What a brilliant evening at Friends of the Earth! It was great to welcome Daniel to Goodgym, having cycled to his first session and returner Ali too, with his friend Ahmed.

Eve had a very warm run across the city centre and got stuck straight in with window cleaning and taking some rubbish to the local big bins. We all did a mix of tasks around the outdoor area, with Ali watering plants and trimming the ivy, Daniel clearing the bike hanger of leaves and debris, whilst myself and Ahmed spruced up the window sills and squeaked the windows clean with staff member Karen.

It was such a fabulous team effort and great to see the impact we made together for this incredible charity. We’re usually at Friends of the Earth every few months and you can stay tuned to hear about all our upcoming activities on the Sessions page! 😊👍

Great task all set up and ready by Karen when I arrived! Lots of fun climbing ladders into the attic to help clear dust and bits of debris. I got going soon after 6pm and Thomas arrived for the second half, for his first ever Goodgym session!

Carpets were swept, odds and ends were cleared with litter pickers and roof panels were lightly vacuumed!

Fascinating building and such a welcoming team - lots to get stuck in with and it was great to help the team get started with this attic task.

Watered the plants and helped to carry out a deep clean and brighten up the space!

On a warm, bright evening in Digbeth, Nancy joined for her first task with Goodgym! The two of us and Karen from Friends of the Earth made for a small yet mighty team ready for some deep cleaning and a spot of gardening.

Our focus was the side entrance, with beautiful rays of sunshine beaming through the windows! We gave the gloriously green floors a good sweep, scrub (a little like we were playing curling!) and a mop. We also got into the nooks and crannies of bookshelves and skirting boards. The plants were thanking Nancy for keeping them hydrated... lots and lots of watering can refills were in motion!

Fun evening all round and the area was looking quite shiny by the time we headed off, thanks to a great team effort!

To fast forward before we even begin, we were super excited to find a bucket stating ‘The A Team’ - it really was a great night of teamwork at Friends of the Earth!

Hugh had previously joined us on a litter pick in the JQ and he was so helpful and welcoming, standing in and showing us the ropes as he stood in for his colleague. Eve and Annie checked through the job list and the three of us rummaged through the stash of materials brilliantly positioned behind the bike rack, all ready for us to crack on!

While Eve and Hugh swept up piles of leaves and twigs around the side of the building, Annie took a bag and picked up some litter on surrounding streets - returning with lots of support to trim trailing ivy off the silver birch, ensuring it looked nice and tidy!

The space was soon looking pretty clear and we just had some weeding to do out front. Kept us warm having plenty to do and we could feel the warmth and festive vibes from The Warehouse Café too!

Special thanks again to Hugh, who offered a spontaneous helping hand as well as guiding us to compost bins and sharing all sorts of useful knowledge! And Eve rocked up to run and do a good deed after spending a busy day away on work - r e s p e c t all round!

Friends of the Earth is always varied and fun, a lovely team and we usually learn interesting stuff too - this week’s was no different and we can’t wait to be back helping out in the new year!

Tonight we were back at the Friends of the Earth.

We welcomed Marcella to GoodGym for the first time, it was great to have you with us :)

Morwenna, Eve, Jonny and James ran 2k to the task and met our walking group of Miriam, Marcella and Gabriel.

As ever we were also greeted by Marcel the dog, generally an ever present at the Friends of the Earth tasks.

We got to work bagging up cans to be recycled, composting and inside Miriam, Marcella and Gabriel did some paper shredding and cleaning some buckets.

Eve and James stirred in some shredded paper into the compost certainly a 'good good gym workout' see what I did there?!

Once done we had a quick picture with Marcel the dog and headed on our way.

Tonight, Jonny and Gabriel helped out at The Friends of the Earth.

The task was to water the plants, measure some items, take pictures of them and then email them to task owner Karen.

Jonny did the plant watering around the building using 6 full watering cans and Gabriel did a great job of measuring up and taking photos.

We even had time to squeeze in another quick job. Yep we took aload of batteries off charge and boxed them up before replacing them with some dead batteries to power them up!

Once done, Jonny ran home and Gabriel walked back to the JQ :)