Before I start the run report I have to mention our super tutu-tastic 5 who ran the Beat the Boat 10k race on Sunday.

Emily, Ruth. Sandy, Darren and Ricky all donned their Dash or GG t’s, tutu’s and smiles and laughed their way around the River Thames for a local race where you try to beat your timed boat. With beer and prosecco on tap at the water stations! Not that this was the reason why our team ran the race.

Earlier this year we did a task at DASH (Domestic Abuse Stops Here). During the task, task owner and dear friend of ours Caron, gave us a quiz on domestic abuse. Suffice to say that the results from the quiz shocked us. So much so that 6 of use decided to fundraise for DASH at the event. Unfortunately I had to pull out due to other commitments however I am so proud of the team who went along yesterday to either run it or as part of the GG cheer squad. Just goes to prove, once again, what an awesome team we have and we raised over £600 for DASH!

Don’t Gift In

The task this evening was to help the DASH team again. It felt fitting to ask them for a task the day after we did a race with them.

The DASH team are always so accommodating, they’ve booked us in when we’ve had last minute cancellations, so when they said that although they had a task but couldn’t open up the office in the evening for us…we had a little ‘thinking outside the box’ moment.

During the day I collected all the presents we were going to wrap and took them to our base location..so that we could do them there instead…never gift in! always a cello-ution to everything.

Let’s Wrap This Up

A warm welcome to Jas on her first session with us and welcome back to Antonio to his second session.

After our usual welcome brief we headed outside for our warm up followed by a run of the new junior parkrun route that will be launching in Slough on the 21st July at our base park (Salt Hill).

Seen as a fair few of us are involved in this new exciting launch in Slough, we thought we could see if we could set a new 2km record.

We gave it 100 and 10 present…but alas…I think the juniors will give us a run for our money…But well done to Harry for first male home and Lucy for first female home.

Ready to start the task, we headed back to our base location who had kindly let us use their facility for the task. With the presents all out on display it was every man and women for themselves in their battle to get the job done. The quality of the wrapping was actually quite good. Chris in particular was doing a fine job – you could almost say he was gifted.

Emily was the queen of the tape. She cut little strips and had an order going and god help you if you messed with it. Jean was our lone ranger. She had her head down, eyes on the task and clocked up the most amount of presents wrapped.

We also learnt that there actually is no end to Run Leader Darren's skill set. He can actually wrap any shaped item including a snow globe! I need to hire Darren at Christmas...hope he does mates rates

I decided to gift them a hand tonight – although I am not very good at wrapping so I helped put all the toys into neat little piles ready for collection – a bit like an Argos, click n’collect service

In no time at all we had 5 boxes worth of presents wrapped!

Sterling work by everyone

Coming up:

• Our first year anniversary drinks on Saturday 27th July from 19.30 at The Henry in Eton. Everyone is welcome so please do come along

• Our first year anniversary task on Monday 29th July https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/one-year-birthday-waders-n-wellies

• Our second parkrun takeover on Saturday 20th July – Need around 4 more volunteers (more if possible) to help do this https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/upton-court-parkrun-takeover

Have a great week

To celebrate #IWD2019 we took our community mission to a local running group that I am a volunteer run leader for on Friday mornings.

Perfectly Perfectious

When we were asked to celebrate International Women's Day and invite as many females as we could it seemed like the perfect fit...Our Run With Active Slough ladies and our Goodgym runners to come together and help The Dash Charity make up pamper kits for the ladies in refuge.

We have helped The Dash Charity (Domestic Abuse Stops Here) before and they were only too happy to give us a big box of miniature creams, bath toiletries, makeup kits for our team to make up lovely little pamper kits.

BalanceforBetter

Amongst our runners today we had mixed abilities from first timers to half marathoners to marathoners to spartons!

Celebrating everyone's achievements was the focus of the session today and it was great to learn some lovely facts from some of our team on what their greatest achievement to date was

Greatest Achievement

We had the most amazing statements

Snober - I have a beautiful family, a very good set of friends, as a person I feel lucky enough to meet people who respect each other and everyone regardless of what background we belong to...Respect, care and trust is an achievement to have and spread...

Summer - The best I can be as a wife, mum, sister, auntie and friend...

Ritu - Believing in myself through realising my potential challenged myself every time and emerged stronger than before

Sut Yee - Having my family and friends supporting me on my running/leader journey....helping others

Kalidha - Learned to respect women in my life

Harsha - Showing my children that women can be as strong as men and being a good role model for them

Anita - My kids ❤❤

And for me it was.... Living my life to the values my dad taught me. My dad passed away when I was 29. He never met my girls. However, every day I live my life to the values he taught me so that I can teach my girls how to be independent and strong young women just as he had taught me to be.

