I arrived at the church at 08:00am where there were a small group of people to welcome me, there was onsite parking. Initially I helped with a few small tasks but later Terry instructed me and some others to start setting up on the green around the church. We were given a map to show us where each stall was located and hammered posts with labels into the ground. Later helping to setup gazebos at each stall location. I worked with a gentleman named Barry. There were also some parasols to go up at three benches. As the start of the fete began at 11:00am loads more people started to arrive to help, I left at around 09:30am as I thought it would be nice for other people to use my parking space. It was a great start to my Saturday everyone was so nice it helped me to have a cheerful day. Apologies I didn’t take any pictures but was wearing my GoodGym T Shirt so everyone knew why I was helping. I tried not to let the team at GoodGym Woking down by working hard to help as best I could. St John the Baptist Church is an Anglican Church I found out, so CofE as I have grown up a Roman Catholic I mentioned they said they have good relations with the other local Roman Catholic Church in West Byfleet. I’m not sure that I have led a typical Christian life, but the Church didn’t go up in flames or the cross didn’t fall upside down upon my entry to the Church, lol :-) The Church of England has always been more compassionate towards gay people in England so I was proud to help out! Lovely people and a busy GoodGym mission 🙌

The turnout at Woking Junior Parkrun was astounding as per usual!! Wayne, Mel, Ola and Luan were the GoodGym marshals for the morning.

Writing the report I tried to get the stats for the event but, today everyone was pretty chilled at the end so there was no prize giving as there have been other times.

The kids are so cool at Junior Parkrun and a couple of them high fived me as they ran past, OMG they are cute! Usually I personally try to be as encouraging as possible and cheer them on as they pass…

They all did so well to run their 2k around the park!

Awesome :-)

Luan

A great turn out today of 6 Goodgymers meant that we made great progress on the school garden. Luan and Kirsty started by collecting plants from another area of the school to add to the previous planting which is settling in and looking amazing. Anne and Katie painted the bug hotel with lovely red paint inspired by the Good Gym branding. Stephanie got stuck in to making some concrete mushrooms - we are very excited to see how those turn out. Julie finally got to use some of the massive compost heap to fill a wormery so that the children will be able to see how worms aerate the soil by creating tunnels and pull down leaf litter from the surface to help decompose it and create more lovely soil. A great team effort today - Vikki is planning a grand opening after half term so watch out for the date for this.

The Phoenix Cultural Centre is an amazing venue! I myself have attended a community music and food/drink festival there outside with a friend; it was my first time inside the building. We found out the huge site used to be the headquarters for KFC but now a community centre new to GoodGym we helped to decorate and transform some of the areas into brighter creative settings. There was a large table to move that Ola, Julie, Stephanie and myself moved together from one part of the building to the other. The rest was mostly decorating with posters and our own creative input. Elaine who met us there was lovely, she made us so welcome! Was happy for us to help her... Looking forward to helping out more at the centre! What a great project for Woking!