Super fun yet long day volunteering as part of the GRIT Studios and The Coping CIC Move a Mile event in Stockport.

Initially helped set up some of gazebos and silent disco, before setting near the bus station with the bubble lady, some live music, and preparing for the skate race and flash mob.

Lots of smiling faces and families enjoying the activities as I helped with directions, maps, and general help.

At the end of the day, I helped lug speakers and gazebos back to their storage spot. Great to see so many people!

Saturday September scorcher with bright blue skies and sunshine welcoming Fanette and Ben to Albermarle Allotments for their community allotment muck-in.

🪵 Fanette was on wood chip delivery duty with 5 or 6 barrow runs to cover some of the ground around the new shed base, with some help from the local cats 🐈‍⬛️. The new shed is due to be put together later next week.

🍎 Meanwhile Ben was picking up windfall apples from the community orchard before a thorough strim and cut of the overgrown grass. There was time for filling up a bed with manure and compost to cover for the winter too.

Good cake and coffee as usual ☕️🍰

Hamza went along to help Withington Civic Society with a village litter pick. Plenty of bags collected!

Nice power hour with the neighbourhood group in Northern Quarter, known as Smithfield Garden Club 🌱

We tackled a nearby set of beds where rubbish and weeds had taken over a bit. With gloves, rakes, a handy leaf blower, and lots of bags, we managed to collate the debris into piles, doing well not to get too badly stung by the nettles.

We managed to weed around the cars and along the perimeter too, resulting in 8 sacks of mixed rubbish and leaves to be reported for collection.

Nice small local group, with a few regular people plus new faces.

Great to meet Hamza for your first GoodGym Manchester session 👏

This evening, we met up outside the Whitworth Art Gallery for a light jog towards Longsight - the 422 Community Hub - with a rucksack full of food donations to give to their community pantry. This included UHT milk 🥛 tins of beans 🫘 tinned fish 🐟 tinned meat 🍖 rice pudding, coffee ☕️ and tinned fruit.

After passing onto reception, we used a couple of the litter pickers from the CleanUp UK box to do a litterpick of the surrounding streets. After a loop of the building, we headed down Birch Lane, only to discover a fly tipping litter grotspot that took most of our attention. We collected 8 refuse sacks plus 2 sacks containing 18 laughing gas canisters! 🚮

All rubbish was collated and reported to the council and Keep MCR Tidy for collection.