Five Goodgymers spent an hour in their neighbourhoods litter picking.There was plenty to clear up! Caryl discovered plenty of cans, part of a traffic cone and a block of wood but combined this with a chat with a local resident who she told all about Goodgym! There were signs of life including a caterpillar in previously cleared sites. Sol went above and beyond sorting her pile into recycling and general rubbish and found 1 glove and 2 hats! Tessa collected a large bag full enjoying the sunshine on route. Rachel and Angela enjoyed a chatty walk in the sunshine exploring unknown paths around the St Marks and A4 area. A productive tidy up, well done all!

Welfare visit for Mrs D

All five GoodGymmers made their way to today’s task under their own steam. Juli, Jess, and first‑timer Pammi walked over together from the community centre, Angela arrived by bike, and Ed took a meandering route via a few extra churches before joining us at St Luke’s.

At the church we were greeted by task owner Jaqueline, who revealed our challenge: mountains of pruned branches and brush. Suspiciously familiar mountains. Possibly the very same ones we proudly created on previous visits. Apparently the universe (and Jaqueline) had decided it was time for us to tidy up after ourselves.

The mission: break it all down, bag it all up, and prepare it for its glamorous final journey to the dump.

The team got stuck in immediately; snapping, stuffing, chatting, and generally turning chaos into neatly filled black sacks. The weather behaved, the daylight was kind, and the piles shrank with satisfying speed. Juli and Angela even discovered a couple of froggy supervisors, who hopped out of the way as we dismantled their hiding place.

After an hour of industrious bag‑filling, we stood back to admire our handiwork; 31 bags packed, stacked, and ready for their ride to rubbish heaven.

We always love a visit to St Luke’s, and something tells us we’ll be back soon; to finish the job, tackle new odd‑jobs, or maybe just check in on our froggy friends.

Sheila and Rosie put out a call to see if anyone could come and help with transplanting seedlings at the community allotment. We were delighted to be joined by another 5 GoodGymers. We were pleased to welcome Deepti to her very first GoodGym session. We constructed a makeshift workbench on one of the raised beds using some spare board, gathered some planting modules donated by Sheila, Juli and Rosie, and found some top soil to use. We set to work transplanting tomatoes, beans, peas, nasturtiums and parsley. A robin came to visit, hoping to find a tasty morsel.The odd rain shower sent us scurrying for shelter in the greenhouse, and in the end rain stopped play, but not before we had transplanted and watered most of the seedlings. A great team effort

Work continues to rid the beds on Ray Mill Island of the dreaded winter heliotrope and replace it with something more interesting and wildlife-friendly. Mick and Sheila joined other volunteers digging out the heliotrope and replacing it with donated plants. Mick also tried his hand at fashioning a plant support out of dogwood stems to keep a Spirea from overhanging the path. And a pretty good job he made of it too - every day is a learning day!

Welfare visit for Mrs.