Welcome to Jodie, Julia, and Wojciech for your first GoodGym session!!

Today we were at Gorse Hill Studios community allotment, otherwise known as "Da Ruff Patch", to give the area a thorough weeding and clear up for others to use it and for growing the wide range of food already there.

Julia and Wojciech did a sterling job in the polytunnel, clearing out all the bindweed along one side and weeding around the tomatoes, beans, and basil (although one is now in a separate pot...) to leave it looking almost unrecognisable. After a long spell of warm weather the plants had taken off, with some growing toward the roof! A few frogs and caterpillars were found, photographed, and rehomed.

Jodie and Fanette concentrated on some of the raised beds to give the beans, carrots, kale, and salad some breathing space from the relentless bindweed, while Sanjeev took on the bindweed on the fence and many of the weeds along the border closer to the allotment entrance. Peter and Ben hacked away at whatever shouldn't be there, including lots of discarded metal and wood, lots of brambles, horsetail, bindweed, and sticky weed to free up the back corner while preserving the growing pumpkin and/or watermelon.

Very productive session with many hands making light work and lots of therapeutic and mindful weeding for the super seven. Time flew by and looking forward to being back again over the summer!

Another Manchester park ticked off the bucket list this evening with a litter pick in Heaton Park today! While much of the UK was baking, we had a nice evening with a gentle breeze for a nice stroll in the park while clearing up any dropped litter and discarded waste.

The magnificent seven: Peter, Gaynor, Fanette, Scott, Victor, Esteban, and Ben donned their gloves (some were leftover lab gloves admittedly) with a few litter pickers and bag rings to share around to scour the park following Parklife over the weekend.

While we had a map showing litter hotspots, the park was surprisingly clear, albeit we couldn't access the Papal Fields with the Parklife hoardings still up, but we still filled a grand total of 13 litter sacks with a couple of laughing gas cannisters. We met Steve from Prestwich Pickers too, also out for a stroll and a litter pick, and made friends with some members of local wildlife, including Highland cows, rabbits, squirrels, plus a few birds. Lots of thanks from those in the park (including a few cyclists and a running group).

We'll be back in a few weeks for some balsam bashing (there was plenty of that around...) so sign up if you'd like to go back for some more active volunteering in Heaton Park.

Plenty of digging and lifting this evening for Esteban, Sanjeev, and Ben!

Katie from Gorse Hill Studios was looking for some help sprucing up the Gorse Hill Studios garden, with plenty of plants getting delivered soon and events coming up over the summer.

After the 4.5 km jog from the city centre along the canal, our first task was to unload one of the bags of compost that we prepared last year and to construct a mound of soil. Lots of the plastic matting was removed but the heavy lifting didn't end there.

Next up was to replant some of the trees that had been planted last year after getting dug out during the fence construction around the outside. With more digging over of a patch ready for planting of the incoming plants, we weeded what we could. The plastic matting, broken bench, deadwood, and other bits of rubbish were carried around to the skip, with the bags of fresh compost carried around to the front for people to use this week.

Lots of jobs and Katie seemed very happy with the day's work, not just from us but also from other volunteers at the Studios. Looking forward to seeing the end product in a week or two!

Great effort on the jog to the task and back this evening! Super effort!

Welcome to Esteban for your first GoodGym session! 👏

This evening was a Manchester Post delivery around a residential area in Longsight. After the morning rain, we were both very thankful for blue skies and sunshine in the evening for a stroll, criss-crossing the streets in between deliveries.

300 newspapers containing local news and community events, with some residents very happy to receive some good news media! In just 75-80 minutes, we managed to deliver them all, discussing jobs, volunteering, GoodGym, running clubs, and other topics in between.

Next week we have a litter pick planned meeting in the city centre for a gentle run out to Ardwick or Hulme where known litter grot-spots exist.

Day out for Scott, Ben, and Juno at the Manchester Volunteer Fair in St Ann's Square in the city centre.

Lots of conversations and connections with those looking to get involved, making links to community organisations, and giving GoodGym a thorough introduction to the people of Manchester.

Juno earned her grub by bringing in people with her natural charm, while t-shirts, photos, posters, and flyers giving us a way to show how much GoodGym groups can help out to local groups and to overcome social isolation often becoming an issue across many demographics.

Looking forward to following up on a few new potential tasks and activities, and good to see Sam and Sanjeev briefly during the day.

With Deansgate having transformed since the Great Manchester Run yesterday, Derek (first session with the GoodGym t-shirt 👏), Peter, and Ben met up to run the 4-5 km along the Bridgewater Canal towards Old Trafford and Gorse Hill.

After meeting Katie at Gorse Hill Studios with the key, we headed down to the community allotment to tackle any weeds and look after some of the beds.

While Peter and Katie had a handle on what was planted where and helped maintain or thin out some of the beds, including the boom of carrots 🥕 and beans 🫘, Derek and Ben took short shrift to the weeds 🌱

Lots of horse tail, grasses, bindweed, and sticky weed removed, freeing up some of the fruit trees 🌳 and clearing the paths and entry ways in the allotment. The potatoes 🥔 are growing well, with lots of lettuce, salad, and more beans growing, with tomatoes 🍅 and chilli 🌶 growing inside the polytunnel.

It's always amazing how much gets done, and how time flies, when working on the plot, with a final watering giving the finishing touch to a productive session.

We'll be back intermittently throughout the summer so watch this space 💪