Happy bird-day to us! This week marks 4 years since we launched GoodGym in Windsor and Maidenhead and it was brilliant to see a record number of GoodGym chicks and chaps at our celebratory group run/party. This evening's brood included 25 of us, the biggest number since launch night back in 2020.

Our evening was a fun mix of team games and an eggcellent task: filling knitted chicks and bunnies with chocolate eggs for Alexander Devine Children's Hospice Services' Easter fundraising campaign. As one GoodGymer from team 'Diya's Darlings' put it, we helped with 'reverse births for our four birthdays'!

A warm welcome to Didem and Amy, who were joining us for the first time. I warned them at the start that this 'group run' might not be 100% representative of our typical Wednesday evening, but maybe it was the perfect introduction to the weird and wonderful stuff we get up to?

There was loads of laughter, silliness and cheering, we did some walking and running round the park, we used litter pickers and hoops, hi vis and gardening gloves (in our relay game) and there was a lot of chocolate (although this time we didn't eat it as was part of the task). With many hands we blitzed the task super quick and made a difference for a local charity. There was also quite a lot of fancy dress and a healthy dose of competitive spirit.

Just a 'normal' GoodGym session then!

Something we don't normally do at GoodGym is have epic games of GoodGym themed Pictionary or 'Guess the GoodGym beneficiary' quizzes, which we did enjoy last night. However these games gave us plenty of opportunity to share stories about what we've been doing for the last 4 years, so hopefully it was a nice overview for newcomers as well as an opportunity for everyone else to reminisce.

The chick stuffing task was a cracking task, partly thanks to task owner Yazmin being so organised and bringing everything to the community centre for us, and partly because the chicks and bunnies were SO CUTE! Huge kudos to the army of skilled crafters, including a team of GoodGymers, who made these little characters.

Now you shouldn't count your chickens, but we couldn't play 'guess the number of chicks' without a count, so Yazmin and I risked it. The grand total was 356, which is worth a fantastic £1068 to the charity.

At the end of the evening I tallied up all the points from the various games and the final scoreboard read:

2 Awesome for this 30 points (although I regret not awarding Jess points for her amazing Victorian child meets washer woman fancy dress, so maybe that number should have been higher)

The Mighty Ducks 40 points

Diya's Darlings 49 points

The Regal Bunnies 58 points and the win! This team really shone in the Pictionary and pun rounds.

Having said that, I really think everyone who came along this evening (and who has contributed to our last four years) is a winner. We've now helped over 90 charities and community groups, venues and projects in our local area. We've done 5,375 good deeds in our local area, including 625 visits to isolated older people.

Winner, winner, chicken winner!

It was a dark and stormy night - no, it actually wasn’t this time…it was a night of no particularly memorable weather as 18 Goodgymers met at the Community Centre to help the Maidenhead Community Allotment. It was great to see so many people, and to welcome new face Adam, for the last Wednesday session of the January challenge. This was combined with towel collecting for the other last task of the month, as we’re all really quite obsessed at this point. We may not have won but we absolutely smashed our target and that’s what really matters. On a slightly less cheesy note, this will also provide motivation for when we crush everyone else next year. In a nice, community-spirited way. There was also a distinct lack of rubbish along the route to the task, conclusively proving (because I say so and I’m the one with the words) that we’ve had a real impact with all the litter-picking-up this month.

Once at the task, we were divided into groups and given a number of things to do to help the allotment prepare for the new year. There was moving piles of dirt to the correct places, stamping on said piles of dirt to make it look nice, digging up weeds and artichokes, ensuring the weeds and artichokes were put in separate piles, and a bit of drama over some leaky butts. I have been given permission to use as many butt puns as I can think of but, despite the temptation, I don’t want to make you all crack up too much.

The time flew by and suddenly we’d done all the things that needed to be done and were being herded into a circle for the fitness part of the night - a Goodgym classic where one person chooses an exercise for everyone else to do and then runs around the circle. We left the task with a sense of both achievement and exhaustion, bags full of artichokes, and a little more exercise as we tried not to step in the remainder of the water from the (now no longer leaky) butts.

Five of us set out from Maidenhead to review a route for Slow Ways. The day was gorgeous with plenty of sunshine - a perfect walking day! 🌞👣

The task setter (me) had set us an ambitious target of 2.5 hours to cover the 11km route to Eton. We discussed the impossibility of it as we started off from the Maidenhead Library, along the stream into Braywick and on towards Bray village. Sol estimated that 3 hours was more realistic (of course she was right!).

Just after Bray village, Nivi had to leave us to make sure she can get back in time to take her husband to the airport - not an appointment you want to miss! We said reluctant goodbyes and the remaining four carried on to cross over and continue along the Thames path past Dorney. The path and river were busy with plenty of walkers, runners, dogs and rowing teams.

Sheila was making sure we kept on our prescribed route by taking charge of the map. The yellow one, otherwise known as Diya, made sure we were appropriately documenting the hike with well-placed photos and selfies of the group!

Most of us have traversed this route before on our cycles but once we got into Eton Wick, the route took a direction we'd never really taken before. It was, let's just say, a little off the target, but new and interesting. We got to Eton and celebrated with well deserved coffee, tea and juice. Then we went around to where our pickup from Maidenhead was going to arrive (thanks Hilary and Sheila!) . Sol it appears is a land shark and can't function in a standing position, so she convinced Kanika to join her in a few loops around the car park while we waited 😆

We all finished the day with 15km+ and over 20,000 steps! Couldn't have asked for a better day and troop to do this survey for Slow Ways with!

The team met in the carpark of Braywick Nature Centre. Jenhad parked at Thames Hospice to get in some extra steps before the task – very impressive and we were delighted to be joined by Niviwho had brought newcomer Soheilawith her.

The team located the tools and headed off down the very dark path on the hunt for the pile of logs that had been left for us. It took some investigative powers from Garry and some intensive GPS navigational guiding from Amanda and Jen to find the logs that had been left for us to turn into a stag beetle habitat but once we did, we were treated to our own hidden patch of woodland in which to work. The team paired off to have a stag beetle hotel build-off. Jen and Nivi went for the palatial approach whilst soilmates Soheila and Amanda went for a more bejou style – definitely not a bungalow or an annex! There was lots of toiling but thankfully no one got in-dig-estion!

Garrywas tree-mendous at the sawing providing us with ample logs which the team laid horizontally into a hole in the ground before piling more logs on top to make a stag beetle heavenly mound. Amanda bugged everyone with some interesting stag beetle facts including that they are Britian’s largest land beetle at almost 8cm in length and they play an important role in the cycle of decay by eating and breaking down dead wood so that it nourishes the soil. Together the team managed to make four new habitats using all the logs provided. It was such a glorious evening to be out in this spooky yet majestical woodland.

On the walk back Garry treated us to some star gazing knowledge pointing out Beetlejuice (Betelgeuse), Casper and Pollux stars. Pollux and Castor are noticeable for being bright and close together which is likely why they have become known as twins whilst Betelgeuse is one of the largest stars visible to the naked eye. We also managed to see the planets Jupiter and Mars – a really special treat. Our route back also took us past the first signs of spring along a trail lined on both sides with crisp white snowdrops. This task was GoodGym at its best – a healthy, social, conservational, magical and educational evening!