4 GoodGymers joined 3 others to carry the baton for Route #103 as part of the charity Relay Your Way 2025.

Maimoona as the first to arrive at Didsbury Sports Ground was handed the baton from the previous stage, and was quickly joined by Hannah, Laura, and Ben, plus 3 others who had signed up for the route.

With split groups, we hugged the bank of the River Mersey to carry the baton. Unfortunately, a flat tyre on the scooter meant another direct route was needed for Hannah, while the remainder made it to the finish point at Longford Park athletics track along the route.

Welcomed by medals 🏅 and a ceremonial passing on of the baton to a cycling group, we completed the course and wished the best of luck for the rest of the relay.

Big kudos to Laura for completing her first 10 km for a while, Hannah for sticking to it to make it to the finish, and Maimoona for carrying the baton the whole way 🏃🏼‍♀️🏃‍♂️👣👟

Big welcome to Nicole for their first every GoodGym session! Well done for your first outdoor run in a while and great to have you along for the task with What If? in Stockport. Look forward to meeting you again soon.

Following the warm jog from Life Leisure Avondale, we arrived at What If? with a few different tasks required. After introductions and hearing about the things What If? get up to, we donned gloves and grabbed some gardening tools to remove lots of sticky willy otherwise known as Galium aparine from their community garden.

Once we had filled most of their compost bin and watered some courgette seedlings, we turned our attention indoors to help out with the big shed sort-out to catalog and label all the gardening and decorating tools that had accumulated. Ranging from rakes to spades and forks, plus lots of pots and hand tools, we made a decent dent in the big sort-out, so hopefully things are a bit more organised for future use.

Nicole stayed for a bite to eat and chat with the What If? crew while Maimoona and Ben made their way home. We hope to be back again soon!

Welcome to Chris for his first GoodGym task and to Sarah from GoodGym Brighton who was in the area for work. Hope you enjoyed the task!

On Earth day we took to the water to remove debris and lots of plastic that had built up in and along the River Mersey, particularly following the floods over new year. We kitted out in buoyancy aids and collected a stash of litter pickers, oars, and bags to collect the rubbish 🚣‍♂️🚣‍

🛶 With two per canoe and then fastened in pairs, we slowly made our way upstream, collecting any rubbish as we went, particularly from tree branches were items had accumulated 🌳. In particular, there were lots of bits of plastic bags, bottles, cotton and material, plus polystyrene. At one particularly crowded tree, we collected lots of materials and freed much of the tree of rubbish, including a blue barrel that (eventually) was freed from the branches after some tactical sawing and cutting. We did our best to avoid the sewage outflow nearby too but couldn't avoid the wild garlic that lined the river bank!

Once the bags were full, we slowly drifted back downstream, bringing the canoes out of the water and onto racks (after a quick rinse in the Mersey) to be stored back at Venture Out 💪

Top effort from all involved. There will be more canoe (or kayak...) sessions planned for future dates so keep an eye out for that.