Ben Godfrey

In common with many charities 2021 has been a tough year for Kirkwood Hospice. With all of their usual fundraising events being cancelled and so much of their regular income drying up practically overnight, funding sources are under greater pressure than ever. That’s why Kirkwood Hospice are determined to make this year’s Christmas tree collection the biggest yet, and to help make this happen they need GoodGym to assist!

Their target is to collect and recycle collect over 2000 trees, but before they can do this they need to get the word out about the scheme, and this is where GoodGym can help. We'll be posting hundreds of promotional leaflets in local letterboxes to let people know how they can get their trees recycled following the festive period and raise money for our local hospice into the bargain.

So bring your wooden spoons and spatulas for opening letterboxes and plenty of energy for running between the houses as we deliver. As usual we'll be running form the Stadium at 6:30pm, or you can meet us outside the Spinks Nest pub in Birkby at 7pm if you prefer. We'll be delivering the leaflets in the Birkby and Edgerton areas.

Forget Me Not Hospice have plenty of leaflets which need delivering and GoodGym have a number of keen runners eager to post them through local letterboxes- a perfect match! I'm not sure exactly where we'll be running yet, but expect to cover 5-8K in total (including deliveries) around the Huddersfield area.

As ever we'll play nice, no one gets left behind and we have a fun time both doing the task and running. There's free parking and changing facilities at the Stadium Health & Fitness Club should you require them.

Why not sign up now? It would be great to have you are part of the team for this task!

If you're not from Yorkshire you may never have heard of a ginnel, I certainly hadn't before I came to live in Kirklees. However the people of Golcar know ginnels, as they have loads of these little narrow alleyways throughout the village. In fact Golcar is so famous for ginnels there is even a dedicated and marked Ginnel Trail for local people and tourists use on a daily basis.

However some Golcar's ginnels on the trail are currently becoming a little overgrown with weeds, making them unsightly and challenging for some users. As a result GoodGym is joining forces with the Golcar Environment Group for a morning of intensive ginnel clearance. Focussing on one of the most overgrown examples we'll don our gardening gloves and blitz the weeds leaving the ginnel tidier and safer for future users.

If you are able to, please walk, run or cycle to this Community Mission.

Plogging is a combination of the Swedish term "plocka up" (to pick up) and the "jogga" (jog). So plogging is exactly what GoodGym will be doing on Tuesday evening this week. Armed with litter pickers and hoops we'll set forth from the Stadium at 6:30pm to jogga and plocka any rubbish as and where we find it.

There's plenty of litter to plocka so we'll not be running far or fast, I imagine we'll probably cover no more than about 5K in total with lots of stops to remove refuse.

Healthy Hearts Women's Wellbeing CIC have asked GoodGym to give them a hand with their community allotment. They are in the process of moving from one allotment to another, so there will be plenty to do to ensure the old site is left tidy and the new one is set up for the group's gardeners can get growing again as soon as possible.

If you are able to give a little time and energy then task grab your gardening gloves to help GoodGym to get doing a top job for Health Hearts Women's Wellbeing CIC. Please note male GoodGymmers are more than welcome to join in with this task.