We had a great crew at this weeks session, vibes started high with the music going and setting off from the Social Club.

Luke was back for his second session and it was lovely seeing everyone else as well!

We were super productive filling 6 bags of litter from around Kings Furlong up towards Brookvale, unfortunately we didn't find any underwear for national underwear day, but we did find a cache of moldy bread, empty engine oil and a shopping trolley which Yazid naturally got into.

Last night we were back to our roots and did our first litter pick for a long time, and more importantly got back in the playground!

While it was a hot day it thankfully cooled in the evening and there was a great breeze to make it overall a very nice evening.

We had Luke join us for his first session and he immediately fit right in and had a great work effort.

We left the Social club with Sammi & Tazmin down towards the King of Wessex where we were meeting Yazid and picked up litter on the way.

We are starting to get famous in the area as we were recognised and thanked for all the work that we do. From the King of Wessex we went up the hill down to the school and then under the A30 towards Kingsmill.

While we collected plenty of rubbish Basingstoke is looking very tidy and we went long stretches unable to find any rubbish.

We were back at one of our favourite place in Basingstoke this week!

The Dwelling Place is a amazing space providing secure longterm housing for 5 previously homeless people.

This was our second session there, the first session was a complete clear out of the back garden and with that and other work since the space has completely transformed into a blank slate.

Last nights session was the beginning of the rebuilding. We did a lot of carrying from tiles, wooden sleepers to half a tonne of sand. We finished this by laying out some of the sand in preparation for the tiles to go down.

All in all it was a good workout and very satisfying seeing everything that has transformed.

Another great session done! We like spending time down at Eastrop park as it is such a beautiful space!

This week we went from Basingstoke Sports and Social Club to Eastrop Park where we met Sandra from the council. After a bit of stress where we couldn't find all the tools we have previously used we got together everything we could and split into two teams.

Charli, new member Nathan and myself went and did some litter picking and while Eastrop Park is always tidy we were able to find a good collection of rubbish.

Meanwhile Sammi, Evelyn, Tazmin, Yazid & Yeun made the best they could with the available tools and did a lot of clearing of weeds and dirt tidying up beside the boathouse!

We were also joined by Pajinder who saw us volunteering and joined us along with having his daughter providing morale support! Was so nice meeting him after he moved to Basingstoke yesterday! Look forward to seeing you at future sessions.

We were able to make a really nice difference in the space

No heatwave stops us, we were out in full force yesterday after a last minute change had us painting and gardening at the Viables Community centre.

It was a great session with the main job being to revitalise a lot of planters, scrapping the paint off and giving it a fresh lick. They turned out looking amazing and some wonderful before and afters!

Samantha & Kelly (t her first session did an exceptional job weeding the gardens around the area managing to fill a who bag with weeds before composting it.

Sammi and Peter also did a greta job litter picking where the highlight was finding a rats skull which was graciously donated to Charli who loved and left it.

With 6 of us meeting at the Basingstoke Sports and Social Club Evelyn &Tazmin walked to Viables while none of Sammi, Yeun or Peter were willing to let the others down so we jogged over.

Wow! I'm blown away by how much can be achieved in just over an hour! Led by Charlotte and Suzi from the Dwelling place we cleared so much of the garden space preparing it for the next step in its transformation.

This meant cutting down and removing a trees and bushes, completely clearing a tonne of ivy, moving all the rocks and pavement slabs and creating a giant pile of cleared out garden waste.

I'm incredibly proud of the team for how much effort they put in and how much we achieved and also thankful to the Dwelling Place for how welcoming they were.

For this session we met as usual at the Basingstoke Sports & Social Club before we split into 2 groups with Sammi, Yazid jogging and Tazmin, Yeun & Evelyn walked to the Dwelling place where Charli & Samantha met us.

With the YMCA Basingstoke having to cancel our session with them we quickly changed to doing some litter picking instead.

It was a beautiful evening and was quite fun getting back to our roots of litter picking. Eastrop Park was as always pretty tidy, but we found if we went a bit off the path there was still plenty of litter to be collected.

It was lovely having Guy join for their first session and Yeun at their second sesison.

In the end we filled 3 bags of litter and left the space looking much nicer! As always we had a fun time chatting as we went