Another Manchester park ticked off the bucket list this evening with a litter pick in Heaton Park today! While much of the UK was baking, we had a nice evening with a gentle breeze for a nice stroll in the park while clearing up any dropped litter and discarded waste.

The magnificent seven: Peter, Gaynor, Fanette, Scott, Victor, Esteban, and Ben donned their gloves (some were leftover lab gloves admittedly) with a few litter pickers and bag rings to share around to scour the park following Parklife over the weekend.

While we had a map showing litter hotspots, the park was surprisingly clear, albeit we couldn't access the Papal Fields with the Parklife hoardings still up, but we still filled a grand total of 13 litter sacks with a couple of laughing gas cannisters. We met Steve from Prestwich Pickers too, also out for a stroll and a litter pick, and made friends with some members of local wildlife, including Highland cows, rabbits, squirrels, plus a few birds. Lots of thanks from those in the park (including a few cyclists and a running group).

We'll be back in a few weeks for some balsam bashing (there was plenty of that around...) so sign up if you'd like to go back for some more active volunteering in Heaton Park.

Day out for Scott, Ben, and Juno at the Manchester Volunteer Fair in St Ann's Square in the city centre.

Lots of conversations and connections with those looking to get involved, making links to community organisations, and giving GoodGym a thorough introduction to the people of Manchester.

Juno earned her grub by bringing in people with her natural charm, while t-shirts, photos, posters, and flyers giving us a way to show how much GoodGym groups can help out to local groups and to overcome social isolation often becoming an issue across many demographics.

Looking forward to following up on a few new potential tasks and activities, and good to see Sam and Sanjeev briefly during the day.

Big well done to all the runners today! 👏👏

• Congrats to Caroline completing the half marathon with a new PB!
• Well done to Scott with a new PB in the 10 km!
• We'll done to Ben completing a foodbank run full of tins and pasta in the half marathon, welcomed by Juno at the finish line

Kudos to all the spectators too including Peter coming out on a day of mixed weather 👏

Busy crowds with nearly 38,000 runners plus a lot of spectators!

Well done to the 468 finishers this morning! Special welcome to the 126 people visiting us for the first time, including 22 completing their first ever parkrun 👏

🦺 Big THANK YOU to the 22 volunteers who helped out with everything to ensure a safe and welcoming event. Scott was on the bike and marshalling at Old Bedians rugby club while Ben was Run Director near the finish area.

Good luck to all those taking part in the Great Manchester Run tomorrow! 💪

Welcome to Derek for you first GoodGym session!

With a warm and sunny bank holiday weekend, the parks were packed, which also meant that the bins were overflowing with litter from takeaways and picnics. To counter the problem, Derek, Scott, Victor, and Ben met up in St Peter's Square to make the ~2 km jog towards the green spaces in Ardwick to remove as much as the litter as possible.

We started on the Greek Street green space near the ring road overpass, with litter accumulating near the traffic lights and from the main road after being discarded by passing drivers, and collected a few wheel trims and lots of cans and bottles. We continued up Lamport Close to drop off some full refuse sacks (just 3 here), before carrying on towards Kincardine Road and Gartside Gardens.

It seemed to be a hotspot for laughing gas use, with balloons and empty cannisters (13 or 14 in total) found in the car park of the Salvation Army building to add to their growing box of empty cannisters near their refuse point. More were to be found on the outskirts of the park, likely dumped by nearby parked cars.

Within Gartside Gardens, clearly a party had taken place with a pile of half open black bin bags near the entrance, while a lot of litter was splayed around the park, a lot having been blown from already full bins or from people placing it near to a bin, expecting it to magically stay close by to be collected... In this case we collected another 8 laughing gas cannisters and 9 full refuse sacks, leaving the park in a much tidier state than it was before.

12 sacks, over 20 laughing gas cannisters, and all of it picnic, takeaway, or packaging related. We got a lot of thanks from some of children in the park and from some passing drivers as we were litter picking. Gentle jog too despite the heat.