Sheila, Juli and Gareth gathered at beautiful Spital Cemetery for their regular clean-up session, a mild sunny day. It was great to meet Gareth, returning to GoodGym after a bit of a break. There we were met by Cllr Karen Davies, who organised the session, together with a couple of other volunteers. Karen gave us an introduction to the site and some quick HSE watch-outs. Gareth took on the task of litter-picking around the site, particularly around the chapel which seems to be a regular haunt of the Windsor youth. Sheila and Juli started tackling the removal of ivy from headstones. The first headstone we tackled, we quickly realised, was being held up by the ivy, so left it alone. We moved on to a grave that had been tackled by a previous work party, but needed further work to keep the ivy at bay. Once the inscription was revealed it proved to belong to Robert Howe who had been the Clerk of Works at Windsor Castle for 25 years. We also managed to remove a large amount of dead ivy from a taller monument, which was very satisfying, although we seemed to make quite a few spiders homeless in the process. But never fear, there is plenty more habitat for them to utilise! There will be more work parties soon, so watch out for listings.

GoodGym Windsor and Maidenhead is 1!

Covid-19 has given us a very different year to what we expected, but we haven't let it stop us from building a community of one-derful people, who have collectively done a whopping 723 good deeds and been motivated to stay fit and active along the way. We certainly weren't about to let Covid-19 stop us from celebrating our first birthday in style!

We had a Zoom quiz and natter, with lots of good sportsmanship and big laughs. Highlights from the evening included:

• Being able to give Jen (VIP guest from Slough!) and Sara a big round of applause for their 100th and 50th good deeds respectively - amazing achievements from these superstars! Also learning about what they have been doing with crisp packets at Terracycle near Slough.
• Lots of us being able to put faces to names and say a proper hello having only 'met' before on WhatsApp or read about each other in run reports.
  
• Tara joining straight from a shift at the Maidenhead Covid-19 vaccination clinic - way to go Tara!
• Big excitement at the news that Parkrun is expected to return from the 5th of June and Junior Parkrun (for 4-10 year olds initially) from the 11th of April. Hurrah! We were particularly honoured to have Parkrun Director Nick B joining our celebration as a VIP guest on the historic day of this announcement.
• A big up to Sani, Rich, Jen, Jess, Sophie, Wendy, and Fran, who were all there at our launch and are still part of the family one year on.
• Matt's demonstration of the running man.
• Everyone doing the twist.
• Attempts at jumping jacks without leaving the sofa.
• Seeing what it would look like if Queen Elizabeth II dressed up as Paul in a Santa hat and went out for a run.
• Seeing what it would look like if Sophie and Elton John had a child and he grew up, joined GoodGym and helped rescue baby toads.
• Nick S's reaction to finding out that Timmy Mallet lives nearby.
• Amy learning how to use breakout rooms (thanks to technical support James)
• Laura, Gareth and Tara of the 'Cool Chefs' being super focussed and nailing every challenge in record time.
• Team 'We are Pants'' innovative choice of team uniform, in particular Sophie's styling of her hair through the leg holes.
• Fran's stamina when it came to keeping her pants on. It did not go un-noticed that Nick S whipped his off at the earliest opportunity.
• Jen's explanation that she was a 'Llama in pyjamas' disguised as a bear. Obvs.
• Claire from the 'Mad Hatters' wearing a child's riding helmet.
• All the celebratory drinks.
• Brilliant efforts to GoodGym-ify the lyrics of Queen's 'Don't stop me now' such as: >(Don't stop us now) We're digging such a big hole We're planting a tree (Wear fancy dress) Goodgym always has a good time So give them a call!
• Re-writes of Bruce Springsteen's 'Born to Run' to make them more relevant to the present day, such as: > Oh covid, trapped like us Bojo, let us out to run Come with me, athletes like us Baby, we’re born to park run
• Adaptations of Bonnie Tyler's 'I need a hero' with Boris in Johnson in mind, such as: >I need a haircut, I’m holding out for a haircut till the end of the spring. It’s got to be short, and it’s got to be blond cos I want be the next king.
• And a second verse: >I need a vaccine I'm holding out for a vaccine by the end of the year It's got to be safe and it's gotta work And it's gotta get me out for a beer
• The group singing/rapping these lyrics in unison.
• The fact that I recorded it so I can watch it back whenever I want to. Bwa ha ha ha...
• Our agreement that next year's celebration will include going out together for a pizza and lots of hugs.

Happy birthday to us!

An extra well done to everyone who also went for a celebratory birthday run, and special mention to Amanda, who brought birthday balloons (and a big smile to lots of people's faces) for her run with Amy around Maidenhead's Parkrun route.

It was unbeleafably chilly and very dark as a lovely big group of us gathered in the village of Burchetts Green to help out at the infant school. There was also an odd feeling of celebration in the air as this was the Eve of Lockdown 2, and therefore our last chance for a a good few weeks to be out in these numbers and on this kind of non-essential task.

Amy, Jess and Sophie arrived feeling toasty from having run cross country from Maidenhead. Amy loves a star-lit, muddy adventure and was thrilled that Sophie and Jess were persuaded to join her - not least because if she had met that enormous red combine harvester in the dark by herself she might never have made it to the school at all.

