🦇 A small but perfectly formed band of GoodGymmers dodged the trick or treaters to head to our Halloween group run this evening. A last minute cancellation of our second task due to the potential of rain (which didn't actually materialise until we were almost back at base at the end of the evening) meant that we were all headed to West Bank Park 🌦️

🍄 First up though, we warmed up by chatting about our favourite things about autumn. There was a lot of love for autumnal colours, but also an appreciation for mushrooms and the extra hour's sleep we enjoyed at the weekend 😴

🎃 Mitch led us on a route specifically designed to avoid the hoards of trick or treaters amassing on the streets. This generally worked very effectively, apart from when we were nearly run into by one over-zealous trick or treaters. There was appreciation for the route over the little railway bridge so a big thank you to Mitch 🚂

💪 On arrival, we were greeted by Kristina who split us into two groups - Team Dig and Team Leaf. Again, Leanne was keen to volunteer, this time for Team Dig. Others followed in her footsteps and there quickly assembled a worthy group of keen diggers, working around the new pond. There was a pile of soil to be dug out and re-distributed around the area, with the help of spades, wheelbarrows and even rakes to smooth over the ground. Ingenious. And only a few accusations of standing around as Pete had a chat with Kristina (he also did lots of hard work, honest). We heard from Kristina about the ongoing plans for the new pond area, which sound very exciting 🐸

🍁 Meanwhile, Team Leaf headed up (with great enthusiasm from Mitch in particular) to the other end of the park and split into three teams to tackle the autumnal deluge of leaves that has fallen recently. There was particular delight at the prospect of using the leaf clappers and only minor disappointment that the leaf blowers weren't available. Many leaves were collected and transported to the big compost bins, protecting the grass and hopefully making the paths less slippy too 🍂

🕷️ It was soon time to pack up and do our Halloween-inspired fitness session. From spider kicks, to guillotine chops with zombie kicks in between, it was quite the spectacle to watch and hopefully deterred any wannabe ghouls who may have been working. Thank you for your enthusiasm everyone, and being willing to get involved in this "novel" fitness approach 🏋️‍♀️🏋️‍♂️

🏃🏼‍♀️🏃‍♂️After our final zombie sprint, we headed back to base, still attempting to avoid the final trick or treaters who were lurking. Sadly, we didn't manage to avoid the rain but after a quick cool down and chat about what we've got coming up this week, we were ready to dry off and warm up ☔

🕸️ Thank you everyone, spooktakular stuff 👻

After a last minute task cancellation, Kristina from the council came up trumps with 3 fab activities at our old hang out, West Bank Park. But before heading out we numbered off by listing our favourite hot dinners (turns out there's a lot love for curry amongst the GG Yorkies) and celebrating the successes of the past week, including a strong GG contingent at Lockton Limping and a big cheer for Abi who successfully avoided prosecution!!

Upon arriving the we quickly split into 3 groups, with some GGers making it very clear they wanted to be in Team Pond (Leanne!) before even finding out what the rest of the tasks were. Turns out the people who were quick to nail their colours to the mast missed out on some pretty hefty leaf-blowing machinery or a more sedate spot of weeding

Team Blowers were quick off the mark in moving leaves around the play area and relied on Charlotte, equipped with a broom, to collect the seemingly random blowing into some sort of pile before shifting it into bags and over to the composting area.

Meanwhile Team Weed had come up with a cunning plan to focus their attention on just one side of the flower beds in order to make use of the limited amount of light. The group certainly seemed to have picked the most relaxing task and made great progress on meticulously removing any weeds from the bed whilst having a nice chinwag.

At the other end of the Park, Team Pond were busy shifting a huge pile of soil from around the edges of the newly installed pond and raking previous mud piles from around the bases of trees into something more aesthetically pleasing. The hustle and bustle of the spades, rakes and wheelbarrows was enough to disturb the local wildlife and eagle-eyed Martin was quick to spot a speedy (possibly one-eyed) frog to the delight of Abi and Dom.

After packing away our tools and putting out a fire started by the local youths (another Good deed!) it was time for our eagerly anticipated fitness session. The group split into two teams and lined up to face each other for a fiercely competitive plank race. Everyone enjoyed it so much that despite running slightly over time they were treated to a second race before heading back to the Priory Centre

Good times had by all

At the first light a group of 17 GG Yorkies assembled on Stockton Lane to set up and manage the mile 3 water station of the Yorkshire Marathon. The task was simple - put water bottles on tables and hand them out to runners. At first, the wave of elite runners took some interest in our provision, but it did not make us sweat. That changed however when the main body of the race approached and score after score of thirsty runners grabbed bottles from us without much of a pause. Our hands worker super quickly, bottles were put on tables, caps unscrewed and bottles handed to runners. Our hands ached from difficult to remove bottle caps, but we managed to serve everyone while having good time cheering, listening to music and enjoying the sunshine. Soon after the last runner passed our water station we were packing tables, picking discarded bottles and putting unused water on top of the pallets. We were even rewarded with few crates of surplus water which will be used during Chase the Pud later this year. Following the task some of us went for a cup of tea and a slice of cake before going to the traditional spot at the bottom of the hill to cheer runners on their home run towards the finish line.