After I managed to lock my car key in my car and then getting a parking ticket while going home to get my spare key (Thank you Katherine Huggett for chauffeuring me around!) six GoodGymmers finally assembled to get the gruesome out of Newsome! Armed with secateurs we cut back brambles and then picked up the litter hiding underneath. Great effort everyone!

Once upon a time there were 4 GoodGym members fine and true called on a quest to build a raised bed for the Growing Works community allotment. They travelled from far and wide. By bicycle, car and foot. And once they arrived they set to work digging and shifting, sawing, hammering and drilling until as darkness fell the job was complete!! Great work! A satisfying triangular construction to be filled with soil and flowers to bring joy and colour to the good people of Growing Works. And they all ran happily home after. The End.

It’s the start of September so GoodGym Huddersfield went back to school last night. Back in fact to our old friends at Berry Brow Infant School for some more painting of fences and playground furniture. However painting wasn’t the only task, the school had some leafleting to do promoting their free nursery provision. It was just as well GoodGym friend and task provider Katrina Whale from the school had come up with two tasks as twelve GoodGymmers turned up last night, all eager to run do a good turn for our local community.

Meeting at our alternative rendezvous point of Lockwood Park it was good to see a total of three first time GoodGymmers as part the Huddersfield crew. Welcome to Jane McCrea, Jo Talbot-Patterson and Anna Kingston, joining old timers Kati Law, Ben Godfrey, David Bilton, Peter Phillips, Laura Merriman, Vicki Knight-Phillips, Zena Whalley and Richard Byrne. I made up the numbers completing the impressive total of a dozen GoodGymmers. I also had the dubious honour of sporting the GoodGym Huddersfield Superhero cape for the evening, this being the occasion of my 50th GoodGym run.

After a warm-up at the rugby club it was swiftly into the 3K run to the task at Berry Brow. Avoiding main road running, the footpath to Armitage Bridge provided a very pleasant alternative in the September sunshine. Less pleasant perhaps was the final pull up Waingate, but we all made it and arrived at the school ready for action.

Dividing into two teams the painters were swiftly dispatched into the playground to get on with painting a fence blue, whilst four leafletters grabbed a huge stack of flyers and made their way up the hill to Newsome posting as they progressed. A little local knowledge often goes a long way with these things and fortunately Laura and Anna, both of whom have lived in the area all their lives were able to plot the most effective route to get as many leaflets posted as possible within the time available. The fence painters certainly certainly seemed happy in their work too, chatting away as they gradually transformed an old picket fence from a worn woody brown into a new vibrant blue colour.

40 minutes hard labour later it was pretty much job done, the leafletters returned and the painters down brushes in preparation for the 2K run back to Lockwood Park. In the gathering gloom (looks like we’ll be back to working with headtorches pretty soon guys☹️!), there was just time for a group photo on the school climbing frame (and for me to do justice to the superhero cape by sliding down a fireman’s pole) before running off downhill back to our start point.

Thanks to all last night’s GoodGymmers, once again it was great to see us maintaining double figures for attendance following on from our busiest ever month in August. Let’s keep it going through September!

Thanksto Vicki Knight-Phillips for some of the photos.

Another double figure attendance for GoodGym Huddersfield, for the second consecutive week! 11 runners last night for a relatively short 4K run and a gardening task for our old friends at Christ Church Moldgreen.

Prior to the run I was proud to present now regular GoodGymmer Wendy Redmile with her “no expense spent” trophy for becoming the inaugural GoodGym Huddersfield 10-Pin Bowling Champion last week. Thanks to Kati Law who unfortunately couldn’t be at the presentation for taking the time to hand craft such a beautiful trophy.

After the formalities it was on with the warming up and of course the running. About 2K, (admittedly mostly up hill) took us to the church where congregation member Andrea and her dog Piper were waiting for us with tools aplenty. Our task for the night was to clear the “Jolly Big Bank” which lies between the church and the vicarage. Over the winter GoodGym had an ongoing battle with a former resident of the bank, “The Jolly Big Bush”. During the course of a number of sessions we had entirely removed the bush, but now the bank was regrowing with weeds of all varieties.

There were also a few flowers and shrubs in there, and fortunately we had GoodGym Huddersfield’s resident gardener Wendy Redmile on hand to advise us less green fingered runners what needed digging up and what needed leaving to flourish. It was a big job but with 22 hands cutting, digging, scraping and praising reluctant roots from the earth we were done within our time limit of an hour. In the process we had entirely filled two large wheelie bins with weeds, cuttings and other garden waste, and the Jolly Big Bank was looking far prettier than when we had started.

Waving goodbye to Andrea and Piper we set forth back to the Stadium, with a little trail running over Kilner Bank, dropping down to the Stadium through the secret pine forest behind the cinema. Once back there was time for a swift stretch and the usual debate about an appropriate title for the run report.

Thanks to all last night’s GoodGymmers, as ever your efforts are much appreciated. Good to see Zena Whalley and Megan Higgins who were new to the group runs, along with all the old GoodGym favourites David Bilton, Vicki Knight-Philips, Peter Phillips, Meg Deacon, Mark Donnelan, Wendy Redmile and Louise Galvin. Hope to see you all again next Tuesday to make it another double figure attendance.

Particular thanks to Louise Galvin also for some of the photos, which are far superior to my efforts.