On a wet Tuesday afternoon 15 GoodGym Yorkies invaded the Rawcliffe Country Park and the adjacent Park & Ride site in search of litter.

We started with few announcements and welcomed our new member Nick. Give him a big cheer folks!

Helen is nearly there to earn her black top. Big cheer please!

Massive cheer to Jenna for achieving her 100 good deed today. She was presented with the traditional cape to wear throughout the task.

With announcements done the task owner Kristina talked us through the assignment. We had the first ever opportunity to test the extra-long litter picker, a tool designed to make pulling out rubbish from the undergrowth easy. Equipped with regular and long pickers, green bags and portable lights we headed to the park’s pump track and woodland where, we were told, the litter was. After a quick sweep we realised that the pump track does not have much litter to offer and we focussed on the P&R, which has proven to be litter rich. Just under 1 hour of chatty litter picking produced 20 bags full of typical assortment of cans, plastic wrappers, paper packaging and glass bottles.

We even found a hoover - Nick

Gathered together to admire our findings we posed for a socially distanced group photo. After some further chat it was time to say good bye and run, cycle or walk home.

Our autumnal spring clean does not end here. We are litter picking on the Hob Moor tomorrow and on the fields at the back of the Westfield Primary School on Thursday.

On the final Monday of the January Challenge, our 3rd birthday group run and my last ever night leading GoodGym York, an amazing group of 75 pitched up to do a stonking amount of good!

In that enormous group we had:

• THREE brand new runners - big cheers for Charlee, Thomas and Francisco.
• TEN GoodGym tourists from Newcastle, Ealing, Leeds, Bath and Portsmouth!
• TWO people celebrating their 50th good deed and donning the Cape of Good Deeds Give some hearty Yorkie cheers to Emma (who has been running with us for almost the three whole years but just likes to spread out all her good!), Rich and also to Louise who couldn't make it tonight but also did her 50th last week.
• TWO people celebrating their 100th good deed and swishing the Centurion Cape! (massive cheers please for Debs and Al who got their wings over the last few days.

We split into three running groups and a walking group, on a collective mission to transform the Nunnery Lane residential area.. with this list of mini and not-so-mini tasks to tackle:

1. Digging up topsoil, laying a weed membrane and covering a large border with pea shingle
2. The lamppost task (we'll come back to this)
3. Digging up deep set rubble from a community garden (saving the one young tree), taking all the rubble to a skip and laying a new layer of three tonnes of topsoil
4. Locating all the broken and rusty road signs within the area which need replacing
5. Building three raised beds and filling with 5 tonnes of topsoil
6. Edging the path in Scarcroft Green
7. Digging and raking up weeds and ivy roots from the Scarcroft Green border
8. Litter picking every street and snicket
9. Locate and mark on a map the locations of all graffiti on the estate
10. Levelling the area where we dug up elders last year ready for a spring seed sowing session!

The walking group were split into three sub groups to tackle tasks 2, 4 and 9. It took a while to figure out who was going to go with who due to lack of reading glasses. The lamppost task was absolutely the most complicated as appropriate lampposts needed to be identified according to a strict set of criteria, and marked as to whether or not they'd be suitable to display a neighbourhood watch sign.

So we're looking for dark lampposts that are approximately 2.2m tall?? - Paul

Leanne's group arrived at the Task 1 location (actually Task 5: raised beds) and Max was delighted to be able to use the IMPACT DRIVER, imagine a nail gun but for giant bolts and you won't be far off.

Then Mitch's team arrived and were split up to litter picking, community garden rubble clearing and adding extra people power for the raised beds.

Jenny, one of the three task owners, did more running than most of the GoodGymers as she went back and forth between the zones retreiving various tools from the van.

I need a boltcutter! Jenny

Then pea shingle team finished and moved onto Scarcroft Green, they were shortly joined by the litter picking squad and eventually the community garden team (though a few of those went up to help the raised bed team too).

We had a crazy ten minutes of raking, edging, digging, standing around having a chat, and frantically attempting to put all the tools back into the van. Then we only had five minutes remaining for the biggest, fastest game of Cones of Joy, ever.

