Welcome to Chris for his first GoodGym task and to Sarah from GoodGym Brighton who was in the area for work. Hope you enjoyed the task!

On Earth day we took to the water to remove debris and lots of plastic that had built up in and along the River Mersey, particularly following the floods over new year. We kitted out in buoyancy aids and collected a stash of litter pickers, oars, and bags to collect the rubbish 🚣‍♂️🚣‍

🛶 With two per canoe and then fastened in pairs, we slowly made our way upstream, collecting any rubbish as we went, particularly from tree branches were items had accumulated 🌳. In particular, there were lots of bits of plastic bags, bottles, cotton and material, plus polystyrene. At one particularly crowded tree, we collected lots of materials and freed much of the tree of rubbish, including a blue barrel that (eventually) was freed from the branches after some tactical sawing and cutting. We did our best to avoid the sewage outflow nearby too but couldn't avoid the wild garlic that lined the river bank!

Once the bags were full, we slowly drifted back downstream, bringing the canoes out of the water and onto racks (after a quick rinse in the Mersey) to be stored back at Venture Out 💪

Top effort from all involved. There will be more canoe (or kayak...) sessions planned for future dates so keep an eye out for that.

Juno, Gosia, and I made our way to Fletcher Moss parkrun event #244 to help marshal 337 runners and walkers on Easter Saturday.

One of the boomerangs 🪃 from South Beach Australia made its way to parkrun as part of a global tour.

Nice day even with rain and clouds around. 25.68 km ran beforehand then a 20 km walk afterwards so certainly got our steps in...

This evening, Ben ran the route #103 of the Relay Your Way to check for accessibility and if the public footpaths from Google maps actually existed in real life.

Starting from Didsbury library, the route goes past Didsbury Sports Ground, Withington Golf Club (well through the golf club...) before following the River Mersey round to Chorlton Water Park, Chorlton and Sale Golf Clubs, then Turn Moss playing fields before finishing in Longford Park near the athletics track.

Some of the sections were a bit narrow and the river bank rebuilding following the new year floods have made some of the paths quite rocky but generally, the route seemed OK, and even better when you know where you're going! Glad to have run the route to know what to look for come the event in mid June.

Welcome to Sharon for their first GoodGym task!

We were back with The Bee Sanctuary for their weekend volunteering session in Highfield Park. The weather was more mixed but thankfully the rain stayed away so we could continue with priming and painting the entrance gates. Sharon, Michael, and Ben completed painting the already primed fence to the one side of the entrance that after a couple of coats, was looking much more inviting compared with the peeling black gates from the previous week.

After a tea & coffee break, Sharon and Ben managed to apply metal primer to the remaining fence at the entrance, ready for a coat of green paint to complete the job in the none-to-distant future.

Great to be back to and to complete some of the painting tasks for the group. We'll be back, perhaps for more digging or heavy duty gardening tasks in the future.

Juno and I went to help out at Fletcher Moss parkrun event #243. 493 runners and walkers completed the 5 km course, including a bride in full white gown and veil.

We did the course check, which was perfect now the tree near marshal point 1 has been trimmed so not blocking half the path. We helped set up and marshaled at Old Bedians.

Very sunny morning and lots of happy runners/walkers!

Congrats to Stefanie for reaching 10 good deeds with GG MCR!!

This evening, we met in Salford to give GRIT Studios a helping hand with their new site. Peter and Ben met by Salford Central train station, currently under refurbishment, to make the ~2.5 km jog to the site, with Stefanie meeting us there by bike.

The GRIT Studios site in Salford has come on leaps and bounds since we were last there scraping paint from the windows. The space is now 85% occupied with artists with the windows decorated with the common room looking much more homely with less rubble and exposed brickwork on show. They are hoping to fill the remaining space this week with more public workshops and events in the next month or so, so keep an eye out! Here's hoping to some planters and maybe even a bench to make it a bit more welcoming too.

We were tasked with cleaning the external tiled walls that stuck out like a sore thumb after the rest of the building had received its makeover. With an array of implements including sponges, scourers, metal scourers, brushes, brooms, plus different types of cleaning pads, we donned marigolds and grabbed some buckets of mildly soapy water to give the walls a good clean.

Some marks and stains were easier to clean than others but bit by bit, we managed to remove quite a lot of muck, dirt, and grit from the tiles and windows. Doing this in full view of people using the treadmills in PureGym was something of an experience, with some passers by showing an interest into what was going on. After several changes of water and stepladders to help reach the high up places, we completed the task and cleared up any last marks before heading home by bike or on foot.