Bashed a lot of balsam

Friends of Whirlowbrook Park put on lots of fun family activities today for the Easter weekend. There was archery, face painting, a book sale and the main attraction, the Easter Egg trail!

Families followed the bunny hop footprints around the park to find eggs with letters on, then rearranged the scrambled egg letters into a seasonal punchline, which they then exchanged for choccy eggs:

What do you get if you pour boiling water down a rabbit hole?

Our volunteer role was marshaling the car park, directing visitors to free spaces and also controlling traffic where the trail crossed the road.

It was a beautiful day for our first community mission of the year and a great turnout of 6 Goodgymmers (plus hanger-on Devon - maybe he will be tempted to join us proper...). We had an energetic start - most of us on our bikes and 3 of us having been to Parkrun beforehand! 🌞🏃🏻‍♀️🚲

Jobs included:

• Hammering staples into a new boardwalk for grip 🔨
• Pruning Magnolia ✂️
• Brushing/scraping leaves and soil away from the edges of paths and car park 🧹

Shelagh says they would welcome us back any time for their regular volunteer session on the 1st Saturday of the month. I will be listing a task with them on Saturday of Easter weekend marshaling an Easter Egg hunt (that seems so far away!) 🥚

Goodgymers Celine, Rachel and Annie joined friends of Whirlow Brook Hall in their monthly gardening session. The missions for today: weeding a large bed in preparation for donated plants to go in next week and digging out brambles and nettles next to the new cafe for the decking to go in on Monday.

Weeded it? We did it!

GoodGym members joined Friends of Whirlowbrook Park to help set up and run a plant swap and sale raising funds for kid's activity trail through the woods, nicknamed the "WoW" trail.

We helped set up and take down signs to advertise the sale. One was a very prettily painted and large. We found it tried its best to blow away with any big gust of wind...

It's a plant sail!

During the sale, we were on hand to help people carry their heavy goods to their cars and we all took the opportunity to pick up some plants for our own gardens too.

The event raised more than £700, doubling last year's total! 💰