City of Trees are a community forest charity for the Greater Manchester area that between October and March every year, organise community tree planting sessions while also carrying out maintenance of their sites. Despite Storm Bert bringing in rain and wind, a group of maybe around 10 or so volunteers local to the area rolled up their sleeves to get planting, including 2 very stubborn Goodgymers Hannah and Ben.

Fueled by tea, coffee, the good biscuits, and endless anecdotes about jaffa cakes, we planted 180 trees in total across the three hour period. This included oak, silver birch, hazel and hawthorn, with some of the smaller shrub-like trees such as hawthorn making up the edge and the larger trees more central. As inspiration, just 20 or so yards away was another area planted 20 years ago by Red Rose Forest (a previous incarnation of City of Trees) and they looked to be doing very well!

The planting required digging a small hole to cover the tree whip roots and filling back in with the tree whip upright, ensuring the upper stem was not submerged at all. We compacted the soil (aka mud) to ensure no air pockets remained before covering with a square of mulch mat held down with bamboo pegs (apparently quite expensive). A major activity was the wheelbarrowing of the pile of woodchip back and forth to cover the mulch mat and mound around the tree whip while not covering the stem, enabling water retention and to prevent surrounding grass or weed growth..

Once all the tree whips were in the ground, successfully surrounded by mulch mat and mulch/woodchip, we said our goodbyes with more rain coming down. With mud caking the volunteers, laundry and a cup of tea was certainly the next port of call.

City of Trees also arrange tree maintenance, something as or if not more important than putting them in the ground in the first place. We will be back to help with maintenance of the young trees and also for the more mature trees nearby to build a truly bio-diverse habitat for wildlife and to give something back to nature.

Maybe by then, we'll even have some Goodgym outdoor clothing too.

Juno and I ran 5.2 km upto Northern Quarter to help out with Smithfield Garden Club.

Ever a pair to get stuck in and muddy, we weeded and cleared under a few small trees and bushes, before aggressively pruning a hydrangea.

Really good and welcoming group hidden in NQ and there maybe another small session next Sunday too.

Juno and I helped with set up, marshaling, and post event clear up at Fletcher Moss parkrun event #229. The morning November rain made it wet underfoot and a bit muddy in places.

Despite the rain, lots of runners (417) came out for our 6th birthday (or as close to) for the event! Thank you to all the 24 volunteers who helped out!

Ben along with friends from Goodgym Stockport took part in the Manchester 24 hr Run Against Homelessness 2024. We had our Goodgym slot at 8pm with over 200 other runners but that didn't stop use run leading in other laps and adding some extra distance on.

In all, I ran 7 laps of the 5 km route around Manchester, with Juno completing 3. Including the run there and back, I'm a bit sore this morning.

Great to meet Stefanie and Sophie this evening!

Keep MCR tidy provide a great resource for refuse sacks (and in future we'll tap into their litter pickers and bag rings too) and promote local community litter picking in Manchester. We got a hold of 20-30 pink refuse sacks and between the four of us, collected at least 10 bags (plus a bit more) full sacks of discarded waste!

We covered 6 km, starting by Piccadilly gardens before going along Canal St, to Deansgate and then to the Castelfield bowl before downing tools to run the remaining 1-2 km back to the meeting point.

We collected a whole range of items, including lots of cans/fast food packaging, laughing gas canisters, discarded vapes and cigarette butts, drinks cartons, and lots and lots of polystyrene bits.

We bumped into Don't Walk Past Manchester on their Monday night round and had a chat, possibly due a donation push toward the colder winter months. Keep an eye out for future tasks!

p.s. We did spot a lit Christmas tree in Deansgate. It's coming.

Juno and I ran the 6 km there and back to help set up, marshal, and clear away at Fletcher Moss parkrun event #227 (prime number). A whopping 534 runners and walkers completed the 5 km course on a cracking autumn morning.