This evening we were at Salthill park doing a litter pick task. It never fails to amaze us on how much litter this one park alone generates! Even though we collected 4 bags on Sunday there was still so much to do tonight.

Whilst we waited for everyone to get to the meet up point outside the activity centre, we started on the car park with our named session.

Whats my name!

So the task was to see if we could find litter that spelt out our names..

Agnija found actimel; gum and nails

Jen - using her full name found - Juice; exciting things; novelty toy; napkins; ice lolly; Fanta; exotic things; ribena

Pam aka Parmjit found Plenty of plastic, rubber balloons; ice cream wrapper, juice cartons

Peter found Paper, plates, playing cards, tickets, rappers (lots of pees; no e's and a phonetic way for spelling wrapper!)

I found a mayo wrapper and a napkin!

But the overall winner was Jean who managed to spell out her first name and surname!

Juice; Egg shell in egg cup, Air freshener packet, Napkins

Water; Apple core , Tissues; Toys; Spoon

Well done Jean!

All these items filled 6 bags! and we only covered the car park and play area.

Next week is our 6th birthday which means there will be cake. Please do come along

It's July! yet we battled with a heavy heavy downpour this evening just as Jean and I were driving to our meet up point.

We were discussing if we were going to walk or run the 1.5km to the task when suddenly out of nowhere the sky turned grey and it started pletting it down!

With messages rolling in from the rest of the team who had signed up asking if we were aborting!

Abort abort abort!

We turned to plan B which was for Jean and I to drive to the allotments and wait for a break in the weather and hopefully get a bit of the task done...

Plan C it is

With no break in the weather... we resulted in having a lovely chatty catchup before calling it a day! Plan D is to reschedule for another day!

This evening we were helping Jillian at The Global Trust Bookstore to sort through the piles of donated books.

Before setting off from Salt Hill Park we welcomed Urmila on her first GoodGym session - a very warm welcome!

With Pam, Keith and Urmila walking the 1 mile distance, they set off whilst Jean and I carried on with the warm up.

Soon we had set off too. Jean was on fire tonight! I told her to set the pace and run at her pace then walk whenever she wanted to... we ran nearly all the way! Great to have running Jean back

Not all books are created sequel

Our tasks were to just sort out the books. But the books were everywhere so we were bound to get a little confused.

I helped to work out the sub tasks with task owner Jillian and we set Jean and Keith the naughty corner to sort out the fact from the fictions!

They did a remarkable job clearing out the corner into some kind of order!

Once upon a time

Kam and Pam had the job of sorting out the kiddies corner. Kam was on all the reference books whilst Pam had the pre schoolers!

Urmila and I came down to help after an aborted clothes sorting task!

We soon had crates of books in the correct piles

Great job all round everyone!

What a hot day! I think it put a fair few off from coming tonight as we only had Jean and I attend...

But that didn't mean a thing as we got loads done! We had a lovely walk before the task then did a few stretches before heading over to the Ujala Foundation for a garden weeding task.

The back garden was looking a little weedy so Jean and I did what we could to pull them out, sweep up the area and generally make it look better.

I think we succeeded!

Next week we will be helping Raggy Rd Allotments. Meeting at Salt Hill Park at 18:30.

This evening we were heading out to Wexham Park Hospital for our regular litter pick. We met at Shaggy Calf Lane at 18:30 and waited for the team to arrive then headed out.

We decided to walk up tonight which was lovely as we all had great litter chats as we made our way.

On arrival we met Claire who was back for her second task with us.

Our focus was all the hidden litter gems around the hospital and the parking lot where we found the usual items of food containers; cans; face masks plus almost a full outfit! - except we only found one shoe.

Forty-Five minutes in and we had collected 5 bags of rubbish! Great job by everyone!

Once a-pun a time....

Some of you may know this already but this is the school that my children attend and the task came about after the school put a shout out for parents to come help tidy it up one Sunday afternoon. A few parents came along that day but there were still plenty of tasks that needed doing hence our visit tonight. The Langley Academy Primary also connects a fair few of the GoodGym team as Nisha, Sut and Harsha also are GG members and TLAP parents.

Our primary role tonight was to tidy up planter bed by removing the grass, putting down the membrane (having a little snooze in the bed!); putting down some soil but removing the grass first (easier said than done) and finishing off with compost. Well I'd say we achieved a SAT score of above baseline on this one! We did manage to put down the membrane but ran out of staples in the gun; we did manage to empty the soil bags but there were a fair few chunks of grass in them which couldn't be used; so that resulted in the top compost having to be delayed - Sorry Miss..we did try!

Newly grown..

