A variety of walks to different places around our local area for New Year's good deeds!

Val took a short walk to Cooks Lane where she "'litter'aly picked so many cans from the hedgerow and enjoyed stomping them flat so I could fill numerous bags. More litter picking tomorrow.. YAY"

Katie L & Rachel actually did their litter pick yesterday when they cleared up some party / fireworks debris from the beach before their dip in the sea 🌊 ❄ (hardcore!)

Pauline joined in from Liverpool (this is the bonus of a virtual pick!) She picked litter in a play area that had recently been vandalised...trying to restore some love. For 10 years, the play area has been part of Town Park in Runcorn, which, when it was created, preserved 157 hectares of existing woodland and undulating grassland as an integral part of the original New Town Development in the 70's. It is at the heart of the town. 👍🥰

I went down to "McDonald's corner" and filled a huge bin bag with bottles cans and food wrappers without moving from the very start of the path. I also found a washing up bowl and I'm still wondering why someone chucked it out of their car or took it on a walk with them. Any ideas?!

Chez picked up plastic and face masks from the beach and gave us the most arty camera shot of the day! Sinéad also litter picked on the beach and then logged a few kms for the January Challenge afterwards. Judy also combined the Jan Challenge and litter pick with a cycle to Hayling and a mini beach clean there.

As always, lots of good happening all over the place. Let's keep being the good that we want to see!

First of all a big warm Wednesday welcome to Dave who joined us for his first run tonight! We had record breaking numbers so HUGE thanks to everyone for coming out and Egg for making a special appearance as well as a return from Penny & Frankie who last joined us a year ago at this trip to Naomi House. Please come back again this year!

After our intro and a quick warmup we headed south to St Swithuns school where we were greeted by the ever-organised caretaker, Chris. He provided a whole new level of task organisation and delegation with carefully masked out areas for painting, notes on what needed doing and other notes of other jobs. Impressive!

The group of nearly 30 strong were split into different tasks - many taking up painting jobs, while others took on buffing the floors (or wrestling with the buffer in India and Pippa's case), cleaning carpets, wiping down tables, and other tasks Chris could find for us. The "buff" group in the hall added a whole level of exercise to their task, undertaking the lunge and squirt method of floor cleaning. There was lots of laughter and lots of tasks were completed saving Chris 18+ hours of work, so he was very grateful for our help!

We headed back north to the community centre, some of the Southsea lot split off, while the rest headed back to take part in a fitness session of squats, glute exercises, press ups, rows and single leg squats.

Another wonderful Wednesday!

Don't forget there is a community mission on Thursday evening and the Southsea Parkrun takeover on Saturday morning where many familiar faces will be volunteering and donning our red t-shirts! All the listings can be found here

Hope to see you soon!