It was a misty, drizzly night for a group run but that didn't stop some of Luton's finest coming out for a mid-week good deed in the middle of a 5km run around town. We had five runners and three walkers taking it easy up one of Luton's many hills.

This week's task was litter picking a trashy hotspot in a green space on a residential road, Saywell Road to be precise. We were acting on a tip-off from area PCSO Caroline Lawson who had noticed this evidence of antisocial behaviour on her patrols, and called us in to assist.

We set to work on what at first seemed like a quick and easy job, but under the scattering of leaves, layer upon layer of rubbish was revealed and the task started to become a bit epic. We started off with beer cans and food packets but soon found some random household items in the leafy mix including drawers, kids toys, a hula hoop and even a TV. Keeping on going we found many plastic car body panels and a wheel clamp.

Fortunately we had Kevin Poulton on hand from ABCD Luton to help with the logistics, providing the bags and the pickers and a whole lot of clean-up experience. Early on we started finding big canisters of nitrous oxide and they just kept on coming. We pulled out boxes full of them, in the end we got over 50! Digging a little deeper we uncovered a buried stash of prescription drugs, enough to fill a bucket, which we also found in the bushes! All in all we counted 53 bags of rubbish collected and that doesn't even include all the oversized bits we gathered. Not bad for 40 minutes of picking!

With the epic pile stacked neatly by the roadside for collection by the council, we bid it and its dodgy smells goodbye to complete our 5km journey for the evening.

But that wasn't all the epicness for the day, because by completing this task Martin completed an epic haul of 400 good deeds, and all in a little over three years, now that's dedication!

The London Road Litter Pick Group were delighted that GoodGym were able to help out in the area with some much needed tree trimming. Yazed and Gill tree-aged the task, then joined by Martin they all worked tree-mendously well to clear the tree-cherous branches from the path. They then turned their attention to clearing back overgrown weeds.

Local residents have commented that it is a tree-t to see the road looking so much neater. Well done to our tree-o, tree-ific work! (Sorry about all the tree puns).

This week for our group run we ran up the hill through High Town to our task on Hitchin road where community clean-up coordinator Kevin from ABCD Luton and some local residents had already got started.

A couple of road-side areas were overgrown with shrubs and weeds and needed cutting back and tidying up. On arrival our team were tooled up with shears, saws, loppers and brushes and set to cutting back and clearing up.

With our large team we managed to clean up a huge stretch of road and filled an amazing five big bags of cuttings which needed dragging up the hill to the point that the council was booked to collect from.

Before retreating back down the hill we took a few minutes to do a few rounds of walking lunges, crunches and squats in the park to round off an energetic evening.

This week we had two tasks on offer again as we continue to make the most of the good summer weather.

The walking group headed off to meet new task owner Rajab from the Safer Luton Partnership, supported by Kevin from ABCD luton who provided tools. The task was to clean up the communal garden at a sheltered housing block so that the residents can regain control and start looking after the place themselves and enjoy growing nice plants instead of weeds.

Meanwhile a combined running and biking team headed out to the distant Bradley Road allotment where previous clear ups have brought this allotment back into a tidy state nearly ready for new allotment tenants. Our task this time was to clean up the entrance area and the access road of the litter and fly-tipped bundles of tree branches to make the approach more attractive. bollards will be installed on the track to prevent.

When both tasks were complete each team headed back into town under the glow of a sunset rainbow 🌈 to complete the evening.

8 of Goodgym Luton's finest made their way to support the Friends of Bramingham Park and abcd-in-luton as they embarked on a litter pick, covering a vast area in Bramingham. After the usual litterpick briefing, that we've heard so many times, but is always so important. We all headed out to see how much litter we could find dotted around this local greenspace. The walk took a few of us into Bramingham wood, which is a lovely extension to the park but also a cheeky hiding place for all sorts of litter treats. I'd say with the other participants there must have been easily 20 bags of rubbish collected. Well done everyone, great effort this morning

This weeks group run saw the latest effort to Keep Britain Tidy by doing our bit to Keep Luton Tidy for the Great British Spring Clean.

Most importantly it was Gail's 50th task! Gail has been on the team since before GoodGym Luton started so we're fairly sure she's done more than 50! Definitely well deserving of a shiny new black shirt!

We took the long road up to Farley Hill, rising up out of town to be treated with a panoramic view of the twinkling lights. Arriving at the Farley Hill Community Centre we met Martin with The litter pickers and set work collecting litter from around the community centre, the shops and the playground here. Four bags later we set off again on the return journey back down the hill into town.