On a warm but windy summer's evening, an impressive 29 GG Yorkies turned out for an epic weeding session at Acomb Primary School. We started off by welcoming 2 newcomers Ruth and Kit who were both completing their first ever good deeds with us tonight. Give them a big cheer 🥳

We also crowned the GoodGym Yorkie of the month for June, with the award going to a slightly surprised Jane who completed a fantastic 8 good deeds last month and has also now done well over 25 since joining us in January. Well done Jane!

There was also a cape of good deeds to dish out, with Nikki completing her 400th good deed last week. Fantastic stuff Nikki!! What an absolute legend of GG York

Before we set off to the task we warmed up with a quick game of stuck in the mud. Max, Matt and Mitch being the chasers and everyone else running around like loons to try and avoid them. Abigail led a walking group and so managed to avoid the mayhem back at base, before being followed by the main group with Ed leading the way and Rich and Lucy backmarking.

At the task we were joined by Tristan, Martin and also Jan who was joining us for the first time this evening (Welcome Jan! 👋). The task was a classic clearing task with a bit of destruction thrown in for good measure. No need for too many instructions tonight, just pull up some weeds and cut back some trees.

A small side group were task with shifting a small pile of bricks whilst everyone else got to work on the weeds. Rich seemed particularly delighted when he found out he had the honour of removing and entire bush/tree that had grown as tall as the building. He promptly got the bulk of the bush nicely trimmed before setting to work on the trunk. Meanwhile Steve and Babs tackled a couple of hedges that were obscuring the windows (Babs giving hers a particularly close shave!)

Everyone else found there own space in the courtyard and pulled up a variety of overgrown weeds and even a few herbs, which made for a very nice minty smell lingering around the task. Mitch and Lyndsey focused their efforts on the things growing out of the drains whilst Kit and Lucy made excellent progress on a sycamore that had started to obscure the plant beds. Whilst all the while, Rich was still beavering away at the tree and had now been joined by Nikki in what had truly become a Gover-ish sized task!

With time running out we stopped for a group photo before handing over to Abigail who was leading tonight's fitness sesh. Rich and Nikki remained in the courtyard to continue their tree removal task!

Tonight's fitness had a name which I've completely forgotten but involved people choosing an exercise for everyone to complete before naming something that they have or have done (e.g. wearing a black shirt) and then attempting to swap spaces in the circle with someone else who had also done that thing. It was great fun although probably less so for Babs and Max who both ended up in the middle of the circle on mote than one occasion. Rich and Nikki also finally managed to remove the tree stump and joined the fitness sesh just in time to get the gist of what was going on

It was then time to venture back to base, with a few people continuing on to the pub

Great turnout for our social run at Kirkham Priory.

Pete led out a 12k route, Michael a 8k and Vicky a 5k. Thank you to the run leaders and to Rich for the route planning.

All the group had an enjoyable session in the lovely countryside and some of Michael's group even managed a quick dip in the river afterwards. Unfortunately I can't include the quote from him afterwards.

We then assembled at the Stone Trough pub for some grub before heading home

Four of us met at museum gardens to help set up for the arts Mela tomorrow.

After a chaotic start due to the gates being blocked, stall holders soon were able to unload their stuff and we helped erect many gazebos, some with more ease than others!

We will be back tomorrow at the crack of dawn to continue….

A fab bank holiday turnout of 21 GoodGym Yorkies, saw us tackle a variety of tasks at the Wild Things Forest School. With Ed being injured tonight's group run was a Tristan Takeover special and he got the crew warmed up with some running drills after we'd given a cheer for those who completed the Bluebell Trail 10 miler at the weekend.

After the short run out to the task we met Emma from Wild Things who gave us an overview of tonight's activities, including painting a shed, putting down some chicken wire around the pond, taking some old timber to the skip, cleaning a massive tent and cutting back some plants. We then split into our various groups and got to work

Martin had already got stuck into dismantling one of the outdoor kitchen areas before we arrived, so the rest of the group were playing catch up and the site was very quickly a hive of activity! There was action everywhere you looked, with scrubbing, painting, hammering and chopping all going on.

Over at the pond, Cara was doing an excellent job of supervising Paul and Steve's chicken wire laying. Whilst the shed painting crew found the conditions challenging with some inferior paint and, according to Jane, Bab's interesting techniques! Before too long the various tasks drew to a close and it was time for Tristan's fitness session.

The group was split into 4 teams and were then pitted against each other in a series of shuttles runs. It was a simple enough start with regular sprints, but soon got more challenging with high knees, skipping (Tristan's personal fave!) and eventually a conga line.

Big thanks to Tristan for leading a fab session. Don't forget next week's session will be a group ride rather than run (although we will still have a running group but it's a good 5km each way)