A strong start to the year with a good turnout despite the weather turning colder and even having a few drops of snow in the air last night!

We had a new runner along last night who was welcomed and put a good effort in at the task and also increase (neh doubling) our French contingenet within the group!

A massive bienvenu to Joseph

Please give Josepha a cheer and a follow and we hope to see you again soon!

We met Sustrans Simon on site at the entrance to Lynwood Gardens who had already laid out tools, ready for us to get cracking, after a quick brief we got straight to it:

• Path clearing
• Litter picking
• Scraping mud off the path
• Sweeping leaves of the path
• Flagstone inspectioning

This section of path is a key link for a lot of walkers and cyclists, which takes you through a beautiful little wooded stretch. Unfortunately with the beauty of trees, there is also a lot of fallen leaves and mud that gets clumped together, encroaching on the path, making it slippery, narrower and less appealing and safe for users.

Once we were done, despite it being dark you could see how much wider and clearer the path was after our efforts.

Well done team!

On a dark and drizzly Monday eve a group of hardy and committed GG members met at The Showroom Cinema and ran to meet other member of the GG SHF family at a beautiful little community garden in Heeley to help local residents and volunteers improve this community space for other local residents and passers by.

The route to the task was unavoidably hilly, especially towards the end. But where there is hardship, there is also learning opportunities. We took this opportunity to work on our backward arm drive to propel us forward and up the hill with the mantra in our minds of;

Lips to hips, lips to hips, lips to hips

This helps us to have a full backward arm drive, keeping our elbows in and using our arms to help our legs and lungs!

Before we knew it we had topped out and met FANTASTIC FRAN and friends who had all tools readily laid out for us and gave us the brief on the evenings task which involved:

• Weeding
• Cutting back
• Planting
• Litter picking

The space was already looking better than last time we visited with murals from local artists in place and much more plants being established and growing through. It's so great to see spaces like these being cared for and looked after by the local community and we were proud to be able to play a small part in it's continued growth and evolution. We hope to be back again soon!

Happy running :)

A FANTASTIC FOUR set out from The Showroom cinema on a February evening to lend a picking hand or four to Karen of the Pitsmoor pickers who do a fantastic job battling the littering that blights the area.

It was fantastic to welcome Jasmine who is new to Sheffield and goodgym, we had some really nice chats about cats, dog dating and violins! Give Jasmine a follow and ask her about any of these when you meet her! Sounds like she's pretty good on the violin!

It was also great to welcome back Rachel who has been away for a wee while in the Netherlands. We had some good chats about cycle infrastructure, screen printing and making houses more efficient. Hope to see both of you back again in the future.

Meeting outside the Vestry Hall we got pickers and bags and got straight to work, filling our bags up with all kinds of litter on the surrounding street and collecting up larger items to carry to a nearby bin at the end of the session.

Although a constant task in the area, it was appreciated by passer by's and hopefully the visual presence of people picking up litter will make others think twice before dropping theirs.

Until next time, happy running :)