On a hot Friday lunchtime, with temperatures well above 36 Degrees, Good Gymers met in Rowntree Park to assist with preparations for the Make Space For Girls event. Rowntree Park aren't Scared of Girls, in fact they'd like to see more of them, and this event aims to make the park more welcoming to girls and young women.

Led by the fabulous Babs, GG helped to check the gazebos were fully operational, as with any outdoor event there's always a risk of English Summer Rain. Lucy, Jane and Babs did the heavy lifting, Dragging log-filled wheelbarrows at top speed, and Lyndsey and Hannah helped spray paint signs. We reconvened below the Fit Brickhouse (aka the cafe), agreed that we'd made it to The Bitter End of the task and headed out to enjoy the park with friends.

Barbara Lucy Hannah Lyndsey Jane

Friday fun club assembled at Rowntree Park to help Stuart with a few tasks on his list. The main task was moving some more (and quite large) sedge plants and replanting them near the edge of the pond alongside those previously relocated by GG on an earlier task.
Elle and Jenna were tasked with moving some logs across to the store whilst myself and Lyndsey moved some empty plant pots in the garden behind the café (and rehomed a frog in the process).

Once the pots had been successfully moved we joined the sedge team and finished off the last couple of holes and helped get the largest sedge plant dug in.

Stuart has more tasks for us to do so we may be back again next Friday!

Today saw a great turnout for our first non headtorch run of the year!

Today was international Victoria day but rather than base our welcome on that we shared what we would do with our bank holiday weekend.

It should really have been Leanne day as she wasn't just crowned goodgymer of the month, but also got to wear the good deed cape for doing an incredible 1300 good deeds!

We also welcomed Ellie and congratulated Nick snd Babs for being married for 35 years!

We then set off to two tasks-

At Rowntree Park we were greeted by Stu who split us into 3 teams. The first team got to grips with a load of soil that we had previously shifted from from the gardens to the back of the lodge. This time we moved it to its final location into the raised beds.

The second group tackled a load of green waste and moved it from across the park over to the table tennis area. With Max particularly enjoying taking a ride in the giant wheelbarrow

Team 3 were instructed to remove the sedge from the garden, and after a quick Google to find out what sedge is, felt competent enough to know what they were doing. However the sedge in Rowntree park was about 50 times bigger than the ones in the photos on Google! Eventually the sedges, Sedgeric and Right Sedge Fred, were moved to their new homes closer to the lake.

All 3 teams finished their jobs with enough time spare to fill a couple of barrows worth of wood chip from the wildlife area and move it to the gardens. We were briefly joined by Jackie who earned her place in the team photo by grabbing a couple of handfuls of wood chip!

The second team stopped off at Southlands church to clear a bed of everything except the Magnolia tree! We pretty much completed the task just in time for team Rowntree to collect us and head to the park for some fun fitness.

Tonight we played heads, shoulders, knees and coins and the team with the most won a creme egg. After much tackling and slightly too much violence for goodgym, it all came down to a deciding game of rock paper scissors.

We then headed back to base and a decent crew stayed on for a drink, possibly to get one of Babs brownies!

A balmy night (given that it is December) and 24 good Goodgymers met at our usual meeting point in good spirits, with as usual, lots to be positive about. Firstly a big shout out to our very own Vicky who is always very busy at the beginning of Dec and yet again organised a very successful Chase the Pud over the weekend. Over £4000 was raised for the British Heart Foundation and having 250 Santas chasing a xmas pudding or mince pie round the racecourse now seems like a normal thing to watch in early December. She was of course helped by several GGers but the credit for such a successful event must absolutely go to our amazing Vicky.

As well as several GGers volunteering at the fun run, it is another big shout out to Rebecca and Sam who both ran the fun run. Sam came second and nearly caught the pud while it was an incredible effort from our very own Rebecca who completed her first ever 10k run :-). Finally before warming up it was a pleasure to welcome Ruth who joined us for the first time and who in getting muddy and wet later fully got fully involved with the delights of a GG task. while numbering off every 5th person had to come up with a different warm up while Pete led the walk group to the task. Ed led the rest with Vicky backmarking to Rowntree park - our destination for the night, while Michael hot footed it direct from work.

As usual Stu had plenty for us to do. Babs and Leanne were quick to volunteer for shovelling bark chip and pushing the load up the hill to the garden in a vehicle more akin to a tip than a wheelbarrow - strong (!); another group headed up to the gardens for various tasks while the remainder of the group started attacking the debris that had collected in the pond. Using a variety of rakes, spades and other long handled devices the amount of debris collected and deposited in the undergrowth was both impressive and smelly. Teams at both ends of the park worked hard, although when Micheal and Alex went to help out with Amy's group later in the evening with seemingly clean lower legs, Amy was heard to say that she thought that her team had got the slimey end of the stick that night - at least I think that is the phrase she used ? Meanwhile the garden team had worked hard - with Helen and Jane quickly finishing their sawing task - Stu remarked that he had forgotton how hard the GG team always work.

Finishing with the team photo, Ed split us into 4 teams with tonights fitness involving a team member running while the remainder did exercises but in sync with each other. Surprisingly they were done quite well and whilst perhaps not ready to form a syncronised swimming team everyone acquitted themselves well. It was then just time for sharing round some home made xmas themed ginger biscuits before returning to base....

A cool autumn morning in Rowntree Park was ideal for seven of us to shift soil and move some green waste to the edge of the park for collection.

Everyone got stuck in and made light work of the task, despite the distraction of trying to get a place for next year's Snake Lane 10 when the online queue opened at 11.

Tonight we had a last minute change of task due to the original being cancelled. Luckily Rowntree Park came up trumps!

First we met, named and numbered off saying our favourite smell! Mitch then headed off with a walking group and Ed led out the runners with Laura back marking.

We were given a selection of jobs to do. Team path were charged with clearing and sweeping the steps and ramp. Team soil shifters moved soil from two big piles in the park to a planter behind the lodge and team shift stuff filled bags with, well, green stuff. It was a beautiful evening in the park and we were treated to an awesome full moon... the perfect setting for murder in the dark! This was tonight's themed fitness led by Jenna!

On that note, a huge shout out to wonderful Jenna ,who has now completed an incredible 400 tasks! And if that isn't enough goodness she also brought along some delicious cake! Thank you Jenna for everything you do.