Despite the slightly lower numbers for tonight's group run we had lots to celebrate. First we welcomed Emily to her first Goodgym session, despite her only arriving in York a week ago. We celebrated Abigail and Claire both achieving 200 good deeds. We celebrated Rebecca being crowned August's Goodgymer of the month, having completed lots of Goodgym tasks in her first few months since joining, including some Goodgym tourism. We also congratulated Emma on completing the Vale of York half marathon and Liv and Mia on completing the Great North Run. (We also thought there may also have been a few other York Goodgymers doing a race at the weekend and having a few drinks along the way.) Finally we celebrated World Ampersand Day by going round and naming our favourite food and drink pairings worthy of the & symbol. After all the congratulations we headed to the task at Holgate Community Garden. We did two main jobs, cutting a circle of grass and weeds away around the trees and tidying the beds nearest the road. Abigail, Leanne and Jenna joined in once they had finished staging a teddy birth for Abigail. As her due date is in three days we were hoping that we didn't have a real birth to contend with. Claire and Laura Bennett went down to the Holgate Allotments and brought back two barrows of bark chip for putting on top of the soil circles around the trees. Imran and Jenna did a great job clearing all the brambles on the beds. We managed to complete both tasks before doing some training related fitness, including squats while we were stopped for leaves on the line, lunges for shovelling coal, creating tunnel arches for the other team's train to go through and then finishing with all aboard the train for a photo and some delicious chocolate and courgette cake from Claire before running back to base.

Another bumper turnout for a mammoth task! Tonight we headed to West Offices all of 450 metres away! After naming and numbering off and discussing past injuries Ed took a slightly longer route whilst Vicky led a short run group and Abigail led some walkers.

When we arrived Ian met us armed with maps and a long list of jobs. There was deadheading to do, planters to weed and large areas to clear. Ian said he had lots of bags for us to fill but in true gg style these didn't last long so we had to make a big heap against the wall!

By 7.30 we'd make huge progress so stopped for a game of musical cones. There was some fierce competition but Lyndsay finally took the crown!

Thanks team for another productive evening!

Another bumper turnout tonight to help rake grass at Millennium fields.

We started by naming and numbering off, welcoming new members back again, and saying a big warm welcome to Lionel who has returned after a break.

Mitch led the group out with Abigail, James and Abi leading a walking group.

When we arrived we were given several jobs - rake up the grass, pile it into bags or onto tarps, drag to the compost and make some sort of compost/grass lasagne. A select few also had a go at sything!

We managed to clear all the grass in the time and finished off with a quick game of whistleblower.

It was then back to base when a group then headed off for some well earned liquid refreshment!

With less than an hour to go before the start of tonight's session the rain was still absolutely hammering it down, but the clouds parted and the sun shone on the 21 GG Yorkies who ignored the threat of rain and turned up to help support their local community. Phenomenal stuff!

We started tonight's session by giving a big round of applause to Steve who was attending his frist session since completing the Race to the Stones 100km ultra-marathon. What an incredible achievement. Make sure you give him some big cheers. We then numbered off by naming our favourite junk food courtesy of National Junk Food Day (only in the US, obviously!). As expected our group of runners like their sweet treats including toblerone, cake and chocolates. Amy then led our a walking group making the short journey to the task, whilst Ed led the running group, backmarked by Vicky

Tonight's task was at the Arts Barge. A floating venue and exhibition space which has been a big part of the York arts scene for a fair few years now, but only something that we've recently got involved in having completed a couple of community missions there earlier in the year. At the task we were greeted by Hannah from the Arts Barge team who explained gave us the various nautical names of the parts of the barge that we would be sanding. One was definitely the Gunwale/Gunnel =, but i've completely forgotten the rest! Then we got to work armed with wire brushes, scrapers and sanding blocks and got rid of as much of the flaky paint and dust we could

Whilst the majority of the crew cracked on with the sanding, a few people stayed on dry land and tackled some of the weeds that had re-emerged on the moorings since we last visited. Unfortunately we didn't quite have the array of tools that we had last time, so the guys made do with a broom, a hoe and their hands in order to dig out as many weeds as possible

Despite a few dicey moments, everyone did a remarkable job of not falling into the water and the only distractions were a few cygnets who wondered what all the fuss was, and Cara's half-joking threat of doing a balancing act along the mooring line

After packing our tools away and getting a cracking group photo on the deck, it was then over to Amy for tonight's nautical themed fitness session! We headed round the corner to St George's Field car park and boarded our imaginary boat across 3 vacant coach parking spaces. Amy then proceeded to call out boating terms such as 'Port', 'Stern' and 'Climb the rigging' with each having an appropriate exercise attached. After a few trial rounds it soon became an elimination event with the last person to perform each exercise dropping out each time. Micheal and Issy proving to be tonight's Sea Dogs being the last 2 standing!

We then headed back to port (CVS) with the walking group growing considerably after Ed mentioned taking a slightly longer route back for the run!