It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at GoodGym Swindon and we're going to stake our claim for holding the first GoodGym Christmas party of the season. Due to significant life events in December for some of our members, we held our not quite Christmas Christmas party on Saturday at the Baker's Café.

The Baker's Café is a community café located in Swindon's historic railway village and is part of the Mechanics' Institution Trust. We've run here several times during the year and were excited to be able to enjoy the wonderful surroundings and much talked about good food in the lovely company of our GoodGym family.

Behind the scenes, Team Wolf had been busy preparing. Yes, it was meant to be Team Elf but sometimes autocorrect results in some WhatsApp howlers. We raided the shops of Swindon for paper chains and Tracey and Jo set to work - roping Jason into the chain gang too. With a few more decorations gathered on our travels, we were ready to deck the halls - and in true GoodGym fashion everyone helped and soon the Baker's Café was transformed into a festive grotto. The elf and safety police may have some issues with the chair clambering, but the Café is now decorated ready for the festive season - even when we're partying, we're still doing good! (And although I’m jumping ahead, special thanks to Ciaran, who at the end of the party helped with the washing up!).

With our best or worst Christmas knits on, and Christmas tunes in the background, thanks to Raving Rector Richard, the festivities could begin. It had been a rapid turnaround for most of us after parkrun, but we scrub up rather well. Top marks to Kirsty, for the most festive outfit - a hat trick of Christmas t-shirt, jumper and leggings. And in pants news, especially for Gina, I’m sorry to report that Elf and Safety First Simon didn't wear the ginormous brussel sprout pants unearthed at our recent Community Mission. Maybe he’s saving them for Christmas Day?!

Speaking of brussel sprouts, the delicious smell of Christmas dinner was filling the air - all down to the hard work of Hannah and Mike. And what a feast they had laid on for us - turkey or nut roast with all the trimmings. And while not everyone was a sprout fan, not a lot went to waste with our healthy runners' appetites. There's always room for pudding and we quickly devoured honeycomb and chocolate cheesecake and gluten free New York cheesecake - we are cake connoisseurs and these scored top marks!

We often talk about our GoodGym family and what we've all gained personally from GoodGym, while getting fit and doing good in our community. So how lovely to hear from Hannah and Mike that while they were slaving away over a hot stove, they could hear the joy and happiness as we chatted and enjoyed each other’s company.

It really did feel like all the best bits of a family Christmas...

And you can't have Christmas without board games. Out came the fiendishly difficult 3D Connect Four and the all-time classic, Jenga. It soon became very competitive with Luke, who quickly declared himself a professional, taking on Adam the speedy Jenga Ninja Warrior - never have Jenga blocks been moved so fast! Shouts of Jenga filled the air as we played one last game over and over again...until it really was time to go ho ho home!

What a fabulous way to start the festive season. Now you're in the Christmas spirit, here's some more festive Goodgym Swindon fun:

On Tuesday we'll be the GoodGym Christmas Fairies at Ferndale Primary School helping to put up the school's Christmas Tree and Decorations. Wear your tutu and fairy wings!

Brighter Futures needs our help at the Santa Vs Rudolph Run on 1 December at Lydiard Park. Sign up to be a marshal and make sure everyone reaches the finish line safely!

On 14 December we’ll be supporting Prospect Hospice with gift wrapping – sign up to get into the festive spirit with Jo and Tracey! You don’t need to be an expert wrapper – if you can shake a collection bucket, you’re perfectly well qualified to help!

Having discovered last week that we are far more skilled at chatting and eating cake than playing bowls, we stuck to safe territory as we gathered for our group run and chatted about food. Tracy and Kay had set our gastric juices flowing by talking about their pre-run bacon sandwiches, and it turned out that most of us are pretty partial to a bacon, or in the case of Emma the Trainer and Richard, facon sarnies.

With stomachs rumbling after all this food talk, we headed off towards Swindon’s Athletics Track, the home of Wheels for All. This was the location of our very first group run in August 2018. What a lot has changed since then – we’ve welcomed lots of new runners and walkers, supported our community with hundreds of good deeds at group runs, community missions, and with mission and coach runs, made lots of new friends, eaten lots of cake, drunk lots of coffee, and had a party or three. But, with a chill in the air, unlike that first run, there was no time to reminisce and the walking group headed off with the runners in hot pursuit.