Nahush was on his first task with us and he did an amazing job - getting absolutely stuck into the task

Hair today...gone tomorrow

Not many GG'ers go get their hair and nails done before a GG task - but Nisha did...lucky we had a spare pair of gardening gloves to protect those perfect nails!

Channeling her inner thoughts

Sutyee did a great job of creating a channel for bulbs to be planted. She did it so quickly it was almost like she had a team of little people helping!

Gnome-body knows gardening like...

Jean and Pam - always grateful for their gardening insights and advice

Well done to everyone tonight for their hard efforts

We look forward to having a team social to celebrate a little birthday on Saturday!

Tonight we were back helping Home Start East Berkshire with their Slough Allotment Project.

We had the task of digging up the grass on plot 5 and with 9 of us in tow we managed to get two beds over turned.

It was great to have Priya return for her second task.

We were so pleased to have Mansoor join us via Stoke Park Active - thank you Clare for bringing Mansoor along.

The task was pretty straightforward but with very dry soil it took allot of effort in turning it over.

Jason had a cracking technique at skimming the top then digging the grass roots out accompanied by Keith who also gave the task some backbone!

Kam and Jean who I classify as my gardening gnome it alls knew exactly what to dig and what to leave!

Thank you all for your efforts tonight.

Next week is bank holiday Monday but the session is still on - we will be combining a fitness session with a litter pick task at Upton Court Park.

We were back at St Mary’s Church on Church Street for our Monday #DoGoodGetFit task. We all had ‘active travel’ to get to the Church on time on a lovely cool Monday evening.

On arrival, Jean our task owner gave us access to the Church and asked us to do a few tidy up jobs that the Church desperately needed.

So we got to work pretty quickly with Jason taking the sweeping job (once he was happy with the broom!), Maya also went on sweeping duties then onto iron gate cleaning.

Devajani was already giving the iron work a good clean whilst Agni and Jean were all over the pulpit with Jean giving us her worldly advise.

I took some time out to sweep the altar and wipe down the pews with the rest of the team joining me once they’d finished their areas.

The areas looked so much fresher once we’d finished. Such a beautiful church and we were very happy to help give it a spring clean.

We look forward to returning in a few weeks time.

Next week we will be at the allotments on Stoke Road. Hope to see you there.

Tonight was night of firsts

• We had Thomas and Priya join us for the first GoodGym session - great to have you both join us tonight.

• We were doing our first group run session to Raggy Rd Allotments

• My first night of trying to speak Spanish, Parsi and English all at the same time!

We met at Salt Hill Activity Centre and as each member joined us we did a round robin of introductions. Firmo, Jason and Zoe were all recent returnees and it was great to have them back.

With a task overview and route overview loosely given, we were ready to do a warm up. My favorite warm up game of head, shoulders, knees, toes and cone followed by mirror image of exercises! Keith and Firmo looked like they had a dance routine going on! Bravo to you all!

Thyme to grow…

Even though Keith has only been with us since September he did a great job of leading the runners to the task location which I back marked. Keith has actually helped out a few times at this task at the weekends so he actually knew it better than I did. Thank you Keith for being a great help tonight.

On arrival at the task location, we met task owner Anita who gave us an overview of what she’d like done.

• Cutting back of brambles;

• Removal of rubbish;

• Removal of pallets and tyres;

• General cut back of trees;

• Removal of wood;

The bramble bashing was quickly taken on by Keith, Firmo and Jason and they did a remarkable job of getting so much of it cut back

Zoe didn’t tyre of the tasks she was assigned! Lifting and shifting items including two large tyres - who needs bootcamp when you have GoodGym

Priya did a fab job of clearing one plot of all plastic rubbish - nothing beets a bit of gardening prep!

Tom was just the man for the pallets! Carried like a true expert he easily transported them from the plot to the tip! Top job! I hope they all stacked up ok?

Mehdi and Jean did a bit of this and a bit of that! Mehdi was making sure everyone had the necessary wheelbarrow license and Jean was on wood duty! Moving it around into piles for burning and tipping.

In our alloted time slot we managed to do allot

With a quick tidy up and group photo taken we headed back to our meet up location.

Next week we are meeting on a Tuesday night as its a bank holiday on the Monday.

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions

Thank you all for your efforts tonight.

It was a much smaller than usual team out tonight helping Ujala Foundation with their community garden. Thank you to Peter and Jean for coming along tonight to help.

Jean and I got there early tonight so we took advantage of the light and went for a mile run around the block and got back just in time as Peter arrived.

Our task owner Gaye was already in the garden waiting for us. It was lovely to see her again. Gaye told us the areas to focus on. The garlic bed!!

You could really smell the garlic as we dug deep and pulled out all the 'hairy' roots! With the fading light we worked as quick as we could and did manage to get one strip of the bed turned over.

We will be back again next week to do some more.