We were back at St Mary’s Church on Church Street for our Monday #DoGoodGetFit task. We all had ‘active travel’ to get to the Church on time on a lovely cool Monday evening.

On arrival, Jean our task owner gave us access to the Church and asked us to do a few tidy up jobs that the Church desperately needed.

So we got to work pretty quickly with Jason taking the sweeping job (once he was happy with the broom!), Maya also went on sweeping duties then onto iron gate cleaning.

Devajani was already giving the iron work a good clean whilst Agni and Jean were all over the pulpit with Jean giving us her worldly advise.

I took some time out to sweep the altar and wipe down the pews with the rest of the team joining me once they’d finished their areas.

The areas looked so much fresher once we’d finished. Such a beautiful church and we were very happy to help give it a spring clean.

We look forward to returning in a few weeks time.

Next week we will be at the allotments on Stoke Road. Hope to see you there.

Tonight was night of firsts

• We had Thomas and Priya join us for the first GoodGym session - great to have you both join us tonight.

• We were doing our first group run session to Raggy Rd Allotments

• My first night of trying to speak Spanish, Parsi and English all at the same time!

We met at Salt Hill Activity Centre and as each member joined us we did a round robin of introductions. Firmo, Jason and Zoe were all recent returnees and it was great to have them back.

With a task overview and route overview loosely given, we were ready to do a warm up. My favorite warm up game of head, shoulders, knees, toes and cone followed by mirror image of exercises! Keith and Firmo looked like they had a dance routine going on! Bravo to you all!

Thyme to grow…

Even though Keith has only been with us since September he did a great job of leading the runners to the task location which I back marked. Keith has actually helped out a few times at this task at the weekends so he actually knew it better than I did. Thank you Keith for being a great help tonight.

On arrival at the task location, we met task owner Anita who gave us an overview of what she’d like done.

• Cutting back of brambles;

• Removal of rubbish;

• Removal of pallets and tyres;

• General cut back of trees;

• Removal of wood;

The bramble bashing was quickly taken on by Keith, Firmo and Jason and they did a remarkable job of getting so much of it cut back

Zoe didn’t tyre of the tasks she was assigned! Lifting and shifting items including two large tyres - who needs bootcamp when you have GoodGym

Priya did a fab job of clearing one plot of all plastic rubbish - nothing beets a bit of gardening prep!

Tom was just the man for the pallets! Carried like a true expert he easily transported them from the plot to the tip! Top job! I hope they all stacked up ok?

Mehdi and Jean did a bit of this and a bit of that! Mehdi was making sure everyone had the necessary wheelbarrow license and Jean was on wood duty! Moving it around into piles for burning and tipping.

In our alloted time slot we managed to do allot

With a quick tidy up and group photo taken we headed back to our meet up location.

Next week we are meeting on a Tuesday night as its a bank holiday on the Monday.

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions

Thank you all for your efforts tonight.

It was a much smaller than usual team out tonight helping Ujala Foundation with their community garden. Thank you to Peter and Jean for coming along tonight to help.

Jean and I got there early tonight so we took advantage of the light and went for a mile run around the block and got back just in time as Peter arrived.

Our task owner Gaye was already in the garden waiting for us. It was lovely to see her again. Gaye told us the areas to focus on. The garlic bed!!

You could really smell the garlic as we dug deep and pulled out all the 'hairy' roots! With the fading light we worked as quick as we could and did manage to get one strip of the bed turned over.

We will be back again next week to do some more.

This evening we were back at one of our very original task's - Wexham Park Hospital doing a litter pick task. It was great to have Jean back after a little break.

Also really good to see Rosa, lovely to catch up with you.

We met at the top of Shaggy Calf Lane and I briefed the team of the task, the distance and that we would be doing a litter bit of running

Running? But I like walking said Hamid

That was no problem either as we had Jean on back marking duties so walking is never an issue. But guess who was leading the 'run' pack? Yep... Hamid. He had decided to run instead and what a good runner he is! He's kept that talent a secret.

As we approached the hospital grounds we bagged up the bags onto the litter pick loops, paired up and got to work.

Each pair managed to fill a bag each, just proving the fact that we need to continue supporting the hospital with this type of task.

Thank you for everyone's help tonight.

Next week we will be in Cippenham helping Slough Outreach with getting their storage.

Our last session of the year brings us to Stoke Park Active and an indoor Christmas present wrapping task. A perfect end to the year.

Clare our task owner cum GoodGym member had given us a Christmas cracker of a task - we were pack some treats into little goody bags, wrap them up, tidy up the venue and get it all ready for the panto that Clare and her amazing team are doing for the children that come along to their sessions.

As the weather had made it virtually unsafe to run on the footpaths due to flooding and muddy conditions, we actually missed the run part and cracked in with the task part....but I had a master plan....there was still a fitness session involved that would earn the team their treats.

So after we had done this and done that, shifted that chair and this table we were ready to rumble.. I had prepared a 12 days of Christmas fitness challenge with a reducing time frame.... 1 burpee, 2 push ups, 3 prisoner squats and so on all the way to 12 star jumps. I thought I had demo'd it all really well....but the videos show that VR was needed as some level of cheating did take place...and some level of mis counting..but it was all in the name of fun and both teams did an amazing job!

