Thursday 6:15pm is GoodGym Windsor Night! 👑🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️

Tonight we were helping Age Concern at The Spencer Denney Centre to do a second coat to finish brightening up their entrance hall.

This was a community mission so Mandy and Bekah met at the The Binoy for a social run to the task while Chris, Jenni and Jen met us there.

We were met by task owner Sharon who showed us where all the paints etc were.

We put on some dance music and the battle commenced. We started by laying down the dust sheets, finding our favourited brush/roller and painting away. Then it was time to attack the blue paint patches showing through that we had missed on the first coat so we worked on those first then got the rest covered. As it’s brick it was trickier to get good coverage but we were tactical and using different game with brush sizes. We did get a bit splatted in place we don’t quite know how 🤣

As time was getting on (obviously painting is fun as the time just flys) Jen started the washing down (soon joined by Jenni) of the paint trays and we took up the sheets so we could check our work. Seemed we had painted ourselves pretty well 😬🤣

Afterwards there was some basketball shooting practise on offer in the nearby park then time for home to get a wash!

Thank you all as always Windsor GGs 👑 ♥️👏🏻

What an amazing turnout for this evening's session to help at Wessex Primary School, particularly considering we didn't meet in our usual start location. Just when I thought I knew how many we were, more would arrive! Maybe we could call ourselves the Countless of Wessex?

A very warm welcome to Helen, Rachel, Jennie and Alison, who joined us from the school community. It was also great to meet Sion and Sam, who Jenni invited from Reading to find out all about this weird and wonderful thing called GoodGym. We hope you can launch in your area soon - we'll definitely come and visit when you do!

A great big cheer for Taskforce member Louise, who organised our task for this evening and recruited many of our newbies from the school community. Top marks and a gold star for you!

Many thanks also to Mr Beaven and Mrs Pope, who welcomed us to the school, treated us to some jelly babies and stuck around until the end. We talked about a return visit later in the year to help with pond area...can't wait!

During the first part of the session lots of us went for a run or walk around Cox Green. The walkers did a scenic 2km (we passed not one but two Co-ops!) loop, and the lucky runners did similar but with a few extra back and forths to give the walkers time to catch up. This helped us to arrive at the task all warmed up and ready for action.

Lou did a great job of rapidly dishing out tasks to eager GoodGymers, and soon enough everyone was busy. Jennie, Alison, Georgeta, Rachel, Gillian and Helen bravely tackled brambles in a nature area, Adam, Clara, Jenni and Chris bravely tackled brambles next to a fence and Angela and Sara made speedy work of sawing down an overgrown shrub.

Everyone else focused on an area in the middle, where jobs included emptying a raised bed of plants (behaving like locusts), sanding a fence and bench, and painting the fence. An intriguing mix of small toys was also uncovered in the process.

Many hands made the to do list disappear fast. Lou has already received a big thank you from Mrs Corbett, who teaches in the area where we were working. She plans to take the children out first thing to admire our work.

So why the reference to smarty pants? Are we calling Lou a smarty pants because she organised such a bumper evening? Or is Jenni a smarty pants for bringing her Reading homies? Maybe we're all smarty pants for going back to school? Or should that be smarty 'paints' because of the awesome job the painters did blitzing the fence?

Well all of these would be excellent guesses, and quite true, but no. The title pun celebrates the GoodGymer who got paint on her trousers and didn't want to get it on the seats in my car, so had the bright idea to remove her trousers. I couldn't park right outside her house, so (looking quite a lot like an Olympic track star) she did a sprint finish down the road in her pants. What a memorable evening!

Thursday at 6:15pm is GoodGym Windsor Night 👑🏃🏻‍♀️🏃‍♂️

Tonight we helped The Friends of Windsor Girls School with their exam desk up- grade.

This was a community mission so we met at the The Binoy, did our own warm up and some had a social walk while others enjoyed a social run.

On arrival we took the register and were met by the task owner Julie who educated us about the time-table and the brilliant work stations she had organised for us.

Typical GG behaviour of taking on the challenge of a huge amount of desks but we got the music on and were 100% focused.

Jenni was on desk sorting by removing tape and any other yukky bits, moving them through to the woodwork students Sheila, Adam, Sol and Mandy for the rub down. Jen was revising her domestic science by wiping off the dust. Then onto The art class, Bekah and Chris were painting really accurately. Helen was doing fine art brush drying and the heavy lifting of the tables outside for drying. Until the rain when they had to come back in again 😬 great team effort! We could not have done better.

A double period of 1 hour and 10 minutes later the bell rang and we calculated 94 tables were totally finished. We passed the test and came top of the class! A * performance all round! And Jen got her medal for being extra good with 400 GoodGym tasks!

Most of the class were allowed home but four got detention and had to stay behind for a PE lesson of basket ball and netball practise.

We all had the best time and schools definitely not out for GoodGym!

Photos by Jenni and Mandy Social media video by Bekah ( to follow)

What an evening! A 6km walk/run, an adventurous task in Braywick Nature Reserve, and above all, a big celebration for Sheila's 500th GoodGym good deed. We couldn't have asked for better for our first group run/walk of the year.

A very warm welcome to Kate and Charlotte, who joined us for their first group run/walks with GoodGym. Hopefully the firsts of many.

A great big group of us met at the Maidenhead Community Centre, and we kicked off the festivities by giving GoodGym Queen Sheila the crown and cape that have always been there in my imagination.

Sheila and the walkers then set off across town, led by Taskforce superstar Rachel. Meanwhile the runners warmed up and then we set off too. Thanks to Claire, Gillian and Juli for offering to back mark, and to Angela and Sophie, who zoomed ahead to show the way.

