It was time once again for our annual spot of getting lost around the streets of Woodthorpe as we joined forces with the York Rotary group and helped Santa spread some festive cheer whilst raising money for York Mind.

Numbers were lighter than previous years but fortunately we were joined by Legendary Lucy who had travelled all the way down from GG Newcastle to spend the night as a GG Yorkie festive elf. That's some true dedication! Make sure you give her some cheers

We made excellent progress knocking on doors and collecting donations (including a couple of discount vouchers in Vicky's case) but as the rain came down and morale started fading we were joined by Charlotte to help raise spirits and money!

Big shout out to the Landlady of the Dick Turpin pub for getting one of the bar staff to dip into the till for a tenner and also the Woodthorpe Spice curry house for allowing us to ask their customers for some spare change and also donating themselves. Be sure to have a curry at the Woodthorpe Spice washed down with a pint from the Dick Turpin next time you're in the area!

Anyway, the task was as fab as always and we helped raise a tonne of money for a wonderful cause. Sure, it was a little bit wet and windy, and we all got drenched, but who cares.... IT'S CHRISTMAS 🎄 🎁

Five GG Yorkies (4 elves and 1 Santa) met Andrew from Rotary York Ainsty for our annual Santa sleigh procession around Woodthorpe. The hardy elves ran and walked from house to house and we soon got pretty warmed up as we collected LOTS of coins and plenty of notes as well. We enjoyed hearing various messages on people's Ring doorbells (although Ed didn't believe me until he heard one himself). There were plenty of families waiting on the street corners for Santa, who seemed to enjoy himself almost as much as the children. Lots of people said how they looked forward to seeing the sleigh year after year as it's become a real Christmas tradition. After almost 2 1/2 hours and with very heavy buckets we got back to our starting point and it was time for a quick photo with the sleigh before we headed home. A lovely feel-good mission to get us feeling Christmassy!

Pleased that we didn't have to run/cycle/scoot all the way to Haxby (bad mission naming Nikki!) we assembled at York St John playing fields on a beautiful sunny day, and met Frank who explained they'd dug us up 220 self-seeding trees from Grimston Bar ready for their new life here.

After directing him in to the right spot, Mitch and I started a bit behind, and the rest of the team were already in full tree-planting frenzy. We were a little worried they'd be done already, but there were plenty of trees left to plant. Apologies to Mitch for my overly zealous quality control quickly getting me swapped back to planting Vs spading duties.

Returning back to the main area, we found Val and Pete planting away at speed, and Egg and Amy seemed to have an interesting turf-ripping technique going on. The tree bags were getting emptied quicker and quicker as our techniques improved, and talk was turning to brunch.

In no time at all we were done and joined the rest of the group (Rotaries and Woodland Trust volunteers) for a quick chat and photos. Noone could remember how many trees they'd planted, so the prize went to the unstoppable Val, who turned up for some mother's day fun with Egg despite taking a nasty tumble the day before, and sporting her black eye and stitches - what a trooper!

A quick prosecco handover, an invite to the summer picnic and an involved discussion of which café to go to finished off the session - most of us cycling/running/scooting back into town for a picnic (and ice-cream!) in Minster Gardens. Perfect!