Louisa

Louisa, Susan, Harry and Jo took over the late afternoon shift at the clinic. Louisa had the shortest time in a role when she was given the hand sanitiser role and was promptly withdrawn when the role was already filled. She soon took a role in the waiting room with clipboard and felt under pressure when patients needed to wait and she had to keep a check of who was next. Harry was in the waiting room assisting and wiping down the chairs after the patients had left and then assisted with guiding them back through the waiting room towards the end of the clinic. Susan took up the temperature role and checked all patients as they entered the clinic. Jo was assigned a new 'buddy' role where this was to go around all the volunteers and check that they were okay, needed a break, wanted a cuppa or anything else. The role also involved getting anything out of store if we had run out of paper, hand sanitiser etc.

Arriving at a very busy car park, and an already full bin, Angela, Eli, Jo K, Louisa, Mel and Rachel fanned out across the green, past the cricket pitch picking up a surprising small amount of litter considering it being Easter and the new lockdown freedom. However this soon changed as we made our way towards the picnic tables scattered around. At the first we found still burning remnants of a fire which Mel doused with her handy bottle of Ribena. We also found glass bottles, cans, food wrappers, usual plastics and lots and lots of bottle tops. Some more bins in the middle of the field were filled to the brim, and additional bags were propped up against them where people had tried to do the right thing. Unfortunately little animals and the wind had spread the rubbish around, so we quickly picked it all up, keeping glass, recycling and rubbish separate. Eli, used a link to report this to the Council/Colas so that it could all be cleared away. The time went really quickly, but as we walked back to where we started, it was clear that we'd made a difference. A few people thanked us which was lovely. Off we went to enjoy the rest of the Easter weekend and sunny weather. We left the rubbish at the bin, the glass was dropped off at the Baffins glass bank and recycling taken home to Mel's big bins.

Today's beach clean at Tipner Ranges was attended by Louisa, Vicki & John. John & Vicki swung by Mel's on the way to play a quick game of vegetable relay handing over six leek baton's to Mel. They then met Louisa at the Park and Ride and made their way over to the beach.

They were soon at work in an area labelled '3' in the photos. As usual there was plenty of general waste litter in this area. This is the area John & Vicki had taken three bags of recyclable litter on the previous month's beach clean. It was noted how little recyclable litter was here today and we felt that the actions of GG were having a positive effect on the area.

John decided to investigate a bit further up the beach (Pic 4) and found an alarming amount of recyclable waste. The team moved up to this area and the grassland in picture 1 yielded and enormous amount of plastic bottles, etc. (pic 2) . Our investigations did reveal some evidence that pointed towards the littering fiend (pic 5). At least one member of today's team looked a little sheepish, no names mentioned.

With our seven bags full we headed back to the Park and Ride to dispose of the general waste and we headed our our separate ways. John and Vicki took home the recyclable waste and half filled their just emptied wheelie bin.

There is still an enormous amount of litter to be removed from this area, including a bit of fence panel. The good news is we are starting to make a positive impact on this area and we will be returning soon now we are back to the rule of six and lighter evenings.

Although the panel is out at this location picture 6 shows we are moving in the right direction.

Two of our training sessions for this evening combined so that six GoodGymmers got out and about for a socially-distanced leg stretch.

It was so lovely to see each other in person again - although some of us had lost the knack of chatting and running at the same time!

There was definitely some "fruity" chat this evening, I've certainly missed all your hilarious stories this lockdown!

Thank you to Katie for taking a few snaps for the report, in all the excitement I forgot to take any 🙈