On arrival at the leisure centre the runners had time for a quick bench fitness circuit before our task owner Ranger Tom and the walkers joined us. Press ups, tricep dips, mountain climbers and squat jumps - lucky runners!

I then handed over to Tom to lead our task. We had planned for planting oak trees outside the leisure centre, but the oak trees hadn't arrived, and a lot of mud had arrived on the Greenway, so Tom asked for our help with the mud instead. Good news is that we will still have an opportunity to plant the trees later in the month.

We went to the Nature Centre, where we collected wheelbarrows full of spades and rakes. Then we turned our torches to full and went into the Nature Reserve, to a stretch of the Greenway near Hibbert Road. An ash tree had fallen during the previous day's storm, and although the tree had been cleared, there was still a lot of mud and debris on the path.

Twenty four people working by torchlight made quite a spectacle amongst the dark trees of the Nature Reserve and there was a real buzz as we escaped from 'normal life' into the alternate reality of a GoodGym Winter evening session. Even Tom, who is used to being immersed in nature, enjoyed the thrill of being out in the woods in the cold and dark.

We dug, scraped, raked, scooped and chatted our way through the task, and the hard standing of the path was rapidly revealed. Tom said the same job would have taken his small team hours, so we made a real difference. Well done GoodGymers!

Then onto the important matter of the group photo. Well done Clara for getting creative and suggesting a spade/rake guard of honour for our queen. Well done Matthew for awesome photography, and well done everyone for holding up those spades for quite a long time - you wanted a work out, and you got one!

We then did the tool collection and running and walking in reverse, said goodbye to a couple of people who had to dash, and re-convened in the warm of the Maidenhead Community Centre for Sheila's big milestone celebtration.

And what a celebration! Georgeta brought her signature black forest gateau, complete with marzipan 'GG 500' lettering, Claire had made some gorgeous GF mini cupcakes, Rachel made some stunning flapjacks and pistachio biscuits, and Jack made lots of hot drinks. I presented Sheila with her sparkliest medal yet, a big card, a GoodGym mug and a hand decorated tin of tea - a nod to (and hopefully step up from) the emoji cup of tea I sent her in May 2021 to congratulate her on first GoodGym good deed at the Baby Bank.

Thanks to Matthew for capturing this all on camera. Matthew's direction of the group photo at this point in the evening was the closest I've ever felt to being at a wedding during a GoodGym session, and too right! Reaching 500 good deeds is a momentus occasion, which deserves to be captured in perfect picture form for posterity.

Sheila, WELL DONE! Not only for 500 good deeds, but for but organising and leading a huge proportion of these sessions too, and in doing so, enabling so many others to join in and and feel welcome at GoodGym.

I have a message from Sue Walker at the Boyn Grove Community Allotment saying that they 'wouldn't have managed to keep going in the last couple of years without you'. You have also made a huge difference to the Baby Bank and Braywick Heath Nurseries through regular sessions. The Craft Coop love you for your enthusiasm and contribution both on the crafty side and the practical/installation side of their projects, and your reach goes as far as Windsor, where you've made a big difference with regular Spital Cemetery sessions.

There are of course a great many other community projects and charities you have supported, as well as umpteen isolated older residents, who you have helped through social visits and gardening tasks. I will never forget the resident who made me cry (happy tears!) at a recent borough event, when she told me what a difference you had made to her life.

Kanika couldn't make this session, but sent a message, which beautifully sums up what we all think:

Sheila, thank you for being such an inspiration without any showboating. You, dear lady, are a bonafide legend 😎 Congratulations on this amazing achievement! 🤯

12 GoodGymers were up bright and early for a task at Boundary Brook Nature Park. We split into two groups to tackle raking, and digging for our old nemesis - the bramble root.

Boundary Brook have won a grant to plant some different species of grass and create a 'living library' for people to come and learn about them. Hopefully there will now be room for more grass and less bramble!

There was plenty of random conversation about the horrors of children's tv, how we could probably have our own GG band by now, and all about badgers (How big are they? How do you catch them? Just how accurate is the Animals of Farthing Wood?).

We also had congratulations for Louise on her 100th task!

12 GoodGymmers didn’t let the rain put them off for their own epic evening. Rather than holing up in a warm cinema, they ran and walked to help Wild Maidenhead and the RBWM parks team to clear sludge from the pond in the Nicholas Winton Memorial Garden in Oaken Grove Park.

To the tune of Barbie Girl:

‘I’m a Goodgymmer in a Goodgym world,

Life in plastic (waterproofs) , it’s fantastic

We de-sludge a pond and litter pick everywhere

Rain won’t stop us, just make us laugh more,

Come on Goodgym, lets go help out!!!

Baby newts, metal stakes, what an underwater world,

Dress up in waders, welly boots, I’m your helper,

Grab a shovel, rock and roll, oh what a stink!

Fill the barrow, dump the sludge, 30 times more

It can rain, it can pour,

But Goodgym just shouts for more!

I’m a Goodgymmer in a Goodgym world,

Life in plastic (waterproofs) , it’s fantastic

We de-sludge a pond and litter pick everywhere

Rain won’t stop us, just make us laugh more,

Come on Goodgym, lets go help out!!!

Tennis balls, baby dolls, find whatever you please,

I can jump in a pond, crawl around, find frisbees,

Come join in, goodgym friend, let us clear up this mess,

Find coins, kids toys, thats one pound, thirty-five!

Come on Goodgym, we all helped out!

Ah-ah-ah, yeah!’

Despite the incessant rain the team made great progress, and after ~30 barrow loads of sludge and ~15 tennis balls they headed for home to get dry and warm up!

It was brilliant to see Ann for her first Goodgym task and we hope to see her for many more!!