How did we manage it? The Pace of Spades!

On a crisp autumnal evening, 11 GoodGym volunteers ran to a community garden managed by Bath Organic Group. We picked apples and made a new bark path ahead of their AGM/Open Day at the weekend. We ran a total of 4km through Royal Victoria Park and through the streets of beautiful Bath.

Well done to Joe and Emma for their runs at the weekend!

We met at our usual starting point at the Leisure Centre. There was a big shout out to two of our runners in particular, Emma and Joe, who braved the rainy weather on Sunday to run the Bristol Half marathon! Well done to the both of you! Alongside the headcount this week we all shared our favourite actors/actresses with the group. This was surprisingly challenging to do on the spot and there were calls for the topic to be released ahead of time so people can prepare!

After a warm-up to get our bodies prepared for the run and the task ahead, we got on our way. We made good time and were welcomed by our hosts, Kate and Tim, at the entrance to the allotments by the play area in Victoria Park.

Kate and Tim shared some background on Bath Organic Group. It is a community garden where absolutely anyone is welcome to turn up and get involved in some gardening and sample their fantastic produce. They have a small apple orchard which they use to press fresh apple juice. They then led us on a tour of the grounds to show us what we would be doing that evening.

A woodchip off the old block

Part of our task tonight was creating a new bark path through the orchard and around their main shed. This was to make the path clearer and safer for people visiting over the coming weeks.

Like a classic GoodGym task, we had a superb production line in operation!

Wood you believe it

Emily worked hard all evening using her spade to shovel the wood chips from a big pile into wheelbarrows. Joe, Sam P, Allie and Steve were busy zooming around the allotments delivering their barrows to the next part of the path. Interestingly, each of them had a completely different technique for dumping the bark onto the ground. Some were more efficient than others and some were had more artistic flair than others.

All bark and no bite

As the bark was delivered, Tim and Sam O created the shape of the path using their rakes. They smoothed and distributed the bark evenly to make a natural-looking path that complemented the shape of the land.

The apple of my pie

Alongside all of this, Emma, Kiran, Nicola and Pascale did a super job picking lots of baskets of apples. Although there were lots on the floor available for picking, the challenge was only selecting the juiciest and healthiest apples. This was a great achievement as Kate and Tim are going to have their guests at the AGM pressing these apples to make fresh apple juice.

At the end of the task we all gathered around their main shed and shared some fantastic freshly pressed apple juice and some homemade cake. This was a much-needed reward and sugar-boost after all our hard work that evening! We were all able to enjoy a gorgeous blood-orange sunset as we munched on our cake.

Kate and Tim were incredibly impressed by the sheer volume of work that we got done ... and all with big smiles on our faces! We hope to go back and visit them again soon.

Bath Organic Group meet every Tuesday 10am-1pm and every Saturday 10am-1pm. Their AGM is this Saturday, so please drop by and find out more about the work they do there!

Thanks to Pascale for volunteering to backmark for us on the way there and for the return journey. Thanks also to Joe for the pun this week!

Social Media

Thanks to Emily for rekindling our social media presence over the past week. Please like/follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We have already had organisations approach us through these media and arranged tasks with them, so the more likes/re-tweets we get the better!

Coming up soon

• Next week we are running to the Community Garden at Donkey Lane to help them maintain their community garden. One of the last gardening tasks of the year - so make sure you come along!
• We have a Community Mission on Sunday 7th October at Prior Park Landscape Garden. Not one to miss!