Tonight's task was a takeover by me, Jenni! 👋 I've been doing my GoodGym fitness leader training, and Amy kindly let me lead tonight's task for my assessment - thank you!

A group of us met at the Community Centre, and I delivered the briefing - where we were going, how we'd get there and most importantly to make sure we were doing it safely!

The walking duo of Diya and Kanika set off, while the runners did a self-led warm up, including Adam's choice of squats and Samrita feeding the chickens! Once our muscles were ready, we set off up the hill and off to the task...

...where the rest of the team met us!

After a chat with our taskowner for the night, Carl, it was clear it wouldnt take us very long, so Amy sprang into action to find us some more bits to do!

The answer to how many GoodGymers it takes to fill a raised bed?

Not very many at all!!

With an efficient team filling wheelbarrows with soil on one side of the building, others navigating round to the beds and a team of levellers, we were done filling the bed in record time! While team soil were working away, teams bike shed and weeders got to work.

Diya and Sophie were having loads of fun scaring everyone cleaning up inside the bike shed with their water throwing and Roberta and Gillian made easy work of the weeds around the building!

With our task, and some bonus bits complete, Amy and Sophie devised a fitness session, making use of the school's play equipment. With standing push ups, tricep dips, balancing and running across the playground, everyone had a good workout!

All that was left to do was to say goodbye to Carl, check who was coming back to base to do our stretches, so we set off into the sunset!

Thanks everyone for a fab evening for me to do my fitness leader assessment! Great road crossings and no spade mishaps 😂 I hope to lead a session for you again soon... and everyone will be welcome when Reading GoodGym is up and running!

This evening's group run took us about 2km up the hill to All Saints C of E Junior School, where it turned out we had just 20 minutes to blitz a gardening task.

No problem! When a dozen GoodGymers are fenced into a small triangle of land and Nicola is armed with a children's spade, we can do quite a lot of scarifying, weeding and generally flinging bits of turf around.

This was exactly what was needed to prepare the ground for master re-soiler Angela, who arrived just in time to spread some fresh compost around.

We then bombed the area with seeds and we hope nature will do the rest to turn this patch into a lovely wildflower haven for pollinators.

After what was possibly the speediest bit of gardening we've ever done, we headed off to celebrate Scarlett's 50th good deed with some of Gillian's gorgeous ginger cake. Scarlett started GoodGyming in July 2023, so has done really well, notching up more than 1 good deed a week. Congratulations Scarlett - here's to the next 50!

Amy, Alex and Jess met at All Saints Primary School to help them out marshaling cars for their open evening.

It was lashing it down and the wind was picking up but that didn't stop them cracking a smile and a cheery hello to everyone coming to the school.

Amy and Alex manned the front gate guiding cars into the carpark, where Jess and others directed them to the parking area on the playground.

The prospective students and parents are clearly eco-conscious as not many arrived by car and so there was plenty of time to chat with the other volunteers (mostly PTA members) about the school and how they ended up living in Maidenhead!!

With the start of the Headteacher's talk the students who had been showing off their school headed home and the marshals were relieved of their duties. However, Amy and Jess were not soaked enough and headed off to the usual Maidenhead Goodgym Group Run for more fun in the rain!! Alex was far more sensible and headed home to get warm and dry!!

Our DIY skills were put to the test at All Saints School as we branched out to help build two new planters for the gardening club.

It was hoped we could coordinate this task with a delivery of soil to fill them too, but sadly this wasn't meant to be-am today.

We wooden want to leaf a job unfinished though, and have volunteered to come back later in the week if needed!

Sophie met with Gilly and Rachel at Boyn Grove Park, for a short warm up session before setting off for a 2km run around the Altwood area. We then made our way to All Saints Junior School where we were greeted by the task owner Carl, who armed us with paint and brushes. Diya then joined us by bike, accessorised with fairy lights. Our task was to add a base coat to the existing blue walls. We then celebrated Rachel's 50th good deed with a handmade medal and gluten free brownies, courtesy of Amy! Thank you Amy! And huge well done to Rachel.

Okay okay, I admit I brazenly stole that title pun from Yianny at GoodGym Lambeth, but it was so good I couldn't resist! And it was true too. This evening the temperature did seem to have dropped a few degrees, and we did put on a second coat....of paint at All Saints Junior School!

I need to keep this report short as it was a double good deed day for me, which also means two reports to write, so heree goes:

• Welcome back Angie! Great to have you along tonight.
• Thanks to Juli and Angie for leading each other round the block in your run, whilst the rest of us walked.
• It was lovely to see Nicola in her new black 50 good deeds t-shirt. Nicola was poorly and sad not to be able to join us (to show off her well deserved t-shirt) so we stopped by her doorstep to cheer her up with a song, chocolate and a medal to celebrate her 50th good deed. 'Oh Nikki you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind, hey Nikki!"
• Thanks to Mr Cameron at All Saints for a warm welcome once again.
• Well done Lena on your first ever paint job!
• And well done to all the team for lots of rollering and brushing to help cover up all that blue.
• Special mention to Georgeta for cleaning up the filing cabinets, leaving everything spick and span.
• Thanks again to DJ Lou for bringing the chooons! And well done Lou for getting your docs checked! Social visits here she comes...
• Thanks everyone for a super, chatty evening. As ever it was lovely to catch up.

Hope to see you all soon for more GoodGyming!