This week's Group Run (and cycle for Dani) took us to the 61 Football Club and we had Zoe back for a second time and even better, she brought Yiannis along for his first time. It's great to have you both getting involved!

On arrival at the club it was painting time, getting some blue on the walls in the main changing room and the referees changing room also got a lick of fresh white paint.

We took ten minutes at the end for a round of shuttle runs and random exercises from the fitness dice which turned out to be a decent selection of core-toning with a few squats too, a shuttle run to shake out in between each one.

Finally the return run back into town as darkness fell, reminding us that it will soon be time for headtorches again!

Had a good time with David while we trim the flowers, and clean the environment, and Mrs R. is also a funny woman. I’m glad I could help with the little I could .

This week's Group Run was a collab with Matt from the Wildlife Trust and Sophie from the Friends of Dallow Downs all coming together to target the woody area at the bottom of the hill and orchard area for a lot of litterpicking and some bramble clearing from the orchard trees and even a small patch of goldenrod was pulled up to keep the area clean and clear for the wildlife.

We had a mix of people running, cycling and simply meeting us at the task as we welcomed Labiba to her first official GoodGym session and enjoyed the return of Niamh for her second. Amazing to have these two on-board!

After months of heatwaves, it was a slightly cooler evening that made for a pleasant run out and comfortable tasking conditions. We collected 23 bags of rubbish plus some assorted large items, a metal mattress frame and a complete badger skull that demonstrated the importance of keeping this area clean and green for our furry foragers! 🦡 🦔

It was the final task of a series trying to clear all the invasive Himalayan Balsam plants from the Lewsey Brook, one of the tributaries of the River Lea. Teaming up with Jen from TCV and some of Luton's regular conservation volunteers.

It was also the first task for Niamh joining us after seeing the session on Facebook and Petros returning for his second session.

With the continued drought conditions the brook was bone dry so we were able to climb in without getting wet and hunt for the balsam plants. They got pulled up, roots snapped off and left to dry out on the brook side. This section of the brook was thankfully quite light on the balsam so we got it all done in a couple of hours and was able to collect lots of litter as well and take a walk back upstream to double-check the areas we'd done in previous weeks.

This session completed the length of the brook, a whole kilometer! We'll see what pops up next year but we've prevented loads of new seeds from being laid so hopefully there will substantially less to do next year!