There’s a Floor in the Plans

On a boiling hot bank holiday Monday, 31 fabulous runners and walkers braved the heat to do some good!

We were joined by newbies Charlie and Denise. Charlie is the third member of the Drury family to come along and get involved in GoodGym, whilst Denise is a local councillor with a keen interest in one of tonight's tasks.

Tim and Leanne were leading the longer run out to New Earswick Bowls Club where our task was to lift up the summer sports floors; a series of large plywood boards.

Carl was coordinating our other task which was a pilot project for 'bench marking' as part of theAge Friendly York initiative. The end goal is to create a map to show where all the benches in the city are so that people know where they'll be able to sit when they venture out.

We divided up into five groups of walkers and runners, and took on five zones within Guildhall Ward to log all the benches. I set each team a bonus challenge to complete exercises on every bench, which some teams took more seriously than others.

There were a lot of queries around what is a bench versus just something that is possible to sit on.

That's not a bench, that's an anti-terrorism device

Mel and Ellie managed to find a lovely little pirate ship which also was not a bench, but they enjoyed sitting on it nonetheless. Speaking of pirates, they also came across Gary (not a very piratey name) who involved them in some re-enactment scenarios on benches around the bar walls.

Laura's team found lots of bank holiday revellers sitting on the benches they were logging, and having a generally marvelous time.

We're Good Gin! Take our picture!

There were some excellent bench exercises with step ups, tricep dips, leg raises, side planks and extreme planking by Becky Mo, but anyone who got back early got the 'white line workout' which involved lots of jumping, balancing and hopping too.

Most teams relayed that there were not enough benches for people to sit on, with some teams finding only 2 or 3 benches in their whole area. Becky and Lindsay, however, seemed to hit the jackpot.

We found 57 benches!

I declare them the winners. But I think Mel, Ellie and Debs win the photo comp.

Tim's team were onto a winner as the Bowls Club has air conditioning and the team there had cold water ready for them.

After working out how to best incorporate jumping into the task, they got to work loading the boards onto two trolleys and unloading the boards into a container for storage.

There was lots of enthusiastic trolley driving from Katie and Charlie, mainly so they could get back inside and enjoy the aircon for a bit!

Work started to slow as space got restricted in the container But we got all the other boards piled up and ready for transport.

"Seven!" Mike overstating how many boards he could carry.

Next week, Leanne is the boss for a lovely task at Fishponds Wood and we'll announce GG Yorkie of the Month for August. Don't miss it!