Congratulations to Roberta on completing 50 GoodGym good deeds! Roberta, I hope you feel proud of all the brilliant things you've done to help our local community. From wildflower gardening at Kidwells Park, to planting globe artichokes - we love having you on the team.

Thank you also for giving us a reason to have some yummy cake this evening, and big thanks to Jess for her excellent baking skills! If anyone knows a good technique for getting sprinkles on the side of a cake, then let us know...

We earned our cake this evening with a walk or run 2km up the hill to Maidenhead community allotment, by doing allott of gardening and with a walk or run back.

There is always plenty to do at the allotment and it ment allot to our task owners that we were there. We too were very grateful to them for coming out to meet us after they'd had a busy day at a health and wellbeing fayre at the library.

This evening Georgeta, Jenni, Scarlett, Matthew and Gillian did a tree-mendous job planting three fig trees and three other fruit trees (apples?) on the other side of the car park. We really dig planting trees, so this was a very enjoyable task.

Adam and Caroline were a great pear shifting the compost bins around to make space for a pear tree behind the big shed. They also did lots of digging but alas the ground had other ideas, so the pear tree remains in the shed for now. They still helped a lot by working with Roberta to shift compost into the artichoke bed, which Roberta then artfully planted. No choke, she's our expert in that field!

We turfed Jess and Juli out to the other side of the allotment where they carefully removed turf from a raised bed and then made the bed all neat.

A warm welcome to Chris, who joined us for the first time this evening, having met Sheila at the aforementioned library event. He was kept busy covering a large frame with netting, which will protect veggies from the birds. Sara was at a loose end, so I suggested she join him and tie knots to keep the netting in place. This was a fiddly task, but they really showed us their net worth!

Great work everyone!

Remember next Wednesday evening we won't be starting at the Community Centre as usual. Instead we meet at the Co-op on Wessex Way in Cox Green, and we will be helping Wessex Primary School. Full details and click the blue sign up button here. Hope to see you there!

An amazing 8 Goodgymmers gave up their Saturday afternoon to help prepare the Community Allotment for Spring and get it all spruced up for Theresa May's visit next week. We had a long list of tasks, so decided to divide and conquer. Angela and Rosie took on covering the raised bed frames with netting, and used their best sewing and patchwork skills to cover the frames to keep out the butterflies. Rachel, Gillian and Lisa weeded around the trees, raspberries, spinach and a couple of the beds. Meanwhile Sheila strimmed the grass Nicola and Matthew took on the compost area, moving the woody material to uncover some beautiful compost underneath. You could tell it was good stuff - it was full of wriggling pink worms. They used this to mulch around the newly- weeded areas. We were joined briefly by Daniel who passed by and came to join in - maybe he will join Goodgym in the future. Our last task was to dig a trial hole in an area that may be used for some fruit trees in the future, which Matthew and Nicola gamely took on. Once they had got past the bramble roots, they reported that the soil was quite easy to dig. We then discovered that this was Nicola's 100th Good Deed, which had crept under the radar. Congratulations, Nicola! Epic! We shall celebrate properly soon.

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.

Angela and Sheila went to help out at the Community Allotment. Extra watering was definitely not required after Storm Ciaran, but the allotment needed tidying up for winter. We hoed the long bed and then spread it with horse muck. We were delighted to see lots of worms, so covered it with weed suppressant membrane and left them to do what they do best. Then, while Angela cleared the old courgette bed, Sheila set to work strimming the grassy areas. We were treated to a double rainbow as we worked. We finished off by trimming some long bits of the hedge and giving the paths a sweep. By then the light was failing, so we made our way home

There wasn't much to do at the community allotment today, so we turned it into a litter-picking task instead. Matthew, Scarlett and Sheila armed themselves with litter-pickers and set off through the park and down to the A4. We kept to the main thoroughfares and after an hour, our bags were getting pretty full. We were dismayed by the number of disposable vape capsules and boxes we found. After the obligatory selfie, we found a convenient bin in which to deposit the rubbish where it belongs.

Gillian and Sheila helped out at the community allotment. Our main task was to take down the remainder of the runner bean plants from the long bed and the tubs. We cut them off just above the soil level, leaving the roots to continue their nitrogen-fixing activities. The plants were untangled from the poles and put on the compost heap, saving any mature pods for seed next year. The canes were taken down and stored in the rafters of the big shed, ready for next year. The bed was then covered in weed-suppressant membrane to over-winter. We also took out some of the dwarf beans, but the courgettes are still going strong so I took some home for tea. Just in case of any confusion, the title of this report refers to the vegetable plants, not the Goodgym volunteers!