Tonight was a very special session indeed!

We celebrated not one, not two, but three milestones! Bec did her 100th deed, Nick his 400th and Vicky her 600th. Top effort guys! 👏

The celebrations didn't stop there though- tonight we also reached our January good deed target.This has been an incredible achievement by everyone who has come along this month. You should all be so proud.

And as if this wasn't news enough, a real news reporter from ITN calendar news joined us to do some filming.📺

So, what did we get up to? It was our annual outing to give the willow at Park Grove it's haircut. We has a team lopping and sawing, another shuttle running the offcuts to team weave, who were adding to the willow dome. In the forest school Debs, Ed and Neil were making woodchip and Laura was busy collecting brash to chop up. 🪚

For the grand finale we did a fitness session based on the January bingo - 10 exercises on park equipment. This entertained the reporters as much as it did us!

We then headed back to base, waving cheerily at cameraman Mike on the way past and a few continued the celebrations in the pub. 🍻

Top work, but its not over yet. Still lots of kms needed, tasks to sign up to, bingo squares to complete and pledges to fulfill! Let push through the last few days and you can all have a day off on Sunday!

The problem with the January challenge is that we do so many good deeds that our taskowners run out of things for us to do, as was the case late last night with the council's eco team and the scheduled task at Clarence Gardens. We'd already done all the work earlier in the month. Fortunately, with a flurry of WhatsApp messages and our wonderful run leader Laura we were able to come up with a couple of tasks to fill the void and keep everyone just about busy enough.

Tonight we gave a big GG Yorkie welcome (and one dissenting boo) to Jenni who was joining is from GoodGym Reading. Great to have you here, despite Pete's rivalry! We also welcomed back Carys and Rohail who had enjoyed themselves so much last week tjat they decided to return. There were a fair few tired legs tonight after some fantastic running at the Brass Monkey half, so a lot of people were grateful for the steadier run out to the allotment task with Vicky, whilst Ed led the larger group to the community gardens with Pete and Lucy bringing up the rear.

Dan very quickly realised we would be working on the gardens at the end of his road and was almost tempted to get his "goodgym-curious" partner out to join us. Another night perhaps. At the task Laura had prepared a list of jobs that needed doing and the GG York crew got to work weeding, pruning, digging and sweeping. As we worked away we managed to spend a bit of time getting to know our newer members a bit better. Turns out Rohail is yet to try a jacket potato (cheese and beans seemed to be the best choice for an entry-level jacket) and Carys just casually dropped that she done some pretty epic running events in the past, including the Berlin Marathon!

Meanwhile, over with Vicky...

A splinter group of ladies headed to Holgate Allotments and were tasked with covering all the community allotment paths with woodchip. We quickly got stuck in and soon had a conveyor of wheelbarrows going back and forth. Alongside this was team weed, who cleared some of the paths before the bark arrived.

We had almost finished when the other group arrived, but being the perfectionists that we are, we had one final push to make sure we got the job done! We were very proud of our work and the paths look ace, if we do say so ourselves!

Once both tasks were completed we regrouped for an epic game of musical cones, with a little bit of cheating and some heated debate over the rules, before we headed back to the pub where some joined in with the cool down but most got themselves a reasonably well earned pint

Lovely stuff

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....

We had bumper turnout of 27 GG Yorkies tonight as we came back to tackle the wildflower meadow at Clarence Gardens. But before setting off we had a couple of things to celebrate. Well done Michael who completed a 20mile race in Czechia that i won't attempt to spell! And an even bigger well done to Jane who was completing her 50th Good Deed. Jane joined us midway through the January Challenge and has been a regular ever since. Great work Jane 👍

Our warm up was inspired by Paul Kelly's dedication to seeing Radiohead at the weekend after securing last minute tickets and jumping straight on a train to London to just make it to the O2 in time! So we named the great lengths we had gone to for an event or a thing. Turns out a lot of us have travelled a very long distance just to get dumped! 💔

We then set off with Vicky leading a walk/run group, Ed leading the main run and Lucy backmarking. Upon arrival we were greeted by task owner Iain and future task owner Rachel who has just joined the council's eco team. We then grabbed some rakes and got cracking, scarrifying (no idea how to spell it, sorry) the ground ready for it to be seeded. The GG crew formed an almost perfect line other than one head torch which could be seen in the distance raking their own corner of the meadow. Turned out our lone raker was Bec who, not wishing to conform, had decided to rake a different spot

Meanwhile, Alex, Nikki, Mitch, Paul and David were busy with their own task which involved clearing quite a large amount of green waste and shifting it over to the skip. There are few things certain in life other than death, taxes and seeing Mitch on top of a skip when we need to create more room!

Over with the rakers, Jan and Nicola were doing an excellent job of gathering up the arisings and shifting them to the skip giving Mitch more to jump up and down on!

Before long it was time to down tools and start our fitness session, which this week involved teams competing against each other to jump forwards with a cone and then sprint back to their team for then next person to sprint out to the cone, jump and then sprint back. The result of the race was too close to call, so they had to go again to decide a clear winner, which I think ended up being Leanne's team, although possibly with a little bit of cheating

We'll be back at Clarence Gardens in a few weeks to finish the job

The cold weather has arrived in earnest but it didn't stop a hardy team of goodgymers rock up ready to go off to the trenches for their weekly workout.

We started the session by celebrating Barbarapassing her 700th good deed and Laura her 50th, and welcoming new comer Alex to the group.

Vicky set off first with the party pace group and were met at Glen Allotments by an enthusiastic team. Ed's group arrived very soon after and we were all armed with spades and set to work.

The task was to dig one trench of 30 metres and another 20 metres, in preparation for a water pipe. There was some discussion about how deep 18 inches is - quite deep it turns out! No problem for our crew, who rose to the challenge! Within our alloted time we'd completed the task and were rewarded with home made flapjack.

Vicky set of back with the party gang whilst Ed's group did a spot of fun fitness.

Back at base we were rewarded by more delicious homemade biscuits courtesy of Laura!

A very enjoyable task!