Its foodbank time! and for the first time in ages its light and warm so our 4 goodgymmers were in a good mood.

After walking, running and cycling down we set to work on sweeping, mopping and generally tidying the foodbank floor, whilst catching up on our various busy lives. There was then some sort of carelessness with the buckets and we did an additional task of mopping up our own mess whilst snagging a mop in the racks, i still dont really know how that all happened.

job thoroughly done and everything looking shiny, we uncovered Gigi is soon to get married - many congratulations! Plenty going on in the coming months, including a whole stack of Goodgym tasks.

Conducted two House Sparrow surveys at dawn, one month apart for the Essex Wildlife Trust.

House Sparrow populations have declined by 69% in England since the 1970s, so Essex Wildlife Trust recently launched a citizen science project to find out why. They recruited over 1000 volunteers to survey urban habitat, to gather data on the House Sparrow's abundance and preferred habitat.

It was fantastic to spend time with and observe the local bird population at dawn, with 22 different species counted during the second survey.

If you can, take advantage of EWT's late night openings this week to see the Nightingales at Fingringhoe Wick - wow, what an experience!

On a light and sunny April evening we were joined by an ever growing team of Goodgymmers to tackle some local litter. We were joined this week by new members Ray and Madeleine - who quickly got up to speed by collecting many ciggarettes and random plastic lumps.

Strolling through town gives great chance to get to know new members and discuss reasons for supporting Goodgym, we also got stopped for praise by passers by, which is always nice. Chat covered schools and parts of town, rare litter finds and running (I'm still going on about my Paris marathon).

We wrapped up our new route in the Abbey fields playground, where i somewhat bemoaned the lack of litter this time round, if only our town was more filthy. However, our large group would have made light work on any route, onto the foodbank next week!

A lovely evening for a litter picking task to help out at one of the Colchester Borough Homes residences. We were also tasked with clearing sticks and twigs from the paths to help remove trip hazards for the residents. We managed to avoid the scattered rain showers thankfully and our four GoodGymers did a great job for which Linda at CBH was very thankful. It was also a chance to celebrate Frazer's fantastic achievement at the Paris marathon where he clocked in just under 4 hours! Well done Frazer!

Met up in Castle Park to carry out another monthly bumblebee survey for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. Lots of new flowers in bloom, and plenty of solitary bees buzzing about, but not that many bumblebees this time. All data will be uploaded to the BBCT website for their UK wide data set. If you'd like to get involved, set up your own transect near where you live, to contribute to this vital citizen science project, or join us next month.

After years of sitting, discarded in bushes, a full can of the amber nectar finally found freedom during our litter pick; discharging its sugary contents everywhere. At least the Yellow Jackets will enjoy lapping it up! 2 Goodgymers gave a much needed spring clean to a popular local area ahead of the Easter weekend. Most importantly the local wildlife doesn’t need to fend off some human detritus.