Woking Junior Park Run

On this this wet morning Woking GG members were out on the 1st day of Feb to carry out various volunteering roles at junior park run 🏃‍♂️.

Karen was there early followed by Wayne who had a good catch up hearing all about Karen 4 weeks traveling around India 🇮🇳

Adam arrived and it was great seeing him and making steady progress returning back to full fitness. Alys arrived shortly after in her full GG outfit 😀 and she was looking forward to getting her new kitchen installed this week. James arrived full of energy and laughs and to assist in anything.

The conditions were not the best with puddles and a muddy field to contend with. In total there were 113 young runners who took part this morning with the fastest time an amazing 07:48 👏🏽 there were also 43 PB's great running by everyone 😀

Julie joined WEAct volunteers at St John’s Lye for more clearing of the willow trees growing across the grass area. Good progress was made, especially when Hayden got going with his chainsaw. The trimmings were all processed into a habitat heap. Looking forward to another session at Knaphill Lower School on Saturday.

It was the 336th Woking junior parkrun, the route was not too muddy and despite the recent rainfalls, there were not too many puddles either.

James was the run director this morning and welcomed, as well as the regular runners, some of the children from Sythwood Primary School. The school is now a “parkrun primary”. (You may wish to read more about this new scheme: https://blog.parkrun.com/uk/2025/09/12/parkrun-primary-initiative/)

James explained to 185 children and their parents about Woking Junior parkrun. Some of the children helped by reminding the crowd about the different rules and a little group of them took charge of the warming up session with a real enthusiasm.

Adam, Liam and Anne were given different roles to encourage the runners around the 2 kms route.

The atmosphere was great, the children enjoyed themselves which made their parents happy! It was a great way to start the day!

Another session at Knaphill, sadly this week only Julie was able to attend from Goodgym. Vikki was already working hard with her family and today’s task was painting - a second coat on the wigwams, finishing off the fence and more green on the newly installed gate. Luckily the morning was dry and bright however the wind was cold. 🥶 great progress this week and plenty more to do next time.

What a wonderful task organised by Julie, who kindly provided all the paint, paintbrushes, pots, tablecloths and even drinks and snacks.

It proved to be a popular task as there was a good turn out from the Woking GoodGym gang to paint bird boxes for Knaphill Lower School. We were given a wooden bird box to unleash our creative painting talents. Becky and Anne shared a box, and went with a very practical camouflage design, as did Julie and Kirsty who went with a beautiful shade of blue plus a cheerful yellow sun.

Nadia did GoodGym proud by not only painting a colourful box but also bringing along a friend for January in the form of her mum who is a good painter as demonstrated by her berry design. Adam ran to the task now he is getting back into running in time to paint a colourful red and blue box.

Ola showed his creative talent by using masking tape for his design. Vicky from the PTA popped along to see our hard work and explained 20 bird boxes will be placed along a trail for the lower school children to try to spot them all.

Vicky's son picked Stephanie's as the the best painted bird box, which was well deserved, as she was able to combine a practical but stylish design of green leaves.

A fun afternoon at Andy's Cafe with WEAct. There were plenty of board games to pick from. I had a good game of Rummikub, a classic Bananagram and then tried a new game using the Banagram tiles. It was great meeting new people and there were some fantastic veggie and vegan cakes to keep energy levels up. If the session is repeated I'd say it was well worth joining.