Seven GoodGymmers met Michelle from the Craft Coop at the Community Centre to begin work on their monumental poppy display for Remembrance Day.

Michelle shared the story behind the installation: the Craft Coop are creating multiple panels of knitted and crocheted poppies that will be hung from a church in Windsor as a flowing memorial. Many people — including some GoodGymmers — have already contributed poppies, and the team have collected around 12,000 so far.

All of these poppies need to be attached to netting panels that will form a dramatic “river of poppies.” The panel we worked on tonight was a test piece, used to calculate the final weight of the installation (including when wet) to ensure it can be safely displayed.

Shelia, Hannah, Jen, Jess and Anne‑Laure took on the task of attaching poppies under Michelle’s guidance. Each poppy needed to be sewn securely to the canvas without overlapping too much — a chance for the Craft Coop to refine the best layout and attachment method for the final panels.

Meanwhile, Amy and Deepti were entrusted with creating the two large feature poppies that will be included in the installation. They stitched together pre‑cut plastic canvas, added the black centre, and began attaching the red pom‑poms. These oversized poppies are already looking fantastic and will be real showstoppers once finished.

It was satisfying to make visible progress, but this project will take many volunteers and many hours to bring to life. Keep your eyes peeled — we’ll be putting on more sessions to help this beautiful memorial become a reality.

Five fearless GoodGymers took on a task at Nature's Haven to remove some shrubs to make way for some raised beds. The team approached the task with gusto, cutting back the branches and digging out the roots. We tried many different techniques for root removal - there was the spade technique, the boot-technique, the hand-technique, the twisting-technique and the breaking-the-fork technique. Each rootball removed was accompanied by whoops of delight. By the end of the session we had cleared a good area of ground and produced a large pile of branches ready for shredding. We were pleased with how much we had achieved and taskowners Claire and Aleks were delighted too. Great work by Anne-Laure, Katie, Roberta, Sol and Sheila

Three merry musketeers ventured into the kingdom of Riverside hub to fight the growing weeds. And oh joy! how fun this quest was! Nothing beat the satisfying feeling of pulling the vines and the various weeds from the ground. The 3 valiant musketeers conquered the task with such ease and agility that they got rewarded with sweet and juicy strawberries. Before departing the kingdom, they had time to plant some nice smelling lavender. The 2 tasks were done but more adventure is to be done in the kingdom of Riverside Hub.

Our group of dozen of Goodgymers and first time Wednesday session leader Anne-Laure were happily participating in refreshing the beautiful drawings on the ground of Ray Mill Island. Organised by our lovely Nivi, the painting involved finding the right colours to match the drawings made last year by the same Goodgymers. The weather was lovely, the vibe was great, the quest to find the perfect red colour unfortunately failed. But it didn't stop everyone to recreate the beautiful letters, drawings and games. The rainbow ended up very personalised.

The evening finished with not just one but two celebrations! Roberta celebrated her 100th good deed and Rachel her (unofficial) 250th. Well done to them! Rachel spoilt us (again) with her amazing skills of baking and her creative poem writing.

A successful session, 2 amazing cakes and beautiful colours on the island! The good gymmers have spread a little bit more of joy in Maidenhead!

On the 20th day of May, Goodgym said to me...

9 Goodgymmers gymming 8 people snipping 7 reams of tinsel 6 strings of lights 5 bare baubles 4 bare bottoms....

9 Goodgymmers made their way to green skills library to held with the de-assembly of the old bauble decorations in the nicholsons centre

There was lots of reminiscing about the good old days of Smokeys, but we still made quick work of the task and soon had a pile of naked baubles in the corner!

another successful task down!