Happy bird-day to us! This week marks 4 years since we launched GoodGym in Windsor and Maidenhead and it was brilliant to see a record number of GoodGym chicks and chaps at our celebratory group run/party. This evening's brood included 25 of us, the biggest number since launch night back in 2020.

Our evening was a fun mix of team games and an eggcellent task: filling knitted chicks and bunnies with chocolate eggs for Alexander Devine Children's Hospice Services' Easter fundraising campaign. As one GoodGymer from team 'Diya's Darlings' put it, we helped with 'reverse births for our four birthdays'!

A warm welcome to Didem and Amy, who were joining us for the first time. I warned them at the start that this 'group run' might not be 100% representative of our typical Wednesday evening, but maybe it was the perfect introduction to the weird and wonderful stuff we get up to?

There was loads of laughter, silliness and cheering, we did some walking and running round the park, we used litter pickers and hoops, hi vis and gardening gloves (in our relay game) and there was a lot of chocolate (although this time we didn't eat it as was part of the task). With many hands we blitzed the task super quick and made a difference for a local charity. There was also quite a lot of fancy dress and a healthy dose of competitive spirit.

Just a 'normal' GoodGym session then!

Something we don't normally do at GoodGym is have epic games of GoodGym themed Pictionary or 'Guess the GoodGym beneficiary' quizzes, which we did enjoy last night. However these games gave us plenty of opportunity to share stories about what we've been doing for the last 4 years, so hopefully it was a nice overview for newcomers as well as an opportunity for everyone else to reminisce.

The chick stuffing task was a cracking task, partly thanks to task owner Yazmin being so organised and bringing everything to the community centre for us, and partly because the chicks and bunnies were SO CUTE! Huge kudos to the army of skilled crafters, including a team of GoodGymers, who made these little characters.

Now you shouldn't count your chickens, but we couldn't play 'guess the number of chicks' without a count, so Yazmin and I risked it. The grand total was 356, which is worth a fantastic £1068 to the charity.

At the end of the evening I tallied up all the points from the various games and the final scoreboard read:

2 Awesome for this 30 points (although I regret not awarding Jess points for her amazing Victorian child meets washer woman fancy dress, so maybe that number should have been higher)

The Mighty Ducks 40 points

Diya's Darlings 49 points

The Regal Bunnies 58 points and the win! This team really shone in the Pictionary and pun rounds.

Having said that, I really think everyone who came along this evening (and who has contributed to our last four years) is a winner. We've now helped over 90 charities and community groups, venues and projects in our local area. We've done 5,375 good deeds in our local area, including 625 visits to isolated older people.

Winner, winner, chicken winner!

7 Goodgymmers answered the call for volunteers to knit or crochet Easter chicks or bunnies, which will each be filled with a creme egg and sold in aid of Alexander Devine Children's Hospice. At the time of writing, 29 have been completed, with maybe some more on their way before next week's deadline. Each will be sold for £3, meaning that we will have contributed at least £87 to this worthwhile charity. Well done to the team of Clare, Claire, Gillian, Jess, Nicola, Rosie and Sheila. Egg-cellent work!

What do the dinosaurs, Viking long boats, Queen Elizabeth I, Mars the Roman God of War, a Sphinx and a pyramid, the silhouetted London skyline from WW2, and Windrush all have in common?

Not only are they all important symbols, moments or characters from history, they are also all the subject of sculptures and artwork created by GoodGymers Claire, Yesim, Hannah, Tessa, Nicola and myself.

And what would you need if you wanted to step back in time and visit all these fascinating parts of history?

Either a TARDIS... or a reading festival, packed with books, visiting authors and interactive activities to help bring the past to life.

Lucky for the people of Maidenhead, we have both!

A TARDIS lovingly created by Scarlett, AND a fantastic celebration of books (and for this year's theme, history) in the form of the Big Read festival.

Many thanks to task owner Tessa from the Big Read committee, who invited us to make these decorations for the library ready for the festival. It is the third year we have been involved in this creative project and it's always a joy to see what people make. This year's theme was 'Stepping Back in Time', so we had the whole of history to inspire us.

Special mention to Yesim's husband, who sailed her amazing viking long boat down to the community centre to welcome us back from our group run this evening.

Starting at Windsor leisure centre car park. We walked through the baths island and pleasure ground picking litter along the way. We walked through the arches past he Hawker Hurricane and up and down the river. One lady’s dog had a plastic bottle in his mouth and she said he’s helping me!!