Get off my turf! 6 GG Yorkies met Johnathon from St Nicks at a random triangle of green space for some turf wars.

It was very quickly noted that the mission was listed as wildflower planting and this is not what we were doing. It is however what we will be *eventually doing… watch this space.

We grabbed our tools and set to work digging up turf and piling into the middle between the benches to create a… mound of Earth. Johnathon tells us it will be good for the bees.

There were a few clashes where people ahem Leanne and Ed claimed people were standing on their turf. We reminisced about the covid hobby of turfing for a while and then it was job done and we went to the pub.

A few more sessions will be needed to remove more turf and eventually there will be some wildflower planting… promise!

Ten GG Yorkies met on a lovely sunny spring evening to meet Jenny from City of York Council to help tidy up around Rawcliffe Country Park following the recent floods. We split into two groups, one group clearing the path where debris from the river had covered the tarmac and the other went to lift and move some heavy logs that had been dumped by the flood water into a nearby field. Myself, Nick, Laura and Louise set about clearing the leaves and loose twigs from the tarmac path with the aid of a leaf blower and shovels. We soon had the path looking neat and tidy and back to its full width. We then moved across to the pump track and cleared a section of path that had been covered in leaves. When we were done we headed over to the other group to see them moving the last logs into place to edge one of the paths. Some of the logs had floated into the field and needed to be moved so that the grass can be cut at a later date. Ed did his best pose for our GG York log calendar!! Mitch, Tay and Louise did some litter picking and the rest of us carried on clearing the mud, twigs and debris from the paths. After almost an hour's work we had the area looking a lot neater and tidier and the logs back in their correct places! Time for a quick photo in the last of the evening sun before going our separate ways home.

🌆We met for our group run at dusk on a lovely Monday, still in a bit of light, which was greatly appreciated.

👋We were thrilled to welcome Martha and Dan for their first GoodGym session.

☘️We had an Irish-themed (for St Patrick's Day) naming and numbering tonight where we found that lots of us enjoy Irish food and beverages, and Irish people too. We then did a quick warm up and walked/ran to Rowntree Park 👍

⚡On arriving at the park, we spotted a GoodGym t shirt running past at lightning speed. On (eventually) catching up with them, I discovered it was Rob, the Area Activator for GoodGym Solihull who's visiting York at the moment. Although he wasn't able to join us tonight, we hope to see him again soon 🥳

🌊We were met at Rowntree by Kristina from the Council (and Michal and Rachel) who explained what we needed to do. Friends of Rowntree Park are hoping to be able to reopen the park on Wednesday but needed some help to be able to do that. We were therefore tasked with clearing the paths that the street sweepers weren't able to get to. Armed with brooms, leaf blowers, shovels and rakes, we quickly set to work, dividing and conquering to tackle all corners of the park 💪

🦸‍♀️🦸‍♂️After half an hour, we'd cleared lots of paths and made lots of areas more accessible. Oh, and Antonia found some nice frogs too 🐸

📸 We had a group photo before doing our fitness session on the area of grass by Millennium Bridge. This involved various relays (and some very impressive speed-skipping and hopping).

👌 With everyone just a little bit more tired, we headed back to base to stretch and go to the pub. Some of us were also lucky enough to be collecting some incredibly yummy biscuits baked by Ellie and Ben for their charity fundraising effort 🍪

🙌We've got a task on Friday morning needing a few more pairs of hands and various missions available so do please sign up if you're able to. There are also currently a couple more spaces for tree-planting in Haxby, which not only sounds really fun and worthwhile but also offers the possibility to win a bottle of wine 🍷

👏Thank you for your hard work tonight everyone, and hopefully see you again soon 😁