Six Goodgymmers ran, walked and cycled to the Tang Hall Library once again to set up the monthly book sale.

Initially it looked like there wouldn't be much to do this month because the sale was already set up. Plan B was to get everyone doing laps of the building but luckily for the rest of the group, it turned out there was plenty they needed help with.

We got to work setting up more tables and sorting the books that were already out and in the end added another twenty or more boxes to the sale. Even with Mitch getting distracted by a tiny book of Victorian smut we managed to finish ten minutes early, a great team effort.

This task has been going for several months now and it was pleasing to see the Jeremy Clarkson book remains unsold. There were plenty of interesting new finds too - if you're into both horses and alternative medicine get down to Tang Hall tomorrow and you'll find plenty of books combining those interests in a pleasing if scientifically unproven way.

☀ 26 excellent GoodGymmers gathered for our third and final bank holiday group run of the month. And a lovely sunny evening it was too.

👋 We were thrilled to welcome Michaela for her first group run, and to see Louise who’s visiting up from London.

🦸‍♂ Sadly, I completely forgot to bring the cape for Ed’s very impressive 300th good deed so that glorious moment/photo op is yet to come. Well done though 👍

🥔 We named, numbered and warmed up with a slightly ad hoc question (which fit with my slightly disorganised mind this evening). In honour of it being whitsun weekend, we offered our favourite comedian and/or potato dishes. There were some very reputable comedians cited but personally, it also just reminded me how many great ways there are you serve potatoes (dauphinois, hash browns, croquettes), which in turn made me pretty hungry.

🍎 Ed led the run to Holgate Community Orchard where we marvelled in the progress that’s been made in the 18-ish months that we’ve been coming here. The first part of the patch is blooming with wildflowers so we got stuck into the second. One job there was to lop nettles, dig brambles and remove bindweed. Meanwhile, another group got stuck in removing stones from a stony patch.

🧲 A third group were on random metal object extraction duties. Door handles/hinges and horseshoes were among their finds, with some impressive digging to get them out. More natural finds were a potato plant by Charlotte (which Helen thinks must have been there for decades) and a frog by Bernie. We can’t wait to see how this part of the orchard turns out and we’re particularly excited to hear more about the bee initiatives there 🐝

🗻 Some excellent work was done during our time there tonight, before we headed to Windmill Rise for some hill reps. We did these in pairs and included a warm up and cool down plus three higher intensity reps in the middle.

🍻 With that, it was time to head back to base and home/on to the pub.

🌺 We’ve got a few sessions coming up this week, including this one at North Street Gardens on Wednesday evening with Barbara so do sign up and join us if you can.

8 wonderful GGers made their way to Kimberlow Hill to give some care to a new mixed deciduous woodland. Saplings were straightened, weeded and de-snailed. Ants were dislodged from tree guards. Alder leaf beetles, orchids and wild flowers were discovered. All re-usable tree stakes, canes, ties and 3 types of tree guards were bundled up and left for people planting trees to come and take. The broken stakes were put in a dumpy bag and since the task another volunteer has offered to collect these for recycling. The unusable waste was bagged and taken to be binned by the Treemendous volunteers. Here's hoping the saplings benefited from our care and will grow into trees to be enjoyed for many generations to come.

☀️ In contrast to the torrentially wet weather for last Monday’s group run, tonight was pleasantly sunny. 26 of us gathered, bound for West Bank Park.

👋 We were thrilled to welcome Iñaki for his first GoodGym session, and Beth for her first group run. We hope you both had fun!

🦸‍♂️ We were also delighted to celebrate Paul Kelly’s 300th good deed, giving him the honour of wearing the special cape of joy (and celebrating further with him at the pub at the end of the task!)

🇪🇺 We named, numbered and warmed up while saying our favourite European country (in honour of Eurovision so Australia featured, obviously!) Spain, Italy and Ireland were popular choices, along with Yorkshire (of course it should be a country).

🏃‍♀️🚲🚶‍♂️We then headed to West Bank Park, on foot or bike where we were greeted by Kristina who had a plethora of tasks for us.

