Wow! what a wonderful event to be a part of.

The Burnham Lions asked us in a desperate plea for more volunteers to help marshal their Christmas Santa Parade.

And because we never say HO HO HO... 3 merry GoodGym members jingles their way to Burnham this evening to help Santa...

We had Jingle Jen, Merry Manjit and Advent Agnia... signposting here, supporting there and guarding the big man himself during the parade.

Great evening!

Tonight was our second time helping Vineet from The Haymill Support Group with a task at a local care home.

With the changes to recent Group Run/Walk sessions it was great that we were able to meet up 2km away from the task venue rather than Salt Hill which wood have been 8kms each way! Image that briefing!

So tonight 5 of us met outside the Nike store in Taplow and after our warm up heading down the Bath Rd towards Slough and the task venue.

On arrival Vineet gave us the low down on what needed doing, which was basically sanding down the bench and two tables then painting them.

How many coats

Sandy had 3! the one she wore plus the 2 she painted...

In in out out

Gauri made the rookie error of starting the blue paint outside then working in... in in out out ...

Splish splash

Sut and I worked on the brown table, someone though, naming no names (and it wasn't me)... was a bit splishy splashy with the paint.

A pro is a pro

Agnie is a pro! With her recent course in painting decorating she really was the lady for the job!

More highlights

Luckily the brown paint matched my highlights, so when I got a streak in my hair you really couldn't tell at all!

60 minute makeover

Within 1 hour we had given each piece of furniture 2 coats and they looked amazing! We thanked Vineet for the task and the juice and headed back up the road to our start point.

Next Monday we have a double whammy! In the morning there is a Community Mission helping a local school with a play area paint task:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/painting-a-wooden-play-house-7013bdcd-9817-4224-b085-c6d00249c1c3

Then our usual group run in the evening helping a local community centre garden:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/garden-finish-off-at-the-community-centre

This was our first ever task of helping a care home. Our task was helping Vineet from the Haymill Support Group, who have been phenomenal during the Covid period helping those in need. The care home in question was Applegarth Care Home, who we had tried to help previously with a banner task but alas the UK weather kept dampening our efforts each time we tried.

Botany plants lately?

The first part of the task was to repot some donated plants. Lucky we had Pam with us to reinforce the ordering of compost vs top soil and levels to fill the pots.

Gauri made light work of bedding in the plants in the flowerbed. We were rooting for her as she dug through the matting to make the right sized holes!

Naomi and I then tackled the flowerbeds by layering it with pebble stones. 17 bags in total we lifted and shifted then spread out in order to prevent those peasky weeds from growing - blooming marvelous

She’s a buttercup

An hour in and we were done, just in time to celebrate Pam’s birthday with a moorish Costco cookie! Happy birthday Pam!

This evenings task was a real community affair. We were asked by Vineet who leads the Haymill Community Support for the residents in Haymill /Burnham to help promote and support their ‘Get Moving Initiative’

With 12 Goodgymers and 5 local residents we couldn’t make a U-Turn and were all Get, Set, Go! To be honest we 'stole' a resident and made her our own! Harjit had recently joined Goodgym in Hounslow but hadnt yet logged a good deed... so when she told us that...in a jiffy we nabbed her! Welcome to Goodgym Harjit!

Zooming in on the signage

Our tasks were to give the road signs a spring clean and litter pick en route to our designated areas.

Now came the tricky part! Reading a map and making sure we didn’t hit any dead ends or T junctions.

With the big T (Tesco ) as our base point, we set off in 4 teams mixing the residents (who do actually have names!) and Goodgymers

Team Sut

With Andy, Pam and Naomi they covered the roads around Crosthwaite Way. They looked like they had too much flash going on judging by the pictures! Luckily Andy wasnt camera shy.

Team Nisha

Had Sandy, Ruth and Christine and her mum. They did a sparkling job around Blumfield Crescent...even the warning signs are now fairy clean...

Team Emily

With Sara, Keira and Harjit did a smashing job! Only Sara could literally elbow a No Entry sign back into place!

Team Kam

We had the pleasure of Vineet and Caroline's company...our area included Haymill Rd, Whittaker Rd, Leaholme Gardens and Phipps Rd. Our find of the night was the dirty speed camera sign...its now shining so make sure you slow down to check it out!

Forty Five minutes later we had covered a fair radius and picked up around 8 bags off rubbish off the streets!

Community at its best

We do a lot of different tasks in Slough but I have to say what a lovely community feel there is in Burnham! So many 'thank you's' and kind words from local residents.

And a huge thank you from us to the Fish and Chip shop on Burnham Lane for our complimentary Vimto!

We will be back...

So I have to end tonights report with another thank you!

This time its to Ruth... Ruth was on her 50th good deed tonight (yah!)...and shes been singing our praises and promoting us in the Slough Council publications ever since we launched a couple of years ago... So Ruth... here is your 50th Good Deed poem (I say this loosely).

• Well done to our girl Ruth
• She hit 50 and that’s the truth
• With a baby in arms we know it’s been hard
• But tonight you managed to get out of your yard
• To help us with a community task