We came, we sawed, we celebrated!

Who wood have thought we could have saw much fun out logging good deeds in the dark on a freezing Wednesday evening? I've spent so much of the evening eating cake that I don't have time for a big report, so like a sawn off bit of den-building pole, I'll keep it short(ish)! And then I'll log off...

Things that made this evening tree-mendous:

1. We came... in droves! We were a really big group despite the freezing weather, and it was great to welcome newcomers Jude, Clare, Garry and Tony as well as a forest of familiar faces.

Five runners branched off to get in some extra steps on the way to the task, while the rest of us walked and carried the tools. The walkers negotiated some amazing mud as we took a wrong turn on our root. Never a dull moment!

2. We sawed... up all the old den building poles Ranger Tom left us in the woodland classroom, so there is now plenty more firewood for the Nature Centre to use in their outdoor learning programme. We saw-ted this bit of the task out so rapidly that we also had time to carry the new den building poles from the reserve into the classroom and to do a 1 minute plank!

3. We celebrated... some truly awesome GoodGymer achievements. Thanks to the Nature Centre for allowing us access to their building so we could do this in the warm.

In an all-time GoodGym career highlight, I had the honour of formally presenting Sheila with the Sean Coxhead Inspiring Individual Award. This award, which takes the form of a beautiful glass trophy, recognises individuals in the GoodGym community who have demonstrated remarkable dedication, kindness or effort. You can read more about Sean Coxhead, to whose memory the award is dedicated, by clicking here. This evening Kanika and Georgeta, who both independently nominated Sheila, shared with the group why she is such a star. The Maidenhead Advertiser agree she's a star, and you can read what they've said in the pictures for this report.

Incredibly, this week Sheila also achieved her 250th good deed with GoodGym. She is the first from the W&M group to tick off this milestone. Many of her recent good deeds have been social visits, through which she has really brightened the lives of some of our isolated older residents. She has also listed 80 sessions, led 103, and written the reports for a whopping 113, enabling us to run more sessions and bring more GoodGym to our area than I could do on my own. To celebrate her big 2-5-0 we gave Sheila a medal including a golden, sparkly rake , 'cos she's been raking in the good deeds and she's GoodGym gold!

Huge congratulations also to Kelley! We presented Kelley with a medal to celebrate her 50th good deed (and her 51st and 52nd!) We love having Kelley on our team. She always makes us laugh (especially if there's a dentist's chair around), she captained a team at Endure24, she is dedicated to her fitness, she has excellent tulip connections and she takes stunning photos. Well done Kelley!

And last but not least, (bin)GO Diya for winning our January Challenge Bingo game! Diya has been all over the bingo game since it launched, and since she also loves a selfie, we celebrated her achievement with a framed picture of her face all over the bingo card. Very much deserved!

We celebrated all three of these super women with cake baked by super Georgeta - a red (GoodGym) velvet stunner! She also made scrumptious cupcakes and Sheila worked her baking magic for the gluten free crew. What a tree-t!