We were invited back for a 3rd year running to help out at the annual fundraising plant swap + sale for Friends of Whirlowbrook Park, and it was certainly the weather for a morning outside 🌞.

We helped with set up, assisting people to cars with their purchases, recruiting donors and take down at the end. Not only was a lovely time had by all, over £900 was raised towards a new orchard area! 🌳🍏🌳🍎🌳🍐🌳

You too can help out completely free by voting for FoWP to win more funds here: https://ticketsource.wishpondpages.com/ticketsource-community-fund-2024/entries/205493928

Friends of Whirlowbrook Park put on lots of fun family activities today for the Easter weekend. There was archery, face painting, a book sale and the main attraction, the Easter Egg trail!

Families followed the bunny hop footprints around the park to find eggs with letters on, then rearranged the scrambled egg letters into a seasonal punchline, which they then exchanged for choccy eggs:

What do you get if you pour boiling water down a rabbit hole?

Our volunteer role was marshaling the car park, directing visitors to free spaces and also controlling traffic where the trail crossed the road.

It was a beautiful day for our first community mission of the year and a great turnout of 6 Goodgymmers (plus hanger-on Devon - maybe he will be tempted to join us proper...). We had an energetic start - most of us on our bikes and 3 of us having been to Parkrun beforehand! 🌞🏃🏻‍♀️🚲

Jobs included:

• Hammering staples into a new boardwalk for grip 🔨
• Pruning Magnolia ✂️
• Brushing/scraping leaves and soil away from the edges of paths and car park 🧹

Shelagh says they would welcome us back any time for their regular volunteer session on the 1st Saturday of the month. I will be listing a task with them on Saturday of Easter weekend marshaling an Easter Egg hunt (that seems so far away!) 🥚

GoodGym members joined Friends of Whirlowbrook Park to help set up and run a plant swap and sale raising funds for kid's activity trail through the woods, nicknamed the "WoW" trail.

We helped set up and take down signs to advertise the sale. One was a very prettily painted and large. We found it tried its best to blow away with any big gust of wind...

It's a plant sail!

During the sale, we were on hand to help people carry their heavy goods to their cars and we all took the opportunity to pick up some plants for our own gardens too.

The event raised more than £700, doubling last year's total! 💰

This morning we helped out Friends of Whirlow Brook Park (FoWBP) in their summer Plant Swap/ Sale event set up to help fund new bat boxes for the park.

First things first - directions! Our trusty group of GoodGymers got to work erecting signs to guide the public to the location.

Highlights included: - A morning with GG friends - Meeting FoWBP volunteers :) - Icecream for sale to support the bats - so we had to purchase of course, eating icecream to support wildlife - win-win - A large variety of plants for perusing - with our GG volunteers purchasing a fair few - Learning fun facts to support bats, and posing as bats in our GG and FoWBP joint picture
- Explaining to FoWBP the work GoodGym does and how we can help with events/ gardening volunteering as future GG Community Missions - they said they would be in touch :)
- And finally, post community mission lunch at the new cafe at Whirlow Hall Farm - we definitely recommend a trip to :)

See you again :)