It's a two lane motorway of circular running!!! Katie

There was just enough time for a gigantic group photo before the short run back to base. That truly was an enormous amount we achieved in about an hour.

Massive thanks to everyone who showed up tonight, or has showed up any time over the last three years. It really has been eggcellent and I think you're all the best.

Don't forget to do your lunges.

An ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING 51 runners and walkers came along to our very first Monday group task of 2020!!

What a fantastic start to the year, we welcomed along Ian and Amy who joined us for the very first time, and a shout out to Steph too who joined us for her first group run.

It was also brilliant to see loads of old faces back with us and getting their own January Challenge off to a really GOOD start. Everyone was very excited to get a Yorkie bar for their first good deed of the year (love plying people with chocolate!).

With Debs as our walk leader and Pete bringing up the rear, we all headed over to Westbank Park where Kristina had reached a new level of organisational splendour.

We need 4 groups of 3, one group of 8, one group of 10 and then everyone else split into two

We thought the first run back might have a big turnout, and Kristina had produced a vast and dreamy task list which included:

• Bagging and moving grass cuttings from picnic area to top gate
• Sawing off 'too high' posts
• Turning compost in the new bins
• Sweeping and clearing the basketball court
• Topping up the dog grate with hardcore
• Thinning the overgrown bamboo area
• Coppicing hazel in the orchard
• (Re)building the dead hedge in the orchard with the (above) coppiced hazel
• Removing all "organic matter" from old compost bins to the new ones
• Deconstructing old compost bins and take all wood to bottom gate
• Clearing leaves from play area into compost bins

Once everyone had been briefed, we had all of about 32 minutes to complete all those tasks. Here are some short reports from those in the field....

Max: We moved three extremely smelly compost heaps 5m to the right

Leanne: We were asked to coppice hazel, use the cuttings to create a dead hedge and saw up some logs. We couldn't find the logs so concentrated on cutting down hazel and building an awesome dead hedge. Turned out we were supposed to cut some of the larger bits of tree but Kristina didn't care because our hedge was so amazing.

Nikki G (same task): We excelled at coppicing and dedge building. Actually genuinely skilled at it. Still in shock at our own level of skill.

Nick (still the same task): Alaya was incredibly good at finding flexible, whippy bits of hazel to weave into the hedge, such high quality.

Debs: I led our team pseudo-confidently to exactly where we needed to be. Our big pile of dead stuff to move proved to be elusive. We wrestled the smallish pile of prickly brambles into one of the two tonne bags. We dragged it up to the top gate and then split up to assist teams "gravel-gate", "bamboo pandas" and "Jeff's slimey leaves and poorly pigeon". Ellie, Katie and various Amys attempted to establish if it was gym equipment or play equipment in the park, we still don't know. (Egg: it's 'active play' equipment designed for children but absolutely suitable for small adults.)

Lizzie: We emptied compost from an old bin to new one. Then we dismantled the bin which involved Michael kicking it into submission. We shovelled a lot of really minging compost.

Katie: Amy, Chloe and I were joined by Jenna (who was important because she knew exactly where the basketball court was) and were laden with tools for the "heavy job". Armed with 3 tampers, 2 giant crowbars, a wheelbarrow and 2 shovels, we reached the cattle grid designed for (tiny) dogs and jimmied it off to scoop out the leaves from the watery pit. En route to collect to promised hardcore (for filling the pit), we also collected an enthusiastic Lionel who barrowed many heavy bags of hardcore. After the second trip it became clear (unlike the water under which the hardcore had now become completely submerged) that there was not quite enough hardcore to finish this item of task roulette. We called in David and Debs to assist with replacing the grid cover, leaving the puddley pit to be completely filled another day!

Although I don't have a direct quote from the play area leaf team, I can tell you that Christine and Louise were both massively excited to be in charge of leaf blowers and were fairly close to running home with them.

It was as slick as a military operation and all teams reported back bang on time, ready for a huge group picture. A small and speedy team led by Nick hung back to help Kristina put away millions of tools before catching the rest of us up.

