A fence intended

This morning Amy, Raymond and Robert from GoodGym Windsor and Maidenhead and Sara and Chris from GoodGym Slough met at St John the Baptist Church in Eton Wick for some fence painting and churchyard tidying.

We were joining a group of local volunteers from from the church and village, so there was quite a buzz, as well as some scrumptious cake and tea. It was a lovely atmosphere, and the numbers did not feel at all inappropriate considering the Covid-19 risk. The church had a comprehensive Covid-19 policy and risk assessment in place, and Claire Taylor and the team running the working party had taken every precaution to ensure we were safe.

Raymond, Sara, Chris and Amy joined the majority of the volunteers to work on the fence. By comparison to the last fence tackled by Windsor and Maidenhead this one was very, very long but lower (more squats and lunges required), it had more spiders and earwigs, and also more fiddly bits. On the plus side however the wood preserver on this task was more plentiful, less sticky and less likely to stain your GoodGym t-shirt. Preserving this fence seemed like a lot to get done in one morning, but with many hands on the job and a healthy dose of competitive spirit, progress was swift and satisfying.

Meanwhile Robert joined a smaller team weeding and planting bulbs around graves. You can see from the photograph what an outstanding job he did, leaving behind a veritable 'zen garden' of clear and finely raked soil. If the souls at rest beneath were conscious of the activity above, they will no doubt have been impressed by Robert's care.

This community mission also marked a number of firsts for our group...

• Our first community mission set up through the request a task form. We hereby present Claire Taylor from St John the Baptist church with the award for most web-savvy task owner in the borough! We were pleased to hear that Claire found the form very easy to use. We understand that today was the first of three proposed 'fence facelift' parties, so we will be on the lookout for a request for parties numbers 2 and 3.

• Robert's first session with GoodGym. A warm welcome to you Robert! It was great to meet you, and we hope to see you again soon.

• The first time Raymond has been for a run, or certainly the furthest Raymond has ever run. He, Amy and Robert all live too far away from Eton Wick to run from home and still have energy for a task, so they drove and met beforehand for a chatty 4km loop taking in the Thames Path and Eton Common, with conversation flowing from pickled eggs to apple and blackberry crumble and much more in between. Well done for being such a good sport and going for it Raymond! May this run be the first of many.

• The first time Chris has been to a Windsor and Maidenhead community mission. Great to meet you Chris! Today also marked Chris's 25th GoodGym good deed - a brilliant achievement!

• The first time anyone has run 15km for a Windsor and Maidenhead community mission. Yep, Chris blew our 4km jaunt out of the water with a 7.8km run pre-task and 7.2km run post-task. Amazing! Chris, you more than earned your lemon drizzle.

• And while we're on the topic of amazing people...Sara hit a magical 123 GoodGym good deeds today. She also ran over 6km in total. Just wow!

Credit to Chris Geatch for today's title pun.