As well as the 12 days exercises we had a moves based Chinese whisper type of game! Less said about this the better! And the finale was a strict game of instructions! Fail the instruction - you got kicked out - I had final sleigh on it!

Oh and we had a bit of karaoke!

Thank you to our amazing 14 volunteers for coming along to our last session of 2023! and a very warm welcome to Ali

Let's review our tree-mendous 2023

January

We had double deeds galore as we kick started the January challenge and spent some time guarding the iconic knife angel, and not forgetting a whole load of parkrunning

February

All you seed is love as we helped Artful Hub on numerous tasks this month helping to get them set up in their new unit

March

We made a sweeping statement as we continued to help the Ujala Foundation with their community garden and lets not forget Jean obtaining her 100th Good Deed

April

We had a Ra-leigh good time as launched our partnership with Raleigh and enjoyed some Easter treats.. Jen and Gauri will remember the shed sort out for Shin! We really did like to 'move it move it'

May

We saw some fashion items that were a blast from the past as we continued to help Thames Hospicecare. New tasks were starting to pile up as we started helping some local churches like St Paul's and St Mary's

June

The plot thickened allot this month as the weeds just kept on growing on our allotments task with Home Start. Lucky we had some keen gardeners in the team with Pam, Peter and Jen...plus a handy app to decipher a weed from a plant! This is the month that we built a stronger relationship with Slough Refugee Support and Mehdi, Hamid, Mohammed and Eshan joined us.

July

Hi Five to us all as we celebrated our 5th birthday! Our first group race at Beat the Boat was knot too shabby!

August

Pew..we did it! Plenty of outdoor tasks as we basked in the summer sunshine helping St Mary's Primary school with painting and gardening as we well as plenty of gardening tasks at St Paul's

September

More swede times as our gardening skills grew!

October

Our GhoulGym was out in full force with our Hallo-clean tasks

November

Didn't we win an award (or two??).... Group of the Year...lets just leave it there

December

Wrapping it up now with our networking natters, keeping the rein(deer) as bay and getting some indoor tasks with Shin and Clare

We clocked up a huge 498 tasks in 2023 by 51 members

So what's going on in 2024? PLENTY!

Yule be sorry if you don't attend our January sessions to get your good deeds and km's logged. Our target for January is 55 good deeds and 750km's. I've kept it realistic this year as we do have a natural drop in our good deeds overs the years so hopefully this target feels more achievable.

This is our first community mission on Friday 5th January 10.30 - 11.30 at Slough Outreach shop

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/sorting-out-clothes

We then have a double deed Sunday with volunteering at Salt Hill junior parkrun and then a litter pick (we will actually be doing this every Sunday in January, so plenty of good deeds to be had)

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/parkrun-volunteer-f8984433-06c5-488b-ba7c-6d295b22be77

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/community-litter-pick-740a7a7f-0aaa-47d6-870f-9af261ddf7f2

Then our first Monday eve group session is on Monday 8th January helping Slough Outreach again with a clothes sort out

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/helping-slough-outreach-at-new-unit-in-cippenham-b336979c-bdeb-49f9-9f5d-888cb2290ff5

The following Monday we have a task that requires LOTs of volunteers, so if there is only one Monday that you can do please do this one. Its helping the Not Just a Store - waste warriors shop on the Bath Rd with setting up the Pet Food area.

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/waste-warriors-helping-at-the-new-community-fridge-and-landfill-reduction-shop

So that's all folks...time to Ho Ho Home

Enjoy your rein-beers and have a great festive break.

This evenings task was to help Slough Outreach at their new unit in Cippenham with a clothes sorting task.

On arrival Shin met us in the shop which was now looking really amazing with loads of newly donated items. But that wasn't where our task was going to be.

Instead Shin walked us over to the storage unit and took us into a huge room which was literally spewing with black bags full of donations! Our task was to sort the bags into piles of children's toys; children's clothes; women's clothes; men's clothes; homeware; books and CD's and items suitable for the homeless.

As the task looked mammoth, we decided to get stuck in and do our run afterwards...we are like the Salvation Armani as no task is too big for us!

Straight away we had the room divided into sections and bags were being torn up, emptied and sorted. A hive of activity which we all XL'd at! It's always a soleful experience sorting through donations especially shoes! What we unraveled tonight was that ladies clearly know that donating is a fashion ...their pile was the highest, closely followed by the children...they pulled their socks up and outgrew their superhero outfits ...but the men don't sweat it as their pile was the smallest - cap-tee-vating to see the trends here.

Shin was over the moon that we had managed to sort the whole room out...so a big shout out to the team

• Helping Hands Hamid;

• Joyous Jen;

• Jovial Jean;

• More Giving Manjit;

• Magnanimous Mehdi;

• Plentiful Pam;

• Raring To Go Ruth

Well done all....enjoy the rest of your Monday Punday

We had a last minute cancellation of task today but we never gift up as we soon had one lined up with Clare from Stoke Park Trust helping to wrap up presents for their grotto, tinsel up some tea lights, sort through Christmas lights and a bit of light hovering

We met at the task location at 6:30pm and those wishing to get out for a run went off for a 10 minute out and back run with Ruth back marking and me leading.

