GoodGym-nasium, Touring and Misbe-Haven!

Once again, Saturday morning was a triumph for Swindon GoodGym! The red t-shirts were out in force and lots of us headed to parkrun to either run or volunteer before the Community Mission. 11 runners then headed to the Haven Day Centre, who provide much needed services to the homeless and others in need.

We were excited to have guests - the lovely Matt and Clo from the Bristol Task Force who were doing a bit of GoodGym tourism. It turns out that “Andrew Not Tim” had already met Matt when they were at Seaton parkrun back in March and the power of the red t-shirt meant they got chatting! Clo and Matt were both great – can we keep them please? We’re willing to battle it out in an arm wrestle with Bristol GoodGym if needed.

This week was a big test with no Trainer or Run Leaders – eeek! Would we find our way there? Could we keep ourselves out of trouble? Would we get the all-important Landscape picture for the report – this is always the most important activity of any task so failure would surely be the end of GoodGym Swindon!? The pressure was on, especially for task leader ‘Sandy’ Sam who comes from trusty Task Force stock but this was her first time leading. So how did we get on?

This was a Community Mission and a half! The lovely Becky is now familiar with our super powers and had a good list of super hero deeds for us to sort. Simon the Gardener and Adam turned their attention to anything that was green and growing or brown and dead. Simon really is a dab hand with a leaf blower! We shifted and rearranged the sofas and coffee tables and lamps to make a cosy chill-out area. We did our best to apply the principles of Feng Shui but gave up when we realised we’d placed a 3 seater sofa in front of a fire escape. Instead, we settled for making sure the cushions matched. We organised the inside café tables and chairs to create a more social and chatty area and washed the outside tables and chairs. Next, was setting up gym equipment which has been donated to the Haven and ripping up the old carpet. We couldn’t resist testing out some of the equipment (well, we do have that arm wrestle with Bristol to prep for!), except for Helen and Tracey who preferred to see if they could squeeze themselves into laundry baskets. We at Swindon GoodGym have a reputation for humping and dumping and gosh...

we humped and dumped like we’d never humped and dumped before!

Mattresses, duvets, pillows, old crates, carpet, cupboards, clothing and fences all found new homes, or found themselves in the skip.

At half time a short break was needed. Q. How do you reassemble 11 GoodGymers who are scattered to the four corners of an old school turned homeless haven? A. (fortunately Tracey knew the answer to this one). Whip out a family sized box of fancy biscuits. Party Ring anyone? Don’t mind if I do.

Our leader, ‘Sandy’ Sam, claimed to have helped with several tasks, including eating the fancy biscuits. But we called ‘Photos Or It Didn’t Happen’ on it. To be fair, she was at an unfair disadvantage, also being the photographer for the day, and no selfie stick could have caught all of that action. Well done Sam, we salute you! After two hours we were done, Becky was super happy with everything we’d achieved and we have another successful Community Mission in the bag.

Would you like to join us for another Community Mission? On Saturday 14th September the Prospect Hospice needs our help at Run the Rainbow, a fun and colourful 5km run for all ages at Lydiard Park. GoodGym Swindon has been invited to 'takeover' one of the five Paint Stations to ensure that every single person running by is covered in paint! What a fun task! Lots of us are needed so don't delay – sign up here today