather gods were supporting GoodGym Huddersfield last night! Needless to say, they weren’t to only ones, 26 eager runners and a number other guests (including the Mayor of Kirklees) turned out for the launch at the Stadium Health and Fitness Club. We made the most of the late September sunshine, doing the launch speeches and photographs outside before heading off on the 2.5K run to Dalton for our first ever task.

Growing works are a small Huddersfield charity who promote wellbeing by providing opportunities for local people to get outside and grow stuff on their various allotment plots. Their Dalton site has been expanding rapidly, and the Huddersfield GoodGymmers were very happy to help out there. Rachel and Sue of Growing works had been busy setting up loads of interesting tasks for us to do in the 45 minute work window. Sawing firewood, trimming back edges, sifting soil, preparing growing beds, and shifting compost all ensured the GoodGymmers stayed active, kept moving and remained warm as the sun went down and the headtorches came out. There was even time to check out Growing works' brand new allotment loo (of which they are rightly proud!)

I'm informed by Sue that the there is always plenty of stuff to do on the Growing works allotments and I am sure GoodGym Huddersfield will be returning to help out again in the future. If you would like to find out more about the fantastic work Growing works does in the local community take a look at http://www.growingworks.org.uk/

Buzzing from a bit of hard labour the run back was even quicker than the run there. Another 2.5K but this time with a hill effort up Ridgeway, just prior to the final downhill of the night back to our start point at the Stadium.

Well done and thanks to all the GoodGymmers who have helped make Huddersfield’s inaugural task such a success, especially those who were attending a GoodGym group run for the first time, including Karen Redgewick, Chris Green, Louise Galvin, Jenn Flaherty, Pauline, Andy Loyd, Natalie Sampson and Andrew Cooper. Special thanks also to our GoodGym friends from Barnsley and Sheffield who popped over the hills to help support GoodGym Huddersfield’s first run.

Last night’s activity goes to prove that Growing works….and so does GoodGym!