Shout out to 4 GoodGym-ers (Sara, Niha, Seb and Liz) who worked with the marvellous Maddie from Urban Green to spread mounds....and mounds.....of grass cuttings. Taking care to not spread over the areas where wild flowers will be cultivated - they don't like the high nutrients (....who knew?) Having finished that task in good time, we had our usual coffee n chat break (courtesy of UG - thank you!) and then went on to fill 5 bags with litter, while discussing what we'd like to say to the people who dropped it all in the first place! A morning well spent and thoroughly enjoyed :)

Happy Easter!

We hopped straight to it at today's group run with Ouseburn Trust for our Easter Saturday special.

Our sessions with Ouseburn Trust are varied and fun, and today we ran and walked to help with a big litter pick. The area just along from Seven Stories seems to attract a lot of litter and is maintained by regular volunteers like us. As well as the usual takeaway cartons, bottles and cups, Paul also bagged a decorative chick, a coat hanger and a light bulb.

Task owner Dave was really impressed by how quickly we covered the area, so we spent an eggstra ten minutes or so picking litter on the paths back to the start (and posing for graffiti photos, obviously) then I rewarded everyone with a Creme egg before we headed back.

Top work all, you deserve all the treats the Easter bunny can carry tomorrow!

I think I have finally broken the spell.. we went to Ouseburn and it didn't rain!

We had a very productive Saturday lunchtime as our group run took us to help out at the Ouseburn Trust. Only Paul and Debbie ran today meaning it was a very healthy walking group- thankfully they didn't mind stopping on the way by the new graffiti!

It was great to finally put faces to names as I met Sara and Laura for the first time since they joined GoodGym Newcastle. We hope they will keep coming back as they gave today their all!

We were on path clearing duties today, with Dave asking us to scrape, rake and sweep the path edges to create safer paths in the Ouseburn. It is a definite full-body workout and a task where you can inmediately see the difference.

"I think I underestimated how much you would be able to do!" - Dave, task owner

50 minutes flew by and we managed to drag Paul away to get a group photo before heading back. Check out the before and after photos, it was amazing to get so much done.

Our next session is on Monday at Recyke Y Bike. Hope you can join us!

Paul hot-footed to Urban Green at Iris Brickfield Park straight from parkrun this morning. I think the phrase is "parkrun-fresh"

Paul met Amy and Sara for a few hours of upper body-busting chopping and clearing in the park with Task Owner superstar Mike.

As you can see from the during/after pics, a great space was cleared by the footpath making it a safer space for people to use and access. A job so well done that he forgot to take a group photo!

Well done all, we will be back helping Urban Green Newcastle in December so watch this space.

Three goodgymers went along to help Mike and Maddie from Urban Green with removing growth from the bottom of the trees at the spinney in High Heaton.

This was a new parks location for goodgym. Developed on the site of High Heaton Pit, the small local park has 75 sycamore trees. One for each of the men and boys who lost their lives in the Main Pit disaster in 1815.

We had one job today and that was to remove the growth at the bottom of the sycamore trees to keep them the traditional tree shape and not spread out at the bottom. We soon got to work tackling this with loppers and bow saws.

Like usual we stopped half way through for a coffee/tea break, with a great selection of biscuits and some interesting chat about the effort of moving house, house prices and goths increasing the cost of staying in Whitby.

After the break we continued tidying up trees and then helped to get all the felled branches into the back of the Urban Green pickup trucks to be removed.

We are back in 3 weeks time at Iris Brickfield park if you want to get involved with helping Urban Green keeping Newcastle parks going their best.