It was a chilly evening in Bath but that didn't stop a fantastic force of 19 runners coming out to help clean toys at Oldfield Park Toddler Group.

We welcomed Chris, on tour from GoodGym Bristol, and Andreea who has joined Bath from GoodGym Hounslow.

After a quick warm up we ran out to Oldfield Park Baptist Church, where our host Katie was waiting to meet us with a huge pile of toys which needed cleaning. This has become a regular half-term task for us, as we can get the work done in 30 minutes whereas it takes the church volunteers at least a day! We split into two teams and got to work!

Esme, Chris, Katrin and Dora were the dishwasher team, who took care of all the small plastic items, including building blocks and an interesting array of plastic food, including a very realistic Pringle! We had to send in back up as there were so many small toys to dry and we ended up leaving some very soggy tea towels behind!

The rest of our mean, clean running machine took care of the larger items, using cloths and anti-bacterial spray to give everything a wipe down. Tom left his Maths PhD behind and went old school with an abacus, Dan resumed construction of the castle he built on a previous visit and Pascale was let loose with the steam cleaner to clean up some softer, squishy items! Tim even grew a tail?!

After cleaning up and a quick group photo, it was off on the run again and back to the Leisure Centre. Thanks to Pascale for back marking this week. Emily had to come up with the pun and can only apologise for lack of originality. We need a replacement pun-master while Joe is injured!

Happy running!

Upcoming runs

*Running the Bath Half? We have a series of weekend training runs. Next one is Sunday 3rd February and will be 12km. *Send A Cow have also offered us some FREE BATH HALF PLACES as a result of all our fantastic flyering. You just need to try and raise £200 for the charity. So get in touch with Emily or Sam if you're interested. *Next week we are helping to organise the store cupboard at 51st Bath Scouts

Socials

We're headed to St James Wine Vaults for the pub quiz next Thursday (31st January) for our end of the month social. Join us if you can!

Social Media

Please like/follow us on social media and share/retweet our content! We are on Facebook and Twitter. Organisations are getting in contact with us through these platforms and this means we are securing more varied tasks for you to enjoy!

The weekly news roundup

It was less a news roundup than a celebration of all the brilliant running and volunteering team Hounslow had been doing this week, which is pretty marvellous. So, ladies and gents, please put your hands together for Luis, who before joining GoodGym hadn't run 5k, and last weekend raced his very first half marathon! That is some amazing progress Luis, well done!

Running with Luis in the Hertfordshire half marathon were fellow Hounslow GoodGymers, the unstoppable Michelle, Andy and Remy. Absolutely cracking work gang.

Well done also to Amanda who came along bright and early to volunteer at the Tooting parkrun takeover on Saturday when we turned the common GoodGym red!

But we were so sad to say goodbye to Andreea and Ross - you've been an amazing part of the team guys! There's no escaping us really - not only is there a wonderful GG in Bath and Bristol, but if you're back in London on Wednesday make sure you come and see us!

Frosty welcomes

Tonight's task was for a brand new charity called That's A Wrap, based in Hounslow. They plan to bring residents together in support of local causes through community collections and events. In mid November, they launched their first project - a 2000 toy appeal for a number of local charities that support disadvantaged children in the area and have already been inundated with requests from local charities. They approached us asking for help raising toys through spreading the word about their appeal by leafleting in the local area.

We were met at the Town Hall by the lovely Saba and Ibrahim, who told us all about the project, and let us know how we could help with the wrapping later on this month. Now, doing the leaflet thing isn't everybody's fav GoodGym task, but it's a job that can really save the charity time and money. So after a much needed warm up, we had our weekly question - which this evening was; 'what job would you be terrible at?' Turns out we would be lousy at being a sports coach, writing, being a doctor and, the most surprising answer from lovely Andy- anything to do with people! We don't believe you.

With our Strava set, we were ready for the off and headed in the direction of Brentford to start shifting some leaflets. We have now, it's safe to say, perfected the single file method of hitting up letterboxes, and before too long were moving like a well-oiled machine. After half an hour of nippy fingers and fast moving feet we had got to the end of our pile. Between the 13 of us we got a mammoth 400+ leaflets distributed. As well as really helping out the charity, we have helped spread the word to local people and will raise who knows how many toys! A job well done.

Sprint Finish

Even after all that hard work we weren't yet finished, and headed back to Turnham Green to do our fitness session, which kicked off with a few ABC exercises. Then we had time to fit in some lovely, lovely pyramid sprints before ending the night on our weekly minute plank. Excellent work all round, Hounslow!

Next week we're back to the brilliant Maryville Care Home to visit Sister Clare and to paint some rooms and wash some wheelchairs. Don't miss out, sign up here!