Julie and Anne ran to Mayford Meadows to help a group of people from WEAct to pull balsam from the path along the Hoe.

The Hymalian Balsam have really pretty flowers and grow next to water. Unfortunately, they are very invasive as their seeds can be projected up to ten meters from their stem. Already, people living along the Hoe Valley have noticed how much they have expanded and know something must be done about it. Hence the involvement of WEAct with whom we have already done different missions.

Julie and Anne worked together and managed to clear quite a large area making two enormous piles of the balsam. We had to stomp on them and leaving them in a pile will help with them not making roots for next year.

Anne, who had forgotten to pack her gloves, was saved by Julie who always has some spare in her magic bag. Another issue was the stinging nettles, thank goodness we did not run in shorts, but our arms are still tingling! The bindweeds (le liseron in French!) did not help either as they gathered the nettles to the balsam…

But hey-“Hoe” after one and a half hour, we had cleared up a large area and were rather pleased with the result! So much so, that we will invite the whole team to pull some more balsam before the flowers produce their seeds! Hopefully most of you will be able to join us for a pleasant run and a rewarding task!

In the meantime, happy running to all of you!

The GoodGym team gathered at St John’s Lye to tackle the invasive laurel plants taking over the area.

Andy and Nadia ran to the location covering about 2.5km. 🏃🏻‍♀️🏃🏼

Wayne and Anne arrived fresh from supporting the junior parkrun, ready to lend a hand. 🪏🪚

Working together, the team cleared a large section of laurel near the stream, helping to improve biodiversity and open up the woodland. 🪾🪵

The event was a great example of teamwork, with everyone contributing their energy and enthusiasm. Their efforts made a real difference to the local green space and supported the Woking Biodiversity team, part of WEAct Woking.

*White Rose Lane Nature Reserve *

This morning i joined Charlie from We Act 🌍 and a few of his volunteers at white rose lane nature reserve to pull up Himalayan Balsam which had overgrown in the reserve.

In Total there were 6 of us all gloved up and we were surprised at how quickly it had grown from our previous visit to the reserve, the recent downpours definitely had an impact The Balsam was quite easy to pull up and in no time we had cleared an area and had cleared a pathway 😊

This Wednesday we are meeting at the St John's Lye where we will be running to the Vyne. Nadia will be leading the group run as part of her Run Leader Training run 🏃‍♀️

Have a great weekend all. 😊

*Millmoor Common *

This mornings outdoor task was part of GG's x WWF Work Out In Nature calibration. 🌎

Big welcome to Jemma who joined us for her first GG task, hopefully the first of many 😀

Wayne & Luan met up with Jemma & Charlie and his volunteers from We Act 🌎 at a new location Millmoor Common in Old Woking.

Todays task was to find an area which could be turned over to so wild flowers could be seeded and hopefully grow 😀

Charlie as always brought all the tools that were required to carry out the task. The area was marked out and then we all git stuck in pulling out the weeds and turning over the soil. Millmoor Common is prone to flooding and the common itself is quite large and the spot we found would be one of many.

Luan who loves an outdoor task was telling us how she has been getting out and running regularly even doing a 6k run last week, keep up the good work.

After an hours work of clearing the area we all scattered the wildflower seeds that Charlie had brought, we then moved over to the other side of the common to find another suitable area. Before we started to dig up a well deserved coffee and biscuits were given out. Once fueled up we got stuck in and in no time had the 2nd site ready for the seeds to be scattered 😀

What a great morning doing this great task 🌎

St John's Lye Heathland 🌳

This was our 2nd task of the day and once again we would join up with WeAct 🌍 to assist them with expanding the heathland by removing invasive saplings.

Wayne, Karen, & Adam were coming straight from Junior park run. Wayne drove to the Lye as he had to get away earlier than the rest of the team, Karen &Adam ran the 3k to the meeting point.

Anne & Agathe met along the canal at WWF an ran the 2.5k route. We all arrived at pretty much the same time. We met up with Charlie and his team after a brief of what we were going to do we walked to the heathland.

After a 7 mins walk we arrived to a shocking scene. There has been a fire over the last few days as WeAct were at the site at the beginning of the week and it was clear. The grounds were black with Ash and burnt grass heathland. Hayden from WeAct said it could have been started deliberately or was natural as it had been very dry recently.

WeAct had done some prep work already as they had cut and piled up silver birches which were over taking the heathland. We started to process them by cutting them back and making wild hedage fence. Anne, Karen, & Agathe were part of this team. Adam apart from running wanted an arm and shoulder workout 👊 so got stuck into removing some tree stumps Wayne was using his weaving skills to build up the hedge as well as putting in steaks to extend the line of the hedge fence.

While working away conversation started about Karen 3 week trip to Machu Picchu when she flys out on Thursday. Sounds amazing and we are looking forward to seeing photo's and hikes and following Karen on Strava 😊.

Withing an hour the hedge had grown and Adam was looking like the Hulk 🤣.

We have a few outdoor tasks coming up over the next few weeks with WeAct 🌍 which have been listed as part of Goodgym's Working in Nature partnership with WWF.