We were welcomed by Rob, the head teacher at Burchetts Green Infant School, and it was great to meet parents from the school, including Katherine, Jordan, Louise, and Sarah, who had heard about the session and wanted to get involved. Welcome to GoodGym!

GoodGym member Gareth also showed great commitment by coming all the way from Windsor to join us. You might be relived to hear he drove rather than running the 15-20km alone in the dark, and don't worry he still got an excellent workout during the task and on the climbing frame afterwards.

Our to do list for the evening included clearing up heaps and heaps of fallen leaves from all over the school grounds, weeding and cutting back hedges from around the entrance and digging over the raised beds in the sensory garden; and the school had done a great job gathering all the right tools for the job.

Some of the more memorable moments from the evening included: Sophie and Jess's synchronised 'rake runs' across the playground to clear leaves and their victory lap on the ride-on tractors afterwards (plus tractor santisiation to reduce risk of Covid-19 transmission); Jordan's expert handling of the leaf blower; Sophie falling in love with the big green leaf-grabbers; Gareth's incredible strength tipping a ton of leaves over the fence; Jess braving the brambles to retrieve a bag after another leaf-tipping attempt went a bit wrong; some excellent logistical levering with a rake handle to avoid the need for further bramble bravery; and Amy lobbing various weeds and debris at Gareth from a height.

Before and after photos of a large outdoor area are hard to capture in the dark, so please use your imagination to picture large patches of tarmac, astro turf and grass being revealed, huge piles of leaves disappearing, and climbing frames seeming to grow taller as the sea of leaves beneath them is swept away.

From Burchetts Green to Burchetts clean! We wonder what the children made of it in the morning...? We had a lovely time at the school and we hope to be invited back at some point to help with painting window sills and doors.

After an hour or so fingers were freezing and hot drinks and showers beckoned. Amy, Jess and Sophie were rewarded with sparkling frost on the grass and a lovely moon on their (slightly longer...oops!) run back to Maidenhead.

**As we enter Lockdown, GoodGym will not be shutting down. We will be focussing our efforts on helping those charities providing essentials to the more vulnerable members of our community. We have lots of listings to help at the Baby Bank in Maidenhead over the next month, and we also encourage members to support their isolated neighbours and to work with other community groups in the Covid response. Good deeds done outside the GoodGym listings can still be self-logged on your GoodGym profile. If you are new to GoodGym and you want to know more about ways to get involved, Amy would love to hear from you.

It was great to return to the Maidenhead Community after a few weeks' break, and to welcome Gareth, who was helping out here for the first time.

There have been some exciting developments since our last visit, including a new raised bed behind the shed, some picnic benches, and new guttering that connects to one of the water butts.

One of the four raised beds on the patio area had also been completely cleared, and our main job for this evening was to plant out some winter veg in this bed and cover it with netting. We also had a blackberry bush to plant, which Gareth managed within moments of our arrival.

We were both feeling the cold, so we decided to stay warm by running laps of hilly Boyn Grove park next door:

We planted out the greens, then we planted one foot in front of the other on our first lap of the park.

We looped the netting over the raised bed then we looped round the park again.

We pegged the netting into place and then we pegged it round the park again, with a couple of hill repeats thrown in for good measure.

A great evening out despite the cold and dark.

Holyport by name, potholey by nature

Holyport FC is a volunteer-run football club, which provides football coaching and games and acts as a social hub for the local community. The access track to the club (which is now based in Maidenhead rather than Holyport) is prone to potholes, so GoodGym runner and Holyport FC committee member Richard called us in with the goal of filling those holes and keeping the track smooth and safe.

Pothole lotta fun...

The evening got off to an exciting start as Richard, Carole, and Claire helped a driver who's car was stuck in the mud before the official task had even kicked off. They then met the rest of the team - Amy, Gareth and Sophie, and Richard got us set up for the main event. He equipped us with wheelbarrows, spades, a rake and some some snazzy lights, and lead us into the dark to find the potholes and a big pile of shingley, dirty, stoney stuff - sorry I can't remember the technical term! There was something quite special about working in the crisp fresh air and darkness, especially with the atmospheric lighting.

All the shingle ladies, all the shingle ladies! (Plus Gareth and Richard)

We then got to work shovelling the shingle into the wheelbarrows, tipping it into the holes, and using the rake and our feet to spread it out and stamp it down. Whilst vaguely reminiscent of a burial scene in a horror film, the rhythmic scrape and thump of the spades was also very satisfying to hear, and it was great to see the holes disappearing. Every now and again a group of cars would come past, lighting up our handiwork, testing it for smoothness, and doing a bit of road-rolling for us.

After about an hour we realised we were on barrow-ed time (thanks Gareth!) so we headed back up the track. On our way Sophie spotted some litter along the road-side and she litter-ally couldn't resist picking it up. Before long she had filled a wheelbarrow.

Before we finished we gave the Holyport vets a quick cheer in their game vs Goring vets, and then we ran off. Sophie and Amy stopped by on their way home to deliver some vinyl Poppies that Sophie's mum has been making to raise money for the British legion - yet another good deed in the bank!

We hope to return for another fixture soon with this great local club.