After an unexpectedly soggy and cold parkrun, Lucy, Jason (visiting from Leeds, welcome!) and I headed up the hill in search of the team. This proved to be rather more difficult than anticipated as the work location was out of date! After collecting some also lost student volunteers we were eventually found by volunteer Barry, who guided us back to the group. There we met Cara (who'd very wisely gone for a coffee on the way) and got started.

Our "unglamorous" task was to clear around the base of all the trees to allow them to grow better and not get swamped by grass, and to replace any broken tree guards.

After an hour of work, we all called it a day, plenty enough for a damp, cold morning, and headed home to warm up.

The next 2 sessions will involve tree planting at a new, well-rotivated site which should be very satisfying, so do come along if you can!

the dynamic but lacklustre duo of M & S were joined by Barb today who bought her patent brand of tireless enthusiasm & high spirits to the endless table & chair based drudgery, well done team, apols M couldn't be here today so we had the masked volunteer instead ie the same shape,size,dress as M but a cardboard face 🤔🕵️‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Four Goodgymers met on an overcast Tuesday to help York Archaeology close down their community archaeology site for winter. Our main task was to shovel dirt into wheelbarrows in order to backfill one of the trenches, covering up any potential future finds until spring - anti-archaeology perhaps?

We got a good arm work-out in eliminating our pile of dirt, and it was interesting to learn more about the project, which includes the Archaeology on Prescription scheme.

Welfare Visit

This week we welcomed 20 GG Yorkies to our first Group Run of October. And as it was the first session of the month that meant we started off by handing out September's GGer of the month award. This time it was Jenna's turn for completing an amazing 9 Good Deeds and also baking some delicious cakes along the way. Giver her a big cheer 🎉

Nikki was still being sensible following her epic ultra so led a solo walking group whilst the rest of the gang numbered off by naming our favourite animals from popular culture (Beaker from the muppets is definitely not an animal, Mitch!). Then it was off to the task with Ed leading the group and Babs and Laura backmarking.

We arrived at the task to be greeted by Helen who gave us a brief overview of what we'd be doing and then leading us to the allotment plot that needed our attention. She also took us past an area we'd done a lot of work on over the past couple of years which is now a thriving garden area.

We were then given tools to help us clear the allotment, but it could probably be said that a few more forks rather than spades might have coke in handy. Nevertheless we were making excellent progress with Nikki and then Mitch on hand-scything duties whilst Craig was in charge of the wheelbarrow. Unfortunately Ed forgot to take a 'before' photo, which meant taking an 'after' photo would have also been completely pointless but I can promise you we achieved quite a lot and the allotment was looking an awful lot clearer by the time we finished.

After a quick group photo and jog back to the Priory Centre (or a speedy walk in Nikki's case) it was time for the fitness session. Tonight it was a set of 3 exercises completed on the minute mark, every minute, for 5 minutes. Therefore the quicker you got through the exercises, the more time you had to rest before the next set. Clearly Charlotte loves her rest time as she was racing her way through the exercises before anyone else, until Rich clocked on and started to get competitive.

Their was time for a bonus extra round of exercises at the end of the 5mins, and Max had been enjoying himself so much that he decided to double the number of reps in each exercise for a final flurry! Then it was time for a quick cool down stretch and some delicious cake made by who else but Jenna.

A very busy clothes swap this month so with just the two of us we were kept very busy.

in addition to the usual swap, the team generously collected eleven bags of warm clothes to be donated to Ukraine for the winter.