Super effort from Victor, Sanjeev, and Ben this evening to help Keep Manchester Tidy 🚮

Despite a late-arriving Sanjeev, we made the short trot towards the Bridgewater Hall and Hulme from the relative quiet of St Peter's Square with no metrolink running. It wasn't long before litter on pavements and next to parked cars started to build up, an apt cue to bring out the gloves, litter pickers, and dashing pink refuse sacks.

Lots of squashed drinks cans, takeaway trash, and plastic bottles slowly filled up the bags, with flyers and coffee cups adding to the load. Near the bridge to Hulme Park, we unearthed a whole host of rubbish including a broken tartan umbrella 🌂 and several laughing gas cannisters.

After crossing the bridge, Hulme Park was relatively tidy, with just a few hotspots identified and rubbish removed.

In total, we collected 7 refuse sacks, 4 cannisters, plus a brolly and some broken poles. A good haul left next to a public bin, and reported to Keep MCR Tidy for collection during council rounds.

While not political, there was something very William Wallace about the task tonight, with FREEDOM being the aim of the game to help with the maintenance of fruit trees in Philips Park 🌳

While Dennis was on his way, we weeded what we could around the fruit trees, with lots of grasses taking up the space within the cages.

Once the tools arrived the real work could begin. With a bespoke allen key 🔑 we unscrewed the attachments holding the cage to the stakes, giving more breathing space to the apple 🍎 and pear 🍐 trees in the park. It also freed up more room to thoroughly weed, give them a lot of water, and reduced the wire from the cages digging in and causing damage to the growing branches.

Fanette and Ben managed to do this for most of the trees, with a few trips back and forth to collect water 💧 and managing to keep the screws and cages for later use. The pile of weeds and grass were disposed off around the park. The cherry 🍒 tree just had a good watering, having not grown too much with some of the dead branches removed. Other pruning tasks will be for another day.

Meanwhile, Sanjeev and Dennis focused on one of the leaning apple trees, in an attempt to support it and straighten it up. With the lack of rain and clay soil, making a hole for a new stake took a bit of trial and error. With a hammer 🔨, manual hand earth auger drill (basically a big screw tool), and a bit of water, they did finally get a couple of holes in to apply stakes, held in place by loose stones. Sustainable engineering certainly at play, using loose stones, a wobble, and manual tools to provide the support with no power tools or concrete in sight 🌱🌳💪

With the fruit trees uncaged, cleared, watered, and grasses disposed, we cleared up, seeing the orchard before their Britain in Bloom judging in August. The walk and run back along the Ashton canal was a pleasant warm down after a productive session 👏 well done all!

Blitz session with Dan from Ardwick Climate Action for some maintenance of the raised beds and planters near the A6 on Lockton Close 🌱

With a trailer full of tools, plants, water, and gloves, we made our way from the storage at Brunswick Parish Church before a steady session on the cobbles by the traffic lights and roadworks.

Lots of loose leaves collected, weeds removed from between the cobbles, and lots of growth along the cycle path was removed to fill up a whole tonne bag.

Meanwhile, we removed any dead plants and weeds from the planters before filling up with compost and soil to replant old plants and add in a collection of new plants 🌿🌱

Lots done in an hour before a quick litter pick and then back to base after adding to the compost pile at the site.

Good quick session after a long run to course check and help set up at Fletcher Moss parkrun in the morning too with Juno 🐾🦺

Welcome to Lucy for your first GoodGym session!

This evening, we were back at Eden Gardens Orchard in Philips Park to finish where we left off with a greenhouse needing to be built in place. Some of the frame from two weeks ago needed a bit of re-jigging and lots of the screws needed tightening, but bit by bit, we made some progress in the right direction.

While some screws snapped with some over-keen tightening (🙋‍♂️ guilty) we managed to get the back and 2 sides in place to screw together, with Jodie nimbly able to attach the clips connecting the frame to the base. Just in time, the front frame was ready to attach after some swapping of pieces, with a team effort needed to hold parts together while others screwed the bolts in.

As we tightened the screws, added more of the roof, and cross pieces were added for some extra strength, the structure became much more sturdy, shapely, and almost looked like a greenhouse (just without the glass).

Dennis from the gardens seemed very pleased, bringing out a northern staple of vimto, plums freshly plucked from the trees, and Julia supplementing with biscuits to keep us sustained. We had a potter around the orchard, seeing how sweetcorn is fertilised in lines, with a bit of weeding of the rocky path. Thank you to Peter for the Oregano!

Cracking effort from all involved. Next week we'll be helping weed and maintain the fruit trees 🌳 growing in Philips Park, including those grown with magic walnuts.

Really fantastic event hosted by GRIT Studios and The Coping CIC for Move a Mile 2026!!

This creative community trail was completely free for those attending, with skate parks, spray painting workshops, street dancing, and much more, with a mile walk at 1pm and 3pm. Ben was on hand as one of the walk leaders to make sure everyone made it in one piece with some busy roads nearby.

Lots of gritters, creatives, and a good community day finishing at Graystones where free skate lessons were available for those who got their stamps in! Looking forward to similar events at other GRIT locations later in the year.

💥 GOODGYM FUTURE LEADER NORTHERN COHORT LAUNCHES

After a brilliant Future Leader southern cohort launch last month in London, this month was the exciting launch of the Future Leader northern cohort in Manchester.

Future Leaders are young people that will be building leadership skills and care about their community, fitness and social impact - so amazing to have you all join!

To launch the Northern cohort of Future Leader we supported May from Plant MCR with the task to remove some stubborn overgrown weeds from the NOMA garden to ensure the rosemary plants, golden privet and cotton lavender can thrive. This contributed to a larger planting project Plant MCR will be doing in the autumn.

🌿 What even is a weed anyway?!
A weed is simply any plant growing where it is not wanted - there were A LOT of these.

Weeds are typically resilient, fast-spreading plants that compete with flowers or vegetables for space, water, sunlight, and nutrients.

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🏃🚶 How we got there
Denzel led a group of runners on a loop of roughly 1.3km with Jack leading the group of walkers, with photographer Ahmani capturing some brilliant shots of our active travel and task (excited to see the photos!).

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🤩 May: "The fastest bed I've ever seen cleared by a group of volunteers"
May was impressed with the groups speedy efforts at removing all the weeds (check those before and afters!) and said it was the fastest bed she'd ever seen cleared by a group of volunteers, we'll take that.

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🙌 Thank you Jane!
We also had a very special guest speaker - we are so appreciative of Jane Dennison, Founder and CEO of MileShy Club who came in to share her inspiring story and provide some really useful insights and advice on the future of community and sport. Thank you so much for coming!

❤ Why this is so important
We supported Plant Co-operative CIC - a multi award-winning not-for-profit urban gardening collective formed in the spring of 2021. They specialise in transforming and managing public spaces in Manchester, bringing the community together through gardening.

They showcase the benefits that can be shared by all involved in community gardening, increased biodiversity, improved social connection and mental health, and ultimately creating a city of gardeners helping to create and maintain more public green spaces.

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👏 Good deeds galore

Huge well done and congrats on your 1st, speedy good deed Muhammad, Nour, Jasmine, Maya, Polly, Shahram, Archer, Evgeniia, Theo, Kaichao and Megan.

Congrats to Amelia on your 17th good deed!

Such great work everyone 🙌🙌🙌

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Both Southern and Northern Future Leader cohorts are now LAUNCHED - this so exciting and it was so great to meet you all in London and Manchester - I'm already inspired by your energy, thoughts and ideas and so excited to see what you all make happen.

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Final thank you to Altogether Collective for hosting us for the day.