A change of tasks saw us head the shorter distance to one of our regular haunts, at New Walk, rather than making the more epic journey to Fulford Green, but we more than made it up for it with our fitness exploits (more on that later).

Tonight we welcomed newcomer Anne Mair who was joining us for the first time as part of a volunteering challenge that she'd set herself. Great to have you with us in 🥳

We also gave a round of applause to the absent Stef and James who had completed the Malta half and the Drop Harrogate respectively. What a fab effort and from them both 💪.

We then numbered off by stating our favourite birds in honour of the anniversary of the US military retiring their last working pigeon on this in 1952. We had everything from Seagulls to Robins, but only when they're perched on top of snow!

It was then off to the New Walk with Babs leading a large walking group, Ed leading run and Pete backmarking. We also had Rich join us on his bike along the way.

At the task we were greeted by Maeve who was armed with scythes, rakes, forks and spades and set us off removing the docks so that other species could prosper. Although, not before Kit had spotted the perfect opportunity to recreate a famous scene from Titanic, with a little help from David (aka Leonardo DiCaprio).

The crew made light work of the task and needed little instruction as the docks were flying left right and centre. This gave Ed a chance to go and check out the course for the fitness session, leaving Leanne briefly in charge, who ensured that everyone was having a much better time without him!

With the bags of docks and weeds filling up, a team of runners were needed to shift them quite a distance further down the path. Unfortunately this meant a little bit of a wait for them to get back once the task had finished, but we duly filled the time with some birthday squats for Claire, who had celebrated her birthday over the weekend 🎉

And then, after a quick group photo, it was time for the fitness session which featured varying lengths of a hill rep depending on which card you drew from Ed's pack. Hearts for the 1st lamp post, diamonds for the 2nd and so on. No surprises that Matt's team ending up winning by completing the most reps, although there may have been a little bit of manipulation of the cards!

It was then back to base with a quick stretch and a pint for those in need of liquid refreshment

Eight of us went to help Brunswick Organic Nursery in the beautiful Archbishops Walled Garden in Bishopthorpe. Special shout out goes to Claire who came back early from holiday to spend two hours of her 60th birthday digging. Also to Leanne and James who had already done volunteering and litter picking at YoCoWo parkrun beforehand. Our task was to dig out and level an area of ground outside their woodwork polytunnel. We levelled the ground to 4 inches below the edge ready for hardcore which was going to be tampered down to create a hard standing area for the woodwork group to use in the summer. The leftover spoil was barrowed onto the nearby beds. We dug deeper where the soil was good and refilled with the stony edge soil. As it was a longer tasks we had a tea and cake break in the middle and enjoyed some delicious Brunswick home baked cake. Claire had the additional birthday treat of seeing a kingfisher in the larger garden when we went through to look.

Tonight was a perfect GG York task with absolutely zero skill required, just hard graft and the ability to break stuff! But before we got stuck in to the session we celebrated the previous week's happenings with J, PK and Leanne having completed a via ferrarta course and a couple of p.1's at parkrun for Matt and Ed (not that it's a race, of course!)

So off to the task, with Vicky and Babs being our biker gang, Laura leading a steady group and Ed leading the main group with Amy backmarking.

A very enthusiastic welcome greeted us at Glen Allotments and some excellent instructions which basically boiled down to "move stuff from here and chuck it in the skip. Oh, and here's a hammer if you want to bash it up a bit"! There was also the promise of some baked goods at the end, (but only if they'd earned it - Ed)

We soon got into the swing of things with a one group staying in the allotment and handing stuff to our runners and then brining it over to Mitch and Michael who were on skip organising and smashing duties. There were all sorts of methods for breaking the items down including chucking it on the floor, kicking it, bashing it with other stuff and eventually making use of the aforementioned hammer 🔨

Before long the skip was full and the allotment plot was looking a whole lot clearer, even if there was still a bit left over that we couldn't fit into the skip. Still definitely worthy of some cake, but only after fitness....

This week, the group were organised into 4 teams with members of each team coming up to collect a card from Ed which corresponded to a particular exercise. The team that completed the most exercises and therefore had collected the most cards would be first in line for cake. This clearly spurred on Max's team who completed a whopping 15 exercises and had first pick of the rather excellent flapjacks and rock cake 🎂