A stonking 10 GoodGymers descended on Walter Halls School this week for an evening of garden renovation. We were back in the same area we started last time that is being turned into a pond and wildflower garden.

We welcomed Peter for his first session, which he took with gusto, swinging a pickaxe like a pro, taking turns with Peter and assisted by Dayna and Rosemarie with spades.

Debbie and Aj started off by collecting stones to put in the tyre planters, then topped them up with branches and soil.

At one point, Pete M and Dayna (the two tallest people) helped remove a rainbow tarpaulin from the wooden pergola as it had seen better days and Adele wanted to repurpose the material for something else.

Nigel, Rachel and Marta planted some wild flowers in the no-dig beds we created, and Marta did a lot of watering with Debbie

Leah and one of the school staff, Emma, headed off up to the entrance to cut down some branches that had been causing a trip hazard on the paths, loading them into one of the now-empty tonne bags for use later in the planters.

Busy busy busy! Too bad ITV cancelled on us at the last minute!

Well done to Debbie who went along go the latest Hyson Green litter pick. She reported: "It was lovely to team up with the community clean champions again and help clean some of the area".

Matthew, Debbie and Rachel joined the Sherwood Clean Champions for a spot of litter picking on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning. We met Rob from the Clean Champions at the entrance to the Pirate Park, where we equipped ourselves with pickers and purple bags. We then set off for an hour around the local Carrington area.

We first tackled the Pirate Park itself, then the roads behind it and around St John's churchyard. We also managed a little detour to the Carrington Community Garden, a small green space off of one of the residential streets. Here we found a lot of litter amongst the bushes, but it was a lovely little hidden gem of a space which has GoodGym written all over it for a potential future task (if we can find out who looks after it....).

Well done to Debbie who went along to help the Salvation Army's Light Night 2025 event. Debbie said:

"It was really nice to be met by Ian and his team. Everyone was so welcoming and the activities were really fun.
I loved being involved with the arts and crafts activities and we all made lanterns. Thanks for being such great hosts."