To finish an amazing evening, the first workout of the year was a Team 500 workout, in which teams of about 10 shared 500 reps of squats and lunges to help celebrate Leanne and I both achieving our 500th good deeds. There was even a Mexican lunge in one of the teams which is probably my highlight of 2020 so far.

A massive 50 GG Yorkies walked and ran for a huge Space Invaders clear-up.

Space Invaders is a very cool project which takes disused spaces and turns them into something for community benefit. In this case, the old York Brewery at the Malthouse is being turned into a souk, an affordable place for the craftspeople, makers and independent food sellers of York to sell their wares.

Space Invaders will be able to continue to use the space, which is destined to become a hotel, until the planning permission comes through.

But before we could go and invade some space, first we had to welcome one brand new runner, Rich, to the gang (go give him a cheer) and then we announced the GG Yorkie of the Month for September..... massive cheers and a big well done to Bec!!

Mitch led a group on a 5k loop to get there whilst the walkers and the rest of the runners took the shorter option which was all of 550m.

'Grubby' is a bit of a gross understatement for the inside of the warehouse. Task owner Emily was at the ready with many huge soapy trugs, bags of rags and a selection of tools and dust masks. She'd also written and sellotaped a list of tasks on the wall of each room.

There was small stuff to move, big stuff to move, carpets to pull up, cobwebs to pull down and nails to extract from beams, but mostly, there were walls and floors to scrub. Very dirty walls and floors.

I've got a big dirty puddle and nowhere to put it - Ellie G

The big downstairs area was well underway when Mitch's running crew arrived so they headed upstairs to pull nails out of beams, help move one gigantic desk, sweep and scrub the staircase and start to clean the large upstairs area.

Only half of the building had power so there were a lot of very dark staircases and side rooms. Beth was lighting the way and keeping everyone safe with the light from her phone on the creepy stairwell.

I'm certain I've seen this place on Most Haunted!

After we had done as much scrubbing as we could do, everybody headed downstairs where we completed a workout involving people having to interpret their own way to complete floor exercises without putting their hands on the floor.

We are back to do more tasks at the Malthouse on Thursday between 6 and 8pm, come and join us!

After an action packed epic weekend at Endure 24 for some of us. We came together for another Egg-less Monday. Hard to stomach i know.

I was happy to report back on some excellent endure performances namely Becky and Nicky who came second in their event. And Huw who smashed out his 100 mile goal before deciding to do a victory lap and make 105 miles! Well done to everyone at Endure! More importantly though we were celebrating the amazing Ed, an important cog in Goodgym York who completed his 100th good deed last Thursday.

To celebrate we all did an endure themed warmup, so we could all experience the joys and spills of running endure 24! Pumped up and ready for action, we hit the road with the lovely Laura and John backmarking.

"We are running 2 of the 3 mountains of York tonight" John doing his best to frighten first timer Jack.

Arriving at the Viking Road play area, we found not only task owner Kristina. But also Trainers wife, Lizzie (no doubt reporting back to the boss!) And Lisa who was very happy to be able to help from the bounds of her wheelchair.

Kristina set us rolling on 3 main tasks to help clean up the playground. First we were scraping moss and dirt off of the tarmac of one section. Before using half moons to try and locate the edge of the tarmac area.

The 2nd task was to clear the overgrown fence of grass and weeds plus some hay that had formed around the base of the fence. With one particularly nettley patch near a bike rack. Mike and Emma worked tirelessly to trim one section, but were slightly embarrassed to find out they were supposed to the whole fence!

3rd task was taken to by some unruly run leaders and Taskforce members who had to fight (not successfully) their urge to play on the playground. Becky had to be reminded to put the shears down before you walk across the rope bridge! There was much discussion on the quality (and lack therefore) of some of the shears provided.

"I've got two tools, I'm feeling quite manly" Mike, clearly having the time of his life.

The 3rd task were successful at trimming all the weeds and grass down on the playground trail. Opening up a whole new section of the playground up for children to use!

Quick photo and we were off back home for a quick cool down stretch. Job well done everyone. Special thanks to returning Rachel and Emma, first timer Jack, and first timer at York Jackie!