Five intrepid Goodgymers made their way to Ockwells Park to help Wild Maidenhead in their battle against Ragwort. Although it is the food source plant for the cinnabar moth, it is also poisonous to livestock. The ragwort on Ockwells is now turning to seed and in danger of blowing over the horse field neighbouring the park. The ragwort was not the only yellow flower in the field, but we soon got our eye in, telling it apart from the fleabane and other flowers, as the leaves were quite different. We cleared one area and then found another huge area to be tackled. We were collecting arm-fulls of plants, piling it up to be collected and disposed of. It was satisfying when we could pull it up by the roots, although they weren't all that cooperative. Juli also found a beautiful Orbweaver spider, which we left to carry on with her business. A satisfying task, and it was lovely to be outside in the sunshine and chatting with friends.

Carol, Angela and Sheila gathered at the Baby Bank to help out. Our task was to sort through all the bags of clothes waiting to be sorted, and record what ages of child each bag was for. At present, they are not accepting any clothes donations until the ones we have are properly sorted. But we need to know which ones we are short of, so we can appeal for those. We pulled all the boy's 2+ donations out of the cot, and recorded the ages as we put them back in again. Then we moved on to look at what we had in the overflow bags in a separate area, tidied up and consolidated bags, making them easier to find. Turns out we have plenty of boys' clothing, but are short of stuff for teenagers. We were then asked to put together an emergency referral for a 1-year old boy and a 3-year old girl, including some toys. And lastly some shoe-sorting. A busy morning!

Norden Farm's Kite Festival was on today and GoodGym was on hand to help out all day from start until the end.

Act 1: Sol joined the first shift helping with the set up which included unloading and assembling tables, chairs and wind banners. She did a round of litter pick around the site as well.

Act 2: Diya and Kanika got to escort Nordenia, the queen of Norden Farm, around the park. She has grown much taller in this past year! They then litter picked around the site, enjoying the multitude of kites dotting the sky (and the ground). Another round with Nordenia and some more litter pick ended their shift.

Act 3: Roberta and Sheila took up the mantle of Nordenia escorting and litter picking. They spotted another GoodGymmer Lisa who was around in Norden Farm's yellow rather than GG red helping out on the day as well. Angela got the very tough task (no, seriously) of guarding the separate area for professional kite fliers. She spent her entire shift baking in the sun!

Act 4: Georgeta joined Sheila to help with the end of day take down. It wasn't easy as nobody wanted to leave with the weather being so good and warm. They managed to get some gazebos packed up and litter picked the site one final time. And Georgeta took some beautiful close-ups of a few stunning kites.

An absolutely brilliant event that we love supporting and great to see it be such a success!

Jess, Angela, Gillian and Sheila met at the community allotment on a lovely sunny evening. We had a list of tasks to do, so Gillian took on cutting the off-shoots from a tree trunk and earthed up the leeks. Meanwhile the others dug holes for 2 new apple tree saplings. Easier said than done, but we managed to dig down into the stony earth, removing a few brambles as we went. The planted trees were given a good water. Then onto the lovely task of transporting bags of fresh horse manure to the brilliant new composting bays newly created by Men in Sheds. It was layered between newspaper and left to mature over the winter. Lovely! We gave the beds a good water and then celebrated Jess's 200th Good Deed - Well Done Jess! 👏 - with some lovely brownies before saying our Goodbyes

Six enthusiastic Good Gymers set to work weeding beds and clearing bindweed at St Lukes school. Adam and Ben showed great perseverance using a trowel, fork and finally a large spade to dig a deep hole for a shrub. There were so many rocks but eventually all the new shrubs were planted and watered. Gill planted up some colourful pansies in smaller pots whilst Yesim and Roberta completed the weeding of other beds. Finally we cleared up and made our way home before dark!