On a lovely warm summer evening as the sun settled down in the sky this band of Goodgymers made their way by biking running and walking to the Riverside Meadow beside New Bedford Road. Welcoming Chrisshane and Omayemi to their first Group Run. 👋🏻

Our mission for this evening was a familiar one, uproot all the Goldenrod. We've met this plant before which is invasive and trying to take over on this meadow, but it's back to test us again. It is noticeably thinner than in previous years, a good sign that we are winning, and there was a good mixture of native plants in the gaps we have cleared.

So we got stuck in and started pulling at the clumps. We made good progress and managed to clear about half of the field before our time was up. We'll be back soon to finish the job!

Hosting at the Community Jobs Fairs has become a regular occurrence for GoodGym and it was good to have team of experienced job fairs hosts, joined by Emmanuel for his first one. The tasks involved welcoming clients and supporting them with the registration process. Emmanuel soon got the hang of the electronic registrations and along with Abdo, Omar and Gill, they were able to sit and support people filling in the online form. Ali kept us on our toes, making sure we had the correct form on the iPads and also keeping a record of the number of people coming in. It was a good opportunity to network with some of the employers as well as to make the visitors feel welcome and at ease. Gill also took the opportunity to liaise with groups such as You Turn Futures, who may wish to sign post some of the people they support to join GoodGym who would like to do some active volunteering. Once again Matt and Shannon were really appreciative of our support, and now know that, as old hands, they can rely on us to be the hosts with the most.

Another fabulous evening at FoodCycle for 5 Goodgymers. Whether in the cooking team or hosting team there was a great camaraderie for the volunteers tonight, who were absolutely on fire. Three course were prepped and served in record time and it was a delicious menu. Carrot and potato soup to start, then tofu carrot, cashew meat(less) balls on a mountain of spaghetti with tomato and red pepper sauce, followed up with fredh fruit salad and cake. 33 sit down guests and 10 takeaways enjoyed the home cooked fare and it was lovely to see so many empty plates. We had some really positive feedback from the guests too. Another successful task - well done team.

It was pouring with rain this morning, but when has a bit of water ever been known to deter a Goodgymer from getting out and doing a good deed in the community?

While Gill and Darshini sensibly wore rain jackets, Omar decided to be more creative by improvising with a second litter bag and hoop. Well they do say, if you want to get ahead wear a hat. Jealous of his zany head wear, after finding a number of cones, Gill decided that these would also make a suitable hat for the task.

In fact there were 3 cones in total which we found, and the rain definitely felt like we were litter picking in a fountain! 3 Cones in a Fountain will hopefully give us good luck for the rest of the week - or at least for the rest of the litter mpick.

In fact luck was on our side as we managed to clear up some big ticket items including 2 pallets, a cupboard, some drawers and a television. We also had fun playing hoop-la with some cans - Omar was the best. I'm not sure what the other members of the South Luton Litter Pick thought of us, but when you're soaked ot the skin you have to find a way of making it fun.

Well done to the GoodGym Trio this morning, South Luton and Kevin at ABCD were really appreciative of our support.