We were asked following a very successful stint last year to provide volunteers to cover a fundraising day for Marie Curie at Byker Morrisons. They needed six people throughout the day so naturally we provided nine!

As you can see the group looked eye catching in trademark Marie Curie hats and no doubt raised loads of money to support Marie Curie in the outstanding work they do.

We can't wait to hear how much was raised today.

Well maybe not quite summer but it was a beautiful morning for a GoodGym task in such a lovely corner of the city. Pre-pandemic Newcastle GoodGymers will, I’m sure, have fond memories of running up Westgate Road on Monday evenings to Changing Lives tasks, and even fonder memories of running back down. We often ducked along a lane into a park for a game of dishes and domes on the way down, and it’s at the back of that park that Summerhill Trust is based. Task owner Dan gave us a tour of the area before we got to work, showing us the bowling greens, the orchard and the allotments. There’s also the pavilion which is available to hire for events - check out the website if you’re looking for a venue - it looks fab and proceeds from events help to keep the garden spaces going.

Dan then took us into the wildlife garden where the task was located. Regular volunteers/residents Rita and Paul were already hard at work so Lucy, Suze, Krishti, Bryony and I got straight to work too. Footpaths wind around the garden, consisting of liners with variable amounts of mulch at various degrees of decomposition on top. Our task today was to remove the top layers, saving the stuff that was good enough to re-use and scattering the more decomposed material as compost onto the flower beds. We spread out across the garden and made quite a difference, only stopping briefly to take advantage of the Jaffa Cakes that Dan supplied!

There is new mulch ready to be distributed on the paths which came from the combination of a Christmas tree amnesty and a wood chipper! Sadly we didn’t have time to lay the new liners and scatter the new mulch but it’ll be an easy task for the Summerhill volunteers who work in the garden every Sunday. Dan assured me he’ll send photos when it’s done! In the meantime, you can get a sense of the space and the before and after paths in the photos.

We caught glimpses of the wildlife - a pretty robin supervised our efforts and I’m afraid to admit that one or two of the many juicy worms we uncovered might not have avoided my spade! Some of us were more keen to interact with the worms than others! The two ponds are due to be full of frog spawn in a couple of weeks and apparently the frogs then hide in the wood chip piles to keep warm! I’m sure I spotted insect houses and the garden will clearly be a riot of colour in the spring and summer. Yet another example of GoodGym revealing unknown treasures of the city!

Wow! What a busy morning at our big beginners session with Ouseburn Trust. We welcomed FOUR new GoodGymers to our Saturday bonanza and the sun came out too- eventually!

I did a quick round up and hello to Oliver, Briony, Sam and Suze who joined us for their first good deed before heading off to meet Dave and Dale from Ouseburn Trust. The sun came out as we were given our jobs: path clearing and litter picking around the network of paths around Ouseburn.

It was a real workout today and I bet there will be some aching arms tomorrow as we scraped and cleared the paths and cobbles to make them safe and accessible for the many users who pass through every day. The local humans and animals popped by as you can see from the photos!

Wrapping up the session we finished with a three station fitness session and I treated everyone to my annoying bleepy timer for the running, tricep dipping and star jumping. You are welcome! What a huge effort from everyone today.

There is no Monday session this week but we are back with a brilliant new Community Mission at Summerhill Park next Sunday. See you then!