Cracking day out with Venture Out to get out on the River Mersey in paired up canoes to pick up litter from areas difficult to reach from the footpaths.

With 5 other Scout leaders: Cat (sp), Lenny, Abby, Sam, and Tim plus Ian, we managed to fill up over 21 bags of rubbish plus a lot of other debris that wouldn't fit into bags. Along the way, we made piles of heavy duty rubbish such as large cones, pipes, tyres, and wire gates.

In the trip from Burnage Rugby Club to Fletcher Moss, we identified a few other litter hotspots that we can target when we return, possibly with a canoe and on-foot group to cover more ground.

The bags were reported to Keep MCR Tidy after leaving next to a public bin at the back of a car park near Didsbury Sports Ground.

Before the canoe litter pick, I helped with some of the set up and barcode scanned at Fletcher Moss parkrun event #239.

435 runners and walkers completed the 5 km course on a clear but nippy Saturday spring morning. Managed to get a run there and across to Burnage afterwards.

Another leaflet delivery done for Together Trust - this time advertising for their upcoming raffle and Car Boot Sale.

It was great to see Julie back at GoodGym again and hear all about what she's been up to and her cold water dipping!

We spoke about our excitement for the clocks going forward and being able to run in the light again!

As a warm up for the Great British Spring Clean coming up, Pavel and Ben made the brisk stroll from St Peter's Square to Sackville Street and a green space often littered with rubbish from passers by and passing cars.

In all, we collected 7 full refuse sacks plus a stack of large pieces of cardboard from an area known as Greek Street as one of the sites for Ardwick Climate Action. Included in the haul was a range of:

• cans and drink bottles
• unused tampons
• fast food packing (McDonald's and Archies prime culprits)
• packaging and wrapping
• laughing gas canisters
• cutlery (some of it looked like Uri Geller had been using it...)

After an hour or so, we cleared the area and piled the bags in a reasonable spot to be collected by Keep MCR Tidy and the council to collect this week. Hopefully, removing litter will encourage others to look after the area and not drop their discarded waste for others to deal with.

Keep an eye on upcoming GoodGym MCR tasks with an array of litter picking sites on offer