Last night a group of volunteers joined a team helping to raise money for the Syrian/turkey earthquake appeal. It was a very hands on experience and we worked hard to help get us much raised as possible. It may have been hard work but when our Syrian chef for the evening gave a talk about how people, especially the women, have been affected, it was all worthwhile. Well done everybody 🙌🏽

It's a chilly Tuesday and we are back out there in the community to do a GG favourite - hard manual labour / shifting soil.

As ever first things first, we welcomed another new volunteer to the group - welcome Vicky it was great to have you with us! Lass it was good to have you back after a little while away too.

This evening's category was fun for all the family and which was your favourite character from a book or tv show/film when you were young(er), we had some great ones like Postman Pat, Sonic the Hedgehog, He-Man but our winner was Paul who joined us walking at the task with Robin Hood (the first one from the British series!)

We set off early as it was a small group and made good time so when we arrived James and his Milk Float hadn't yet got to the property where we were collecting the soil so there was only one thing for it.... a bit of fitness work although this was mainly to keep the cold at bay and prepare us for the physical work ahead. As we rounded out our set of squats, lunges and wall press ups so James rounded the corner in the float and the task could begin.

The mission tonight was a simple one, we were faced by two full 1 tonne bags of topsoil plus another quarter bag so my basic maths makes that approx ...... umm ... well a lot of kilos of soil, which needed to be shovelled into 25kg bags and carried from the garden round the side of the house and up to the milk float parked outside.

A production line was set up with some people shovelling, some holding bags then running them up and then people swapped around. Twenty minutes in and we had completely filled the float with a layer of bags but James confirmed the all electric plough horse on wheels could take at least 3 tonnes so we were safe to continue filling away.

Well done to Clare for getting stuck in and turning her running jacket from a light colour to deep brown carrying those soil bags and of course Joao who was lifting 100s of kilos on his own as he usually does.

The clock hit 8:10pm and we were done for the evening with too many to count now in the float and a serious dent in the two full bags as well as clearing the smaller bag - definitely more than a tonne done!

Time for a quick selfie before setting off home and thanks to Sam who pointed out the Phoenix bub which has an excellent 2 for £12 cocktail offer EVERYday, definitely a potential GG social venue then!

Great work everyone, thanks to James for getting us down and we look forward to helping out Father Nature in future. See you next week.