🧤15 green-fingered GoodGymmers met for our weekly group run. We were thrilled to welcome Rachel for her first GoodGym session 👋

🧂After naming our favourite crisp flavour (a few classics, a few more unusual and somebody who doesn't like crisps), we warmed up and split into two groups for tonight's tasks.

🌳Half the group were led by Mitch back to Park Grove School to meet Vicky who had prepared a session there. Mitch had this to say (along with the accompanying diagram)...

🌱For our task, we needed to:

1) Transport bark with a wheelbarrow to fill in a flower bed.

2) Transport soil in a wheelbarrow to fill in gaps on a large earth mound to stop it being a trip hazard.

⚡After taking the 'scenic' route, we arrived at the school and got straight into it. Our system involved shovelling into the barrows and whilst they were being transported, the shovellers ran at lightning speed to the next pile and were ready for the barrows!

🌺After a swift 40 minutes, all the holes were filled and the flower beds were well-barked. We may have missed the fitness session though...

🧚‍♀️🧚‍♂️The other half of us headed in a similar direction to Foss Fairy Trail where we met Tracy who was impressed and somewhat surprised at our enthusiasm for volunteering in the dark (the words "You're all crazy" were uttered multiple times 😳).

🧙‍♂️🧙‍♀️ Sadly, the woodchip we were due to be dispersing hadn't arrived so Tracy had conjured some alternative tasks for us.

🚴‍♀️🚴‍♂️We started off by clearing logs, rubble and rubbish from a little patch that had sadly been used as a bit of a dumping ground. The variety of "junk" we unearthed was impressive and included a children's slide, a bike wheel (with what looked like part of the bike rack still attached) and some very long extension leads. This was wheelbarrowed to the edge of the park to be collected by the council.

👃👀This task was done to a fairly pungent background aroma provided by some people smoking something on a nearby bench, hence the pun.

💪Our next task was moving some (very heavy) rubble that is going to form part of a new feature of the Fairy Trail, hopefully being transformed into a rock garden with a water feature (and another fairy house, obviously).

🙌Using our collective GoodGym strength, we were able to do both tasks in good time for a jog back to base. We even managed some rock, paper, scissors bonus fitness while we waited for the other team. Having realised that they were running late, we cracked on with the main fitness - a HIIT workout "borrowed" from Michal that featured lots of kicking (the air, not each other).

😎Our fellow GoodGymmers joined us just in time to stretch, cool off and head to the pub.

👏Thank you everyone, excellent work.

Don't forget to check here for all our upcoming sessions. This week, we particularly need more people at Hull Road Park on Wednesday evening and Holgate Community Orchard on Saturday morning.

What we had in the bag was a bit more of a source of debate as there was some confusion about what in the large root pile was meant to being bagged up. Mitch and Amy got bagging (something anyway) with the help of Debs when she arrived. Tay, Louise, Jenna, Ros and Laura carried on digging up roots and they were joined by Sarah half way through. There were some interesting debates about the merits of different insects and whether Daddy Long Legs were venomous. At the end we returned the tools to the carriage shed and Debs was impressed to discover that it was indeed a carriage. What's more it had a lovely big Goodgym G on it (although only one).

We went back to Holgate Community Orchard to continue digging out the roots, starting to move down the plot towards the beck. Some of us also start to bag the existing root mountain from our previous efforts. It was good to see our progress in the light again. Egg found a massive root she was determined to excavate and her hole began to resemble an archaeological dig. David joined us for the last half of the task after spotting us on his Sunday run.

6 of us helped Holgate Community Garden to sweep and rake the leaves off the basketball court to prevent it being too slippery for local children to use. As a result Nicky, Tay, Louise and Laura completed their third task of the day and Ros and newcomer Paul, their second. Even more impressively Tay and Nicky completed their fifth task of 2022 on the second day! Despite the lovely weather for our first two tasks of the day our luck ran out and we had a soggy hour sweeping and raking leaves which proved quite a workout. By the end the basketball court was clear and we had filled the leaf bins and created a big corner pile.

We enjoyed returning to Holgate allotments in the daylight to see the results of our previous dark tasks to help clear a disused allotment for a community orchard and apiary. It was great to see how much we have already cleared on previous tasks. Our task this morning was to clear the roots from a new section further down the allotment as well as clearing a raised bed of rubble, roots and rugs. It was wonderful to welcome 3 new Goodgymers; Claire, Alastair and Paul. Claire, Alistair, Paul, Ros, Tay and Louise got to work clearing the new section whilst Nicky, Vicky and Laura cleared the raised bed. The hour went quickly and it was good to see how much we'd achieved in it.