The day dawned bright and sunny with not a cloud in the sky - or so it must have done outside Mitch’s window seeing as he cycled the the mission in his less than waterproof jeans. In fact, the weather was very soggy and had the rest of us wishing we had worn more clothes, waterproof socks and with a tinge of jealousy over Vicky’s umbrella (Mitch take note).

However, this did not put off 24 Yorkies who braved the rain, not to mention the large number of Junior parkrunners. Organised by GGer Michael, who was also the run director, we were given our roles and offered plenty of encouraging words to the runners as they passed.

Big shout out to Lizzie on braving the conditions and in doing so notching up an incredible 200 good deeds. Standing at the turnaround point next to a big puddle did mean getting a splash every time a runner went pass but given the conditions this hardly seemed to matter.

At the end of the task it would prove a while before getting warm and dry as most of the team were still out and about either on the next task of the day or supporting and running the infamous Brass Monkey - congrats to all for braving the conditions including Michael who seemed relieved parkrun finished just in time for him to sprint to the over in time for the start

Twelve of the Goodest Gymers of York gave up on a lie on on the first Sunday of the year to spend it encouraging the next generation of runners!

Leanne did numbertokenintostickymittpositioning

Babs did barcodebeeping

Craig did wouldntscansohadbetterwriteitalldownonaclipboardthening

Hugh, Nikki, Angela and Hannah did standinginthecoldhighfivingandcheering

Michael did trottingalongatthebacktomakesurenoonegotlosting

Paul and Rowena did littlerunnerwrangling

Nick did clickywatchbeeping

And Adi did a passable impression of a run director

Hannah and Paul were so Goodgym they didn't even have time to stop helping tidy up for the group photo although we did sneak a special photo of Paul to help compensate.

if you have never volunteered at a junior parkrun then you're missing out on one of the best ways to start your Sunday so check out the volunteer roster for future weeks - its great fun!

https://www.parkrun.org.uk/knavesmire-juniors/futureroster/

35 GG Yorkies saw in December with two massive tasks!

We welcomed along two brand new runners to the gang, your best cheers please for Vix and Evan especially because they joined us on a very chilly night.

Mitch led the majority of the group off to a lovely indoor task at Fishergate School, where everyone was tasked with wrapping HUNDREDS of presents for the school's Christmas shop, where the kids can buy small gifts for their families.

There were matchmakers and chocolate oranges which were easy and rectangular, then the slightly more complex triangular lip balms and much more difficult cylindrical pots of slime!

Mitch did have a go at wrapping but as you can see from the picture of his efforts, he was better just staying in charge and making sure nobody was going rogue with the scissors or getting paper cuts.

The remaining small but hardcore group ran with me over to the Groves where Jane of the Secret Garden had asked us to move "about 50 big stones".

The short version of this story is that a local man spotted some excellent large rocks which had been excavated from a local building site. Some of the stones are carved and almost certainly have some sort of historical significance but we don't know what.

With permission, and an electric milk float, they took all the stones with the idea that they could use them to build a rockery in the Secret Garden (a local community space) and stored them in his front garden, where they've been for months.

The rockery can't be built until spring so this task was to shift all the rocks to the shared garage for winter storage.

It was a bit like a strongman Atlas Stones challenge as the awkwardly shaped stones challenged everyone, with only the biggest ones going in the single, rickety wheelbarrow.

This is a proper task! Max

Max was very happy to be lifting heavy rocks and there was some rock jigsaw solving going on that a drystone waller would have been proud of.

30 minutes down and the last, enormous rock was placed in the garage. We estimated that there were in fact about 150 rocks. Slightly more than anticipated.

With our task complete we ran to see if we could help with any last minute present wrapping. It was an absolute hive of activity when we arrived and there was some seriously high quality wrapping happening. The rock gang mostly focused on recycling cardboard and being countdown timers whilst the wrappers finished up.

There were hundreds of gifts to wrap, it felt like an impossible job to do in the allocated time. The GoodGymers were amazing; they came in, cracked on, laughed and did the lot right until the very last minute. What absolute stars. I imagine they are sick of the sight of matchmakers! - Friends of Fishergate School

Amazing work with all the good tonight everyone. There are LOADS of community missions coming up in the next week so check out the listings and get involved.