This weeks group run saw the latest effort to Keep Britain Tidy by doing our bit to Keep Luton Tidy for the Great British Spring Clean.

Most importantly it was Gail's 50th task! Gail has been on the team since before GoodGym Luton started so we're fairly sure she's done more than 50! Definitely well deserving of a shiny new black shirt!

We took the long road up to Farley Hill, rising up out of town to be treated with a panoramic view of the twinkling lights. Arriving at the Farley Hill Community Centre we met Martin with The litter pickers and set work collecting litter from around the community centre, the shops and the playground here. Four bags later we set off again on the return journey back down the hill into town.

For the final Group Run task of 2023 we were in Manor Road Park, where the river Lea flows out from the town centre. The banks of this section of recently restored riverbank had become strewn with plastic litter that had washed up on the sides so we set to work with our litter pickers tidying it all up before it got washed further downstream.

Also in the river was the remains of one of the park's bins, unhelpfully smashed and thrown in but skillfully retrieved by Martin with a big long rod and a hook on the end.

Some trolleys that had also been dumped in the river has unfortunately been washed along and out of the park and we couldn't reach them, annoying!

But we did manage to retrieve an enormous drainage tube and roll that up to the roadside for collection along with 7 bags of rubbish, the smashed bin a bucket and some other assorted junk.

Today we were out in force again to support ABCD and Luton Council in a clear up of Bury Park in preparation for the first home game for Luton Town Football Club this season. And while the team were expecting a fair amount of litter, none of us had been prepared for the vast numbers of cigarette butts littering the pavements and roadside. They really are a pain in the butt to retrieve with a litter picker, but we did our best to clean up our section on Dunstable Road. Amir and Abim got really efficient with the broom and dustpan, while Assine , Ashkan and Abdulkarim had got retrieving all sorts of debris from the grass down to a fine art. It was great to have additional help from Bakari, who assured us that he wasn't part of GoodGym, but it's only a matter of time before we get him as out next recruit, with Abim's powers of persuasion.

6 of Luton's Goodgym elite had 2 tasks to do yesterday evening, so we split up into a walking group and a running group to tackle them.

Our walkers set off to our first task at Penrose roots to recovery garden, where they met with Pete, who, after providing gloves and tools, got team 1 hard at it weeding one of the vegetable patches.

Our running team set off slightly later after having a quick warm-up, which included running up and down the town hall steps a few times. The runners were headed to Trinity Community Centre to help maintain their garden and play area but unfortunately the task leader was unable to open up for the team, so they headed back to meet up with the walkers at Penrose. Turned out being a slightly longer first leg than anticipated.

After some digging, weeding, and tipping, and before heading back to town, I took a little walk around the garden with Pete the task leader to look at the fantastic veggies they've grown. They have an amazing variety, including squash, beetroots, brassicas, onions, and potatoes, to name just a few, and it great to know our efforts have supported this. Team photo taken, we called it a night and headed home.

Two GoodGym members supported the local litterpicking team to comb over Wigmore again between Wigmore Place and Crawley Green roundabout.

The streets looked fairly tidy but pockets of rubbish were found in bushes. We managed to grab a total of 10 bags of rubbish in an hour.

We took a walk down Wigmore lane and cleaned up the roundabouts as well!

5 GoodGymers joined members the local community to pick 18 bags of rubbish from Wigmore church field and car parks.

The wind threatening to blow the bags away didn’t stop us filling them to the brim with the usual litter but also a football, a football boot and a 90’s throwback can of Virgin Cola.

The worst of the litter was under thick hedges and the GoodGym team weren’t scared to jump into the bushes to get out the worst of the rubbish.