Whilst those who wanted to just do the task met us at the task location at 7pm

Clare gave us the low down on what she wanted us to do… there was no time like the present to crack on.

Pam, Keith, Devajani, Maya, Kam and Jean spent some qualitree time wrapping up the empty boxes

Ruth was doing her best not to get her tinsel in a tangle and get it nicely wrapped around the tea lights

Whilst I was doing my best impersonation of Freddie and the famous hoovering scene …

The task was nicely wrapped up in 45 minutes.

Thank you Clare for the last minute task - much appreciated

Oh what a night!

15 of us all dressed in our best ready to party the night away at the returning Slough CVS Awards Nights.

We had been shortlisted under Group of the Year award category and although I knew we had a good chance we were up against some great competition (some of whom were our task owners!).

The night started as all good nights do, with a dressed up crowd sipping on gin n’ juice with a chocolate fountain. Though the late arrivals (Nisha, Ricky and I) missed the chocolate fountain!

As we entered the lobby area we bumped into our ever so glamorous team members Jean, Ruth and Agni. Wow! Did you see how amazing Jean looked!!

After having our 1st photo taken (1st out of around 100!) we made our way into the function hall to see the rest of the gang at our tables.

Each and everyone looked amazing!

Slough CVS team opened the event with key note speakers and a warm up act from Ramesh, CEO!

And dinner is served… a delicious medley of South Asian food and a tray of fish..

We nearly won on the raffle! 170 is close to 180 right? But not close enough.

Then onto the dancing act from Creative Academy!

Dr Jim and Dom were an amazing double act on stage presenting the ceremony. A few drinks were consumed by now so can’t tell you how funny they were but I know I laughed (a lot!)

First up were the Business Impact Awards followed by our much awaited Volunteer of the Year Award. We had our very own Sutyee shortlisted for this category for all that she does to support junior parkrun.

Drum roll please……

The award goes to…. Cindy! Well done Cindy…

The highly commended award goes to SUTYEE!!! Wohooo! Applause please as she stands to receive her certificate

Next onto Public Sector Partnership Award

Now the one we were waiting for - Group of the year

First up is a short film on each group nominated. As always, each time GoodGym is mentioned there are cheers all round. Pipe down GoodGym!

And I am delighted to tell you that we received awards in 2 categories

Highly Commended for Making a difference to the environment

Winners of Designing innovative projects!

Even more applause 👏

What a night. It ended with a disco that had everyone up and dancing

We had such a great time! Uber Ricky dropped us home and somehow 'stole' the award which left me in a panic thinking i'd lost it! Luckily the thief returned in the morning with award intact!

Enjoy the photos.. we certainly enjoyed the night

This evening we were on our first task of helping Slough Outreach with their new Charity Shop come Community Hub in Cippenham.

This unit will be used to support the community as a place to meet, donate items for resale and items for the Outreach work that Shin and his team do.

Our task was to give the shop a clean up - many hands make light work... and that clearly showed this evening as we blitzed through the task in 45 minutes.

Prior to Shin arriving we went for a little jog around the block lead by our very own Jen...

On Shin's arrival we quickly made our way inside the warmth of the shop and got the dusters out to give the shelves a new lease of life.

• Jen, Agnija and Jean went straight onto window duty - it looked pane-ful but they did a smashing job;

• Mehdi was on mirror duty - he gave himself a great reflection;

• Hamid and Ruth were quick with those dusters but cleaning feels like a never-ending marathon, it’s a real dust-ance challenge;

• Peter had made a new best mate with Henry! They were like shake n' vac putting the goodness back.

Sorry, I’m a bit dusty when it comes to coming up with puns, so I'll stop there.

To summarise, it was great to have the opportunity to help Shin with this new community hub. It's going to be a great asset to the local community and we look forward to helping out as much as we can.

Ps - I think I found my new shoes for the Awards Ceremony next week!

Twas the night before Halloween and the good people of GhoulGym Slough were out and ready to give the town a Hallo-Clean at Salt Hill Park

We met at the Salt Hill Activity Centre and after a little photo shoot with Mike we descended into the deep dark depths of the park.

With no running for me tonight (legs are like the living dead after the Dublin marathon yesterday!), I sent the team out for a lap of the park - walk it, run it, jog it… just don’t get totally ghosted with your efforts!

Back from their fitness efforts we stuck to each other like glue and worked as a team to clear a section of the park.

With plenty of dirty hidden treasures in the bushes we had enough to keep us occupied. But when Hamid found what looked like a dumped rucksack with clothes and then we found rope and sheets we decided the witching hour was upon us and time to move on to another part of the park.

Although we had some great masks and accessories tonight, the best dressed award had to go to Sandy - we loved her outfit - she got it at the new boo-tique in Slough- Give em pumpkin to talk about!

With 6 full bags of rubbish collected it was time to call it a night! Everyone was thanked for their efforts and offered a ‘hero’ chocolate - bone appetite!

Witching you all a happy halloween