How many GoodGymers does it take to dig a shallow grave?

The answer is 14! 14 Goodgymers met at Braywick nature reserve for what Sara called our 'stag night', since our task was to create a suitable haven for the local stag beetles.

A very warm welcome to Tessa, Sandra, Rakta, Karen and Jane, who all joined us for the first time this evening. Great to meet you all! Well done to Juli for inviting most of our newbies along and for leading the runners whilst Amy is injured.

After a quick 'musical chairs style' warm up, the runners set off on their 1.5km run out, whilst the walkers took the wheelbarrows and spades to task location about 700m away. Then we deciphered Ranger Tom's excellent map and instructions and 8 members got busy shifting logs to the marked area while the other 6 members set about digging a perfect grave sized rectangle to bury said logs

You wooden believe it but it turfs out that digging the perfect rectangle was not as easy as it seems and it’s safe to say that none of the members have a career in grave digging, however we weren’t stumped for long. We took turns digging and running or walking a 300m 'track' Area Activator Amy had created, and with many hands plus Georgeta's super (worm) strength a more irregular hole was indeed created.

We piled the logs back in tetris-style, heaped the soil back on top and proudly created the perfect environment for the summer stag beetles. Inspired by some other Beatles, Gillian declared it 'A Hard Day's Night', but also very satisfying!

Then it was time to head back to the Nature Centre for stretches and to see everyone off safely.

The GoodGym January challenge is now in full swing and our area has a target to complete over 250 good deeds - our biggest month yet! We are also competing against the 58 other GoodGym areas and we would love to hang onto our silver medal position from last year. Help us smash our target by signing up for another session soon. All the listings can be found by clicking here.