We welcomed not one, not two, but three new GoodGymers this evening. Well done to DeborahGraceand Naziron your first GoodGym task! And to Alexanderas ever for all your hard work.

We took our usual route down Balkerne Hill to the retail park and gathered two large bags full of litter. We managed around an hour before it got too dark - we need head torches at the ready from now on!

Thanks all and hopefully see you next time :)

7 fantastic Goodgymers cleaned up the greenery around the flats, paths and businesses in Colchester.

Heading down the hill from The Mercury Theatre, through St Mary's Fields and along Sheepen Road, the team accumulated a three bag haul of litter. The usual suspects included Starbucks, Cadbury's, Nestlé, Walkers and Subway.

On that journey we passed four easily accessible bins - if only people used them!

Great job everyone and enjoy the rest of your week.

Our litterpick consisted of wandering down to the park and down by the river where we found various items including remnants of a plastic Christmas tree! Our interesting spot was a river rat who seemed to be enjoying its time sniffing for food along the riverbank, unbothered by ducks or pigeons.

Well done all, we finished in time to make it back for the second half of the women's Euros semi-final against Italy, another thrilling come-back and worth the late night!

Hope to see you all soon. Ella

Well, it was litterpicking again.

sunny evening, a nice chat and stroll through town with our bags, collecting more junk. Choice items were a tunnel ceiling sticker and lucky 8 ball, with chat ranging from an echoey rendition of 'in the jungle', the new parkrun route and what animals are in Bluey. Meanwhile Rowan found time for us despite moving house and a hundred other things, bonus points to you!

Seems like we are really making some progress by regularly cleaning one part of town, the effect of persistent small efforts. Join us all for some new tasks soon!

Blessed with another sunny evening, despite Ella's 4 layers of clothing, we assembled as a strong team of six tonight and did a litterpick loop of town. Rowan's early find of random cables at the bottom of Balkerne hill was probably the choice find, and her diligent efforts got her the gold star for most litter collected.

On warm evenings its nice to make our neighborhoods nicer, drawing compliments from a few passers by, and we can all catch up and chat about Eurovision, left handedness and our memories of the Queen's death.

Following some litter collected we stopped off at Turtle Bay for some refreshments and snacks, our first social in two years! nice to see new members coming on board and getting a chance to chat without litterpickers in hand.

Back to the high St next week for Colchester in Bloom!

... to make a clean come true! A small but mighty team carried out our litterpick task. Good work Frazerand Ella! As always the highlight was the topics of conversation we managed to cover which included (in no particular order): the pros and cons of AI (standard), New Years eve pre- and post-children and who the latest legend of Balkerne hill is...

Until next time!