This week we welcomed newbie Stefano on his first session with GoodGym 👋 before leading the way off to the Bushmead Community Hub where we were asked to prepare the front garden area for nature-friendly planting by the Wildlife Trust.

An area previously occupied by a large bush has been cleared and woodchipped but we had to relocate the woodchip around the existing planting and turn the exposed ground over ready for some easy planting by other volunteers later this week.

We had a great bunch of GoodGymers chatting merrily while working hard at getting this task done in good time. Enjoying the benefit of daylight for the first time on a group run this year we did a great job.

All that remained was a run back into town, with a quick stop in the park for a round of exercises from the fitness dice 🎲 🎲.

The rolls of the dice gave us the following:

90s of push-ups 90s of crunches 30s of squats and another 30s of push-ups to finish off the session.

Stefano you did great and it was a pleasure having you join us!

Have been volunteering for 3 weeks now and really enjoying it 3 courses consisting of Frittata for starter, Stew and Spring Greens and Hot Cross Bun pudding

2 Goodgymers from the Luton massive supported Bramingham residents on a community litterpick as part of the Great British Spring Clean led by abcd-in-luton.
The turn out for the event was amazing with roughly 30 individuals ready to fill bags as part of this national initiative. The litterpick only lasted an hour but the group still managed to collect a vast haul of rubbish from the local area. Litterpicks often throw up little surprises but occasionally you finds something that puts a smile on your face on a personal level. Today whilst pulling bottles and cans from a hedgerow, I found a toy police car which reminded me of many years ago when I would play with cars for hours as a young boy. It genuinely gave me a warm feeling inside. Unfortunately it only had 2 wheels so couldn't really be passed on to anyone else to have fun with. It was a really great event and really felt like the group was a community that cared. Great effort today Goodgym, our support was greatly appreciated. 👍🏻

It was a great pleasure to be part of this program today, indeed I made a good decision joining Goodgym!

Well I guess it would be nice.... to do another litterpick at Leagrave Park. This month along with helping the FoLP with their monthly litterpick, this task was also helping Kevin from ABCD-IN-LUTON complete another leg of his Great British Spring Clean challenge, where he is working with lots of different community groups to help get Luton Tidy and Keep Britian Tidy as part of a national initiative that he has spearheaded locally for the last few years. 6 Luton Goodgymers joined some local residents to see what they could find on the walk around the park today. A purse, an iPhone, a rather scary knife (which was dealt with appropriately) a sign for a car boot sale, the arm of a sofa and a drone amongst other delights all added to a haul of roughly 20 bags of rubbish. The team had fun too some taking on the woodland, others enjoying a nice stroll in the sunshine and a couple opting to get the waders on and head into the river Lea. But before that river becomes an ocean I need to give a shout out to our GG first timer Osama Faith. I hope you enjoyed the task and we look forward to seeing you out with the team again soon. Another great effort today team 👏 Well done everyone.

Welfare Call Ms J

A nine o’clock start and two Goodgymers felt like they were returning to school… oh because they were back in school. But after being welcomed by the receptionist we were shown to an overgrown area just beyond the school fence. Riverbank School have decided on a project to reclaim an overgrown and litter strewn stretch of land alongside the river bank to create an outdoor learning environment. Knowing the drill for scrub clearance we were happy to work alongside the head teacher and one or two people From Groundwork’s to start clearing the scrub, cutting back trees and collecting up the usual assortment of litter cans and nitros. The sun was shining and we enjoyed making quite an impact on what we home will be a fabulous environment for the children.

We’re also looking forward to stage two when we’ve been promised we can don the waders and start clearing the river if the massive amount of cans and rubbish.