Tonight's bumper turnout came with its own challenges as Ed turned from run leader to shepherd in order to keep things going as smoothly as you've come to expect from Monday night group run. With newcomer Nathan yet to appear we were stuck celebrating Chris's brunch at the weekend, before Charlotte saved the day with something actually worth applauding having climbed a particularly difficult climb! But just in the nick of time Nathan arrived and received a warm welcome, before we set off. Give him a big cheer 🎉

Laura set off first with a walking group, before Ed led out the run with Amy backmarking. After a short run out we met taskowner Maeve on New Walk and split the group into 2 with Pete leading the breakaway team to Millennium Fields (more from him later).

At New Walk the team got to work, armed with scythes and spades, removing the docks to make way for less invasive species. James S, Katy, Martin and Kit made light work of the big clump of docks with some epic scything, whilst the rest of the team got stuck in digging up the roots and getting them into sacks ready to be moved down to Millennium fields to meet the others later on.

We picked up a few extra bodies as Pete's crew completed their job, which made for a mad flurry of activity towards the end before we started the short walk down to meet the other group. This is what they had been up to...

After dropping the scythers and dandelion pullers off a group of 10 were led by Pete to Millennium Fields, a place of many a task. After finding the hidden stash of tools it was not hard to find the big pile of woodchip. Getting stuck in we soon realised that one barrow was not enough and while some managed to cup some in their hands Charlotte did a quick dash to her allotment for an extra spade and a very big drag bag. That allowed us to very quickly shovel, rake and stamp the path until the pile had miraculous disappeared. Nice to see Holly return after joining us for her first task in Jan and proceedings were scrutinised throughout by the part carbon fibre, part hero that is Vicky. Soon after we were joined by Ed's crew for fitness fun.

Fitness tonight involved trying to keep a "pizza" on your hand whilst running around and being chased. All perfectly normal stuff and not in the least bit confusing for onlookers from Millennium bridge!

Friday fun club assembled at Rowntree Park to help Stuart with a few tasks on his list. The main task was moving some more (and quite large) sedge plants and replanting them near the edge of the pond alongside those previously relocated by GG on an earlier task.
Elle and Jenna were tasked with moving some logs across to the store whilst myself and Lyndsey moved some empty plant pots in the garden behind the café (and rehomed a frog in the process).

Once the pots had been successfully moved we joined the sedge team and finished off the last couple of holes and helped get the largest sedge plant dug in.

Stuart has more tasks for us to do so we may be back again next Friday!

Tonight we were back at the Arts Barge to help them do some jobs to get the barge ready for spring.

We had one group working on the boat doing a bit of problem solving sawing up rectangles of polystyrene to fit the inside of the boat for insulation.

The rest of the gang were tasked with tidying up on land. Michael, Jane and Nick were quick to volunteer to build a fire yo burn unwanted wood. Kit and Ben took it in turns to power wash the stones with a very big hose! Everyone else used various tools to weed between the cobbles.

We finished with a group pic then headed off to Tower Gardens for a Jenna speciality fitness. This involved moving around then getting in different sized groups to make a human sculpture! GG imagination at its best - we had a beehive, a barge, a snail, normal and sophisticated!

It was then back to base and off to the pub for some!