By the time we arrived at the Athletics Track, the rain - or was it sleet? – had started but there was no escaping the outdoor painting task. Wheels for All is a national programme that embraces all children and adults with disabilities and differing needs, to engage in a quality cycling activity providing fun and stimulating cycling across the UK. Our task for the night was paint one of the cycle storage containers – and we’ll be back in January for part 2! Ben had everything set up for us ready to go – a huge vat of “weapons grade” green paint, and an array of brushes, rollers, and gloves. Sam was taking no chances and turned up with the GoodGym painting equivalent of full hazmat – a carefully prepared binbag clothing protector and some fetching pink rubber gloves (her aspiration for full length vet gloves not quite being met by the local supermarket). Once Gaby had fashioned a protective and stylish skirt from a bin bag, we grabbed our rollers and paintbrushes and got stuck in to the task.

This was quite some painting task – a huge container, very smelly and sticky paint, and the distraction of athletics training in the background. But undeterred, we set to work – with Mike putting his recent home decorating skills to good use. We powered through the task – in an attempt to keep warm – and soon we had turned the container from red to green. With our noses and fingers turning blue from the cold, it was time for photos before heading back to the Oasis and a warming cuppa and even more chat!

There’s a lot of GoodGym activity coming up in the next few weeks – here’s the run down:

If you haven’t got a place in the Swindon 10K on Sunday 17th November, why not join the GoodGym cheer squad? Let’s turn Swindon red again! Good luck to everyone taking part!

On Tuesday 19th November we are heading back to Toothill Farmhouse where there’s always a warm welcome and a cuppa and a biscuit too!

Our next Community Mission is on Thursday 21st November – we’ll be at Swindon Tesco Extra handing out FareShare 'shopping lists' with suggested donations. Customers can then buy items from this list to leave at the in-store food collection at the end of their shop. This food is taken to one of 21 FareShare Regional Centres where volunteers sort it to then redistribute it to 3500 charities across the country.

It’s nearly time for our “it’s not Christmas yet” Christmas party on Saturday 23rd November – an afternoon of delicious food and good company awaits! Sign up by Tuesday 19th November to confirm your place!

And looking ahead to December, we’ll be supporting Prospect Hospice with gift wrapping – sign up to get into the festive spirit with Jo and Tracey!

Whoop whoop! Monsterous Mike did the double tonight with his 50th Good Deed and his first outing as run leader - and on a night where we had to run through “Murder Alley”! The unenviable job of backmarker went to Helen, and Sandy Sam led the Walkie Talkies.

Despite having a 100% success record (so far!) of us all making it out alive, it’s a brave task-force team that takes on this particular responsibility at Halloween!

A few of us had raided the dressing up box (or the rather empty!) supermarket shelves for last minute fancy dress. So fortunately we only had a short walk / run to the Baker’s Café at the Railway Village. The Baker’s has an interesting history! It was opened in the 1840s as a bakery serving the railway village workers and later a pub. It’s now run as a social enterprise – a lovely café serving yummy food and drinks to the local community. Still to come in its exciting history is the GoodGym Swindon Christmas (but not actually anywhere near Christmas!) knees up.

Hannah had a variety of tasks lined up for us – weeding and scooping up leaves outside and in the surrounding area, cleaning the floors in the café and cleaning windows. The café has a food hygiene rating of a 5 – so no pressure then!

The following account of proceedings is to be imagined in the voice of Ray Parker Junior and to the Ghostbusters soundtrack, if you will. I take no responsibility for poor grammar – that’s song lyrics for you!

If you need some help in your neighbourhood

Who you gonna call? GoodGymers!

We might seem strange

But here to do some good

Who you gonna call? GoodGymers!

We ain't afraid of no walks

We ain't afraid of no runs

If the weeds you have, are out of control

Who you gonna call? GoodGymers!

Remove without a trace

That’s our goal

Who you gonna call? GoodGymers!

We ain't afraid of no slime

We ain't afraid of no slugs (well maybe just a little bit!)

Who you gonna call? GoodGymers!

Windows need a shine?

That task is mine!

So call GoodGymers

We ain't afraid of no mops

We hear the floor needs a clean

We ain't afraid of no brooms

(high pitched for this bit!) Yeah yeah yeah yeah

Who ya gonna call? GoodGymers!

