Our task this evening was at one of our favourite local schools, Ryvers Primary School. We have done a few tasks here over the past year mainly in their learning garden, however tonight’s task was to revamp the playground area for the Reception and Year 1 children.

What's the time Mr Wolf?

I had a slight timing issue in getting to Salt Hill on time today so our two Run Leaders Ricky and Darren took charge and led the runners to the task location. Thank you guys for stepping in today.

With Chrissy (and bump) on walk leader role today, a few of us got to the task location to meet Meera and Helen, our task owners and get our heads around the task in order. By the time the runners got there we had some kind of plan of action.

Decimals have a point

And so did Meera with the ‘if it looks like it needs to go in the skip, then it needs to go in the skip’. Fair point, Meera. Don’t think anyone was going to disobey you tonight.

So we split into four teams and undertook the following tasks:

• Lifters and shifters
• Weeders
• Sweepers
• Sorters

To be honest, I’m not sure where Chrissy took the lifters – all I saw was a bike shed (?), but I’m guessing some level of activity was happening behind there!

The weeders couldn’t quite get into the fenced off area due to the HUGE spiders…oh wait they were just leaves, but none the less, Antonio was not going to risk it. However a great job was done on clearing all the weeds growing out of the drain pipes and ground in general. Pam, as always got stuck right into her gardening task – and she looked happy from her head to her tomatoes with her efforts.

Roisin and Emma were on sweeping duty – so many bits and bobs needed sweeping and both had the right idea of ‘sweepers keepers’…although why Emma didn’t want to keep the baby dolls, I do not know!

Denise, Chrissy, Meera and Louisa were on sorting duty. A few tough decisions made on what to keep and what to skip…with Chrissy and Denise both expecting soon, we think the ‘nesting’ phase may have started a little bit too soon.

Using a broken pencil is pointless

Within 40 minutes, the whole Reception/Year 1 area had been re-vamped. What wasn’t needed was skipped, weeds were pulled, broken toys were discarded and the whole play area was swept clean.

These children are going to be bowled over with their new play area – they are going to be so bright that the teachers will have to wear shades.

Meera and Helen were wheely happy with everything we achieved today.

Next week we are back at Parvaaz helping with their garden and car park areas. It’s a short 2km each way run/walk so please do come along.

Tonight’s run and good task was to one of our favourite schools to visit. Not only because a few of our runners are teachers at this school but also because they have such an amazing learning garden that we love coming to help and make it more useable for the children

Newsworthy News

• The Family 5K at the weekend at Upton Court Park was a brilliant family event. Great to see a few Goodymers there. One definitely for the run diary next year
• Well done to Harsha for completing her 53 mile Ultra Marathon at the weekend
• New configuration to task force admin page so please take a look

So after the brief and task overview we set out through the main roads of Slough heading onto Langley. Thyming is everything when you have a slightly longer run out

Thank you Darren, Ricky, Ruth and Sandy for back marking today and a warm welcome to Antonio on his first run with us (Antonio actually spotted us in the park last week – saw the red thunder T’s, googled us and et voila he signed up) And a nice welcome back to Run Leader Ricky who made a special appearance in his all black GG T tonight!

You can’t beet a good gardening task

Our tasks tonight were all gardening based in the learning garden.

Our mission (should we decide to accept it was to)

• Cut back the willow and do some digging around the pond area
• Weeding and nettle clearance of the digging area
• Weeding around the pear tree
• Pallets to be assembled for the mud kitchen
• Replace rotted timber

It was one of those Challenge Aneka type of nights with lots of activity going on and with thyme of the essence we tooled up and cracked on

Weed it and reap

We divded into smaller teams to tackle the tasks

Roisin, Meera, Antonio, Ruth, Gail and Kam were on Pond duty

Nisha, Jean, Sara, Pam, Lucy and Darren were on weeding and nettle clearance

Ricky and Sandy on pruning and path clearance duties

Rooting for the team

When you have this many tasks going on in one go, the trainer is best placed cheerleading the team on. I know these guys can achieve grapeness when they put their minds to it.

Roisin did an amazing job on clearing the nettles around the pond area – you grow girl!

Kam was awesome at pruning the willows – you are unbeetable!

Everyone worked really hard today, there were so many little tasks and scary nettles to contend with but in true Goodgym style we just battled through as much as we could in our 40 minutes.

And Gail kindly rewarded us with mars bars! The only chocolate of Slough

Hastla la vista baby

We’ll be back! No, we really will be back. The sheer number of volunteers this evening tells you how much we love coming to Ryvers. With some tasks left to finish off, we can’t wait to get back there in August

Next week we will be doing a task for The Dash Charity

July is full of exciting things like a trip down the River, our 1st anniversary celebratory task,a parkrun takeover as well as a well-deserved night out on Saturday 27th July. Please do come along to them all

The Group Runs: https://www.goodgym.org/areas/slough/happenings/group-runs

The parkrun takeover: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/upton-court-parkrun-takeover

The Party: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/1st-year-celebration

Last but not least GOOD LUCK to the GG Slough runners on The Beat the Boat Race on Sunday! The tutu’s will be out in force (as so beautifully show-cased by Darren last week)

A great turnout for our first school task... No school dinners on the menu today but we did offer a shoulder to crayon at Ryvers Primary School... Thank you to Chrissy one of our regular runners who arranged this task for us

A Squat is a Squat..No??

As we had a longer distance to run today, we headed to the park for a quick warm up and stretches... and Chris learnt that there was more than one variation to the squat! A new piece of knowledge was then shared by Chris regarding pedestrian crossings! We learn so many useful facts from our runners!

I ran so fast I got in-DIG-estion!

We made it to school in super speedy time ( clearly the childhood chills of being late were in the back of our minds) and the lovely Chrissy gave us a low down on the tasks in hand... we divided into three teams and got straight to work

1. The Planters
2. The Potters and
3. The Painters

Even in darkening conditions the teams did really well! The painters had quality control checks in place via Sara No fence slat was left untouched... The potters planted cress... I mean viola and pansies which all looked like cress to me into 4 pots... and the ploughers in super quick time cultivated the two large flower beds... and lone man Darren got the task of ensuring the smaller plant holders got the love and attention they needed

Aloe from the other side..

We faired goodbye to Chrissy and team who were doubling up as task owners and runners today as they stayed behind to lock up the school gates and we headed back to base...

Setting Trends the Teachers Way!

Have to give a special mention to our teachers runners Gail, Meera and Keira for always thinking outside the box! When we talk about safety and protective personal equipment they went a step further and donned the white overall

What better way to make sure the red t-shirts stay red! Well done ladies

Next weeks task is a shorter run of 2km each way to The Riverside Centre at Jubilee River..

We have the whats app group set up now so please do feel free to join it ( email me with your number and I will add you)

Christmas PARTY - FRIDAY 30th NOVEMBER 19:30 The Corner House, Windsor

Drinks at Salt Hill Activity Centre on Monday 15th October after the task/run

Everyone is welcome

Have a great week everyone Manjit