Happy International Women's Day 2019

This evening, 13 runners ran to help The DASH Charity. The DASH Charity help individuals and families affected by domestic abuse with confidential advice and support.

After our normal welcome brief and warm up we set off from The Salt Hill Activity Centre and made our way to The Trading Estate where the DASH offices are located.

Me and Me!

No shortage of volunteer back markers this evening..a few runners with a few niggles meant a nice slow run out. Thank you Ricky and Darren for being the back team, I’m sure you will both be back as fit as a fiddle soon

On arrival, our lovely task owner Caron gave us an overview of the tasks in hand and an overview of what the charity do. Caron and her team do a great job in promoting the services of the Charity not only to adults but also to children at school by doing talks about safe relationships

You’re Gonna Hear Me Roar

After the briefing Caron said she wanted us to do a quiz, so we divided into 3 teams. Little did we know that this would be the most thought provoking quiz we’ve probably ever done…

Did you know?

• 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men experience domestic abuse in their lifetime
• In England, 1 women dies every 3 days due to domestic abuse
• Someone is likely to be hit 50 times before they call the police
• Police receive a domestic abuse call to 999 every 30 seconds

It’s no wonder Caron and Joanne feel so passionately about the charity and the work that they do.

Katy Perry sings is best when shes say’s ‘You’re gonna to hear me roar’….

So this evening, Goodgym Slough did what we do best and helped our local community with a task that will one day make an affected family ‘roar’ with happiness

We then divided into two teams to do the task in hand…to make pamper kits and to sort through clothes

Very quickly we could see those who had creative flare and those who didn’t.

Darren and Ricky knew not to touch the lotions and potions…they knew their limits and went straight onto sorting the baby clothes into age order.

Nisha, Ruth and Meera felt the baby room calling them too. They quickly got to sorting the clothes into age order and neatly putting them into piles… They were like storm poopers! Whizzing through the task in no time at all.. well done guys…there wasn’t much womb in there so it was good you came out early!

The pamper hampers were so focused on their task, the concentration levels were at an all time high... A nice little production line had formed with Sara, Sally, Emily, Sandy and Tierney working as little elfers deciphering which hand cream went best with which body gel…No wonder the guys made the speediest exit into the baby room!

The little mini hamper packs were lovely little gifts which are going to be used as Valentine gifts for the ladies currently being looked after by The DASH Charity.

Thank you to DASH for having us over this evening and well done to Meera in particular for facing her longest run out and back. And a massive congratulations to Sara who only yesterday did the London Winter 10k! Well done for coming out with us this evening...Great team work as usual

Next week’s task is a leaflet drop for Active Slough to the new housing estate near Ditton Park Academy. It will be a 8km total run.

Have a great week Manjit

Tonights task was another indoor Christmassy task for a local wonderful group called The Dash Charity. The Dash Charity help families who are affected by domestic abuse with confidential advice and support. It was a real pleasure to help them wrap donated presents for the families who greatly benefit from its services..

At the weekend Senior Santa Darren had been doing his Christmas shopping at B&Q where he discovered a new type of safety head gear which he thought we would delfintely benefit from! So we got some early presents today

As time waits for snowman, only the early bird runners got a complimentary hat...

After the welcome brief we headed out for our warm up. A gang of Santa's squatting in Salt Hill Park was a magnifisanta sight... believe yule me

I did explain that on our run out and back that we would do some Fartlek speed work up Edinburgh Avenue. The team were at a loss fir words but I did have the final sleigh so on arrival at the road.. it was a case of no elfs no buts and off they went! Speedy Santas with their bobbling hats in the heart of the Slough Trading Estate... well deserving of the beeping horns!

We did eventually arrive at the task location where the lovely Dash ladies Jo and Steph warmly welcomed us in. They gave us the wrapping brief and set us on our way.

As I love wrapping presents I decided the gift them a hand today. Nisha and I took charge of the present distribution list whilst our merry elves got the production line of wrapping underway. Chris gave it 100 present effort tonight... glass of water in one hand... mince pie in the other... and all presents wrapped to perfection

Alistair, Harry and Sophie our newest runner didnt gift up either... they kept the qualitree up to a high standard... Alistair clearly believed he did a beaut-elf-ul job.. one deserving of a mince pie! Downed in one bite! What a party trick

Darren and Michelle were on snowflake decorating duty.. they managed to jazz up the office in snowtime at all.. I dont think Elf and safety Ricky saw you on the tables! A claus call!

All in all the team did a fantastic job! After 40 minutes we were done!.... so we made a wrap-it exit and headed back to base.

Thank you to each and every runner for always making the runs and tasks so enjoyable

Next weeks run is the last one for 2018... We will be having a few drinks afterwards at the Salt Hill Activity Centre so please do join us for that

If you want to be added to the whats app group please send me a message to 07718 905 286

Have a great week

Manjit