If you need good deeds near a freaky “Murder Alley”

You better call, GoodGymers!

Lemme tell ya something, GoodGyming makes us feel good

We ain't afraid of murders

We ain't afraid of alleys

Who ya gonna call? GoodGymers

I can't hear you

Who ya gonna call? GoodGymers!

Louder...

GoodGymers!

We had a quick huddle at the end for a prize giving for costumes. Rosettes were awarded to Hocus Pocus Kirsty for best overall costume, Devilish Charles for Scariest Costume, and Puffy Pumpkin Tracey for Cutest Costume.

On the way back we all made it through Murder Alley, without event. Except for Safety First Simon being heard to say “stop pinging my bra strap!” We would have stopped to enquire why he was wearing a bra and who was pinging it but we all know loitering would have led to imminent death so we pretended we hadn’t heard and carried on running!

All done with our Tricks, we headed back into base for coffee and Treats!

Next week’s task is a very special one! We will be running approximately 9km in total to Prince Rupert Court in Freshbrook and back, to play Just Bowl, socialise and eat cake (!) with our friends there, including the wonderful Betty from Margaret Matthews Court. We have been to Prince Rupert Court before; in March and June, to do some gardening, and the residents enjoyed our company so much, they have asked us to go back! The residents, who are 55+ years and have physical disabilities, can often go for long periods of time without friends or family visiting, and so really do appreciate our visits and the company that we provide. Be sure to sign up here

Tonight’s merry band were led by Safety First Simon on his first outing as Run Leader. We were under strict instructions not to heckle, wolf whistle or get up to anything that could be counted as mischevious. The temptation was almost too much! Tonight’s ice breaker was a question about our most embarrassing childhood memories. This was a most revealing question. In her youth Ashleigh ate a worm (plenty more opportunity for that in tonight’s gardening task!), and Charles was still getting over being made to wear those gloves that are attached together with string. Lucky that none of our GoodGym gloves have string although it would solve the conumdrum of lefts paired with lefts and rights with rights!!!

On day two of Autumn and with sunset due at exactly 18.59pm, tonight saw the return of the much loved chest lamp. Yay! GoodGymers who don’t have one are advised to bring one in the darker nights. They are super useful for safety on the run and the outside tasks, and also the flashy setting means we can have our own disco whenever the mood takes us. “Staying Alive” in more ways than one!

Tonight we had walkie talkies and runners, the latter not really up for more than a gentle(ish) jog. Post-race chat had included inventive ways GoodGymers had found to move about with hurty bits...

They had been self-named as “the crab”, “the bum shuffle” and the “John Wayne”.

We’ll leave it to your imaginations to picture what these look like in practice but there was none of that tonight and we all made it up the very steep hill to “The Old Lady on the Hill”.

This was a return visit for us to the town’s much loved Christ Church and we continued the weeding in the Rose Garden. Despite the rain and the chill in the air, this was a tranquil and rewarding task as the roses are intermingled with many remembrance plaques. Clearing the weeds means that those visiting can more easily see the plaques and mementos of loved ones. It’s great to see the difference that 32 hands can make in 45 minutes! In the end there were lots of wet and muddy shoes, knees and bums. Luckily it was very dark on the way back so as not to raise curious eyebrows!

We arrived back to the warm glow of the Oasis, after a much needed (and very professionally led by Simon, we must say!) stretching session. Inside and during coffee and chatter, a rather disturbing scene unfolded...

There was an interloper of the most heinous kind – a snail on Mike’s jacket that had hitched a ride from the rose garden!

Mollusc Lover Mike’s snail was quite unbelievably left to lounge around on the hood of his jacket for the duration (while some of us silently broke out in cold sweats) and the new friends casually left together at the end. Hopefully this will be the last instalment of mollusc mayhem – will it ever end? - and next week there are only plus ones of the human kind!

Next up, we will be running approximately 7km in total to Age UK Wiltshire to help with their improvements to Toothill Community Centre. We’ll be doing some gardening outside the centre. There is lots to do, so rest assured you will be busy! You don't need to be a green fingered expert, just enthusiastic and keen to help out. This is our third visit to the centre and we are very excited to be going back there again! You can sign up here