👑 We split into two main groups for pond vs pruning. The pruning was due to be around Queen Victoria, to uncover her. So the first question was “Where is Queen Victoria?”, followed by “Where is her nose?”, followed by “When’s her next bath?” (not for a while yet apparently as she had one last year and is likely to go fully green before her next!) Anyway, the team cracked on with some pruning, very efficiently, so they were soon finished and onto the next task.

🌼They then headed to a lovely meadowy area, with strict instructions to take care of the two bluebells there. There were various jobs in there, including pulling up dock leaves (which means we got to hear about Carl’s delicious-sounding stuffed dock leaves, and then Kristina’s equally delicious-sounding wild garlic birthday risotto!) The other job was trimming the new hedge/border back, using the 3 Ds principles - pruning dead, damaged and diseased in that order.

🐸 Meanwhile, the pond area was a hive of activity (literally - the pond itself was teeming with life, which was lovely to see - frogs and tadpoles galore!) The GoodGymmers were pretty busy too, weeding the dreaded ground elder from the flowerbed edges. Pete took his shoes and socks off immediately and waded into the pond (I’m not entirely sure why, possibly to retrieve a plant that needed moving?)

🌿 Another group were doing complicated manoeuvring with some wie to protect a newly-created hedge. Meanwhile, Beth, Leanne, Martin B were busy chopping out something beginning with P (we quickly forgot what) from within a large holly tree. They made a huge difference very quickly and then moved the cuttings to create a barrier for the pond.

💪 SO much got done this evening so thank you very much to everyone. And that was before the fitness! We did triple jump-based relays where everyone had to run, hop, skip and jump in turn to see which team could do it the fastest. There was some incredibly impressive stuff and thank you everyone for getting stuck in with what was a slightly more hardcore fitness session compared to some recently.

📸 As it turned out I’d forgotten to take the group photo, we did that then, and headed back to base. Once there, we cooled down, stretched off and parted ways. Oh, and we even avoided the brooding threat of rain that was lurking for the run back 🥳

🙌 Thank you everyone, I hope you have a great week and hopefully see you soon!

*Credit to Carl for the pun 👍

😁 24 excellent GoodGymmers gathered on a very pleasant bank holiday Monday evening for a two-task session.

👋 We were thrilled to welcome Sara to her first task and Becca to her first group run.

🍫 We also enjoyed some chocolates, courtesy of the new Raleigh-GoodGym partnership.

🏦 We named, numbered off and warmed up by discussing either our favourite bank (thanks Ed) our favourite bank holiday activity. The bank of Dave (great film) and the bank of Mum and Dad featured, alongside Nationwide! Meanwhile, favoured bank holiday activities included exercising, eating, drinking and sleeping.

➗ It was soon time to split into two teams for this evening’s tasks, with Nick leading the run to Fishergate and Mitch leading the run to Acomb Methodist Church.

🖌 At Acomb, we met Barbara and Claire who were still working hard away, since the earlier community mission, chipping away the old paint from the church noticeboard. We’d hoped to get the stripping and sanding done during said community mission to do some painting during the group run. That was a tad optimistic though, so we all got stuck in continuing to battle the many layers of paint that coated the noticeboard. There were ladders and a variety of tools and techniques on display, along with various degrees of success, mostly based on the looseness of the paint in each of our areas. Barbara had kindly agreed with Mike the caretaker that we would attempt to tidy the plethora of mess that we’d created so we went about this with the tools available and hope that it looks vaguely tidier as a result. And I’m sure we’ll be back to continue stripping and sanding the noticeboard before we can start painting it.

🌱 Meanwhile, here’s what Debs had to say about the larger group at Fishergate: “We triumphed over much turf. There are future turf wars to be fought. We filled the skip and Amy and I squashed it in with safe stomping. Rich battled with benches and mostly won.”

🍌 It was soon time to regroup back at base and head home or to the pub for appropriately alliterative banana bread and beer.

👍 We’ve got plenty happening for the rest of the week so do sign up if you can. And we’ll back for another bank holiday special group run, delivering leaflets for the Community Furniture Store.