Big kudos to the 6 GoodGymers who helped return bags to runners taking part in the Manchester Marathon this year! Welcome to Ewan who picked a big task for his first GoodGym Manchester outing.

We arrived bright and early to get our hi-viz, packed lunch, and briefing from Claire, one of the bag collection team leaders. We were allocated Group 2, to start unloading and laying out bags from lorry number 2 for the initial waves of starters. With a system in place to order the bags from highest to lowest on the ground and then only having a single layer of bags on the lorry bed seemed to work out OK. Once the harnesses had finally arrived, Jordan along with a couple of additional helpers enabled us to reach to bags at the back so we were ready for finishers coming in.

Bit by bit, bags were safely returned with their owners, with many suffering a little bit in the unexpected Manchester sun and heat. Through a combination of good prep and teamwork, I think we managed quite well, even when it got a bit busy in the rush hour between about 12pm and 1pm.

Once we had a very brief break, we were assigned to lorry number 11 to repeat the task again, this time Stefanie getting in the harness to get into the lorry and get the bags in reach of those on the ground. With us being right at the end of the queue of lorries, lots of tired looking runners managed to reach us only to have to go back the other way to get their t-shirt, freebies, meet friends & family which seemed a bit of a trek after completing 26.2 miles!

With the bags in order and many having been returned to the runners, we reached the end of our shift after 5pm to sign out and watch some of the finishers on Oxford Road nearby.

Long day but was made much more fun as a group and having a decent packed lunch and snacks on hand. The warm and sunny weather helped too.

Juno and I completed the pre-event course check for Fletcher Moss parkrun event #245. Around 480 runners and walkers completed the 5 km course on Manchester and London marathon weekend. We marshaled at Old Bedians marshal point 5.

30 km run beforehand then 7 km back home. Juno ran 17 km.

Welcome to Chris for his first GoodGym task and to Sarah from GoodGym Brighton who was in the area for work. Hope you enjoyed the task!

On Earth day we took to the water to remove debris and lots of plastic that had built up in and along the River Mersey, particularly following the floods over new year. We kitted out in buoyancy aids and collected a stash of litter pickers, oars, and bags to collect the rubbish 🚣‍♂️🚣‍

🛶 With two per canoe and then fastened in pairs, we slowly made our way upstream, collecting any rubbish as we went, particularly from tree branches were items had accumulated 🌳. In particular, there were lots of bits of plastic bags, bottles, cotton and material, plus polystyrene. At one particularly crowded tree, we collected lots of materials and freed much of the tree of rubbish, including a blue barrel that (eventually) was freed from the branches after some tactical sawing and cutting. We did our best to avoid the sewage outflow nearby too but couldn't avoid the wild garlic that lined the river bank!

Once the bags were full, we slowly drifted back downstream, bringing the canoes out of the water and onto racks (after a quick rinse in the Mersey) to be stored back at Venture Out 💪

Top effort from all involved. There will be more canoe (or kayak...) sessions planned for future dates so keep an eye out for that.

Juno, Gosia, and I made our way to Fletcher Moss parkrun event #244 to help marshal 337 runners and walkers on Easter Saturday.

One of the boomerangs 🪃 from South Beach Australia made its way to parkrun as part of a global tour.

Nice day even with rain and clouds around. 25.68 km ran beforehand then a 20 km walk afterwards so certainly got our steps in...

This evening, Ben ran the route #103 of the Relay Your Way to check for accessibility and if the public footpaths from Google maps actually existed in real life.

Starting from Didsbury library, the route goes past Didsbury Sports Ground, Withington Golf Club (well through the golf club...) before following the River Mersey round to Chorlton Water Park, Chorlton and Sale Golf Clubs, then Turn Moss playing fields before finishing in Longford Park near the athletics track.

Some of the sections were a bit narrow and the river bank rebuilding following the new year floods have made some of the paths quite rocky but generally, the route seemed OK, and even better when you know where you're going! Glad to have run the route to know what to look for come the event in mid June.

Welcome to Sharon for their first GoodGym task!

We were back with The Bee Sanctuary for their weekend volunteering session in Highfield Park. The weather was more mixed but thankfully the rain stayed away so we could continue with priming and painting the entrance gates. Sharon, Michael, and Ben completed painting the already primed fence to the one side of the entrance that after a couple of coats, was looking much more inviting compared with the peeling black gates from the previous week.

After a tea & coffee break, Sharon and Ben managed to apply metal primer to the remaining fence at the entrance, ready for a coat of green paint to complete the job in the none-to-distant future.

Great to be back to and to complete some of the painting tasks for the group. We'll be back, perhaps for more digging or heavy duty gardening tasks in the future.