A Classic GoodGym Worthing Welcome

This evening we were back at one of our favourite tasks at Heene Cemetery. With Sue on her holidays in France we were greeted by Rob and Jane who are also volunteers of the 'Friends of Heene Cemetery' We had been asked to go along and do our annual raking of the strimming activity that the council had carried out last week.

It was so nice to meet another Mr Robinson today.
John brought along his brother Kevin who had first registered interest in GG back in 2018 when support was being gauged for a new area in Carlisle - unfortunately this didn't happen meaning it was, in fact, Kevin's first task today! 👏 ( hopefully not his last!! )

it was great to see Sarah and Ryan tonight who arrived early and had already filled at least half a bag of strimmings by the time I arrived !

Paula Belinda and Ricky immediately got stuck into the raking and the whole team finished relatively quickly.

This left time for Rob, who photographs and logs all the different 660 species of wildlife etc that has been found in the cemetery, to give us a short talk on the cemetery. Ge particularly focused on the trees including the very old Yew Tree that was there before the walls of the cemetery were put in place.

If you want to take a deeper dive into the history of the cemetery click on the link below.

https://www.heenecemetery.org.uk/

Thanks everyone and have a great week!

Julia x

Better than a BOGOF - Today was a triple! It was a great turn out this evening and we had a very prompt start.

Head teacher Helen asked to do 3 things

*Dig over the flower beds at the front of the school and line it with wood chips.

*Continue painting the fence surrounding the play area.

*Dig out a massive plant in the play area.

Daisy andPaul elected to get started on the digging and were joined byJohn and Duncan. Gillybean did her usual great job on pruning and tidying the bushes on the flowerbed which made a huge difference to the visual finish ( Daisy helped with this too )

Ryan, Sarah and Roxy headed out to continue where we left off last time with the painting of the fence in a forest green colour. They were joined by Sue and Belinda Everyone tried to avoid Sarah's paint flicking skills but some of us didn't manage to swerve this ' talent ' 🤣

The flowerbed team soon achieved fantastic results and came and joined the team at the back of the school. Daisy pitched in with the fence whilst John and Paul decided to attack the huge plant/ bush that needed removing in the play area.

Given the time we had left , this was an optimistic and challenging and involved a fair amount of brute force and determination plus some cardiovascular strength too ! They were joined by Duncan who brought some muscle and also Gill who offered some useful technique tips 🤣

Despite all odds the task was completed meaning we had achieved 2 / 3 of our goals tonight - Bravo team 👏

Next week we will return to continue painting the ( eternal ) fence!

The final question is, why is this report entitled ' What lies beneath ' ? There are 2 answers to this - both fairly confidential. One relates to what is underneath the wood chips and the other is what Belinda is concealing underneath her hoodie! Ssssshhhh - nobody knows 😁😁😁

The oh so elusive sun was still shining as the team gathered at St Botolph's to continue the battle against the unwanted growth, to allow the less invasive to thrive

A friend in weed is a friend in deed

Before our final task instructions were issued Gill dived straight into removing weeds around the base of the church, joined enthusiastically by Roxy when she arrived

Tools rushed in, where angels feared to tread

Sue (our Sue!) and Belinda headed off to help Sue (task owner Sue) collect the tools we would need to defeat the weeds and ivy that have clearly been enjoying the mixed weather more than some of us have.

The Ivy League of GoodGymers

Once the full team were on site we tackled the task with gusto! Weeds were pulled, ivy was stripped, bushes were trimmed, and stinking Iris evicted.