Thursday 6:15/ 6:30pm is GoodGym Windsor Night! 👑🏃‍♂️🏃🏻‍♀️

Tonights community mission was at Spital Cemetery clearing weeds and collecting litter. A first for the Thursday evening session.

Bekah ran to The Binoy for 6:15pm to say “hi” to Jen who was walking and then she ran on to the task to meet the others.

We eventually 🤣 gathered at 6:30pm and the task owner Karen and the local cat showed us the area we we needed to tackle. Got on the classic fm for some calming background tunes.

Our fab GoodGym Team tonight was Gareth (welcome to his first Thursday evening session), Jen, Sue, Mandy , Bekah and Didem.

Gareth and Didem set about doing a quick litter pick on their way to the main area of work.

The weeds had over taken the rose garden of remembrance and with traces of ashes visible we had to be mindful not to disturb these. The weeds had blanketed the whole of the bed and some of the roots were really deep. The thistles had also grown very densely Bekah tried to tackle these but they were a bit to prickly. Hopefully after all our hard week the rose will have some space to thrive and any future scatterings will be much nicer.

Jen volunteered herself for condensing the green waste and then Didem and Jen took the bag down for collection.

After the task we opted for a calming quick yoga session perfect for a cemetery. Not that we were much calmer afterwards as it was just too funny 🤣 Jens classic line “I don’t think I’ve ever done yoga in a graveyard before “🤣

At the end we did the Windsor curtsy and bow 👑 and said our goodbyes.

Thank you all for coming ♥️ and Namaste (nah-mah-stay)

Thursday 6:15pm is GoodGym Windsor Night! 👑🏃‍♂️🏃🏻‍♀️

Tonight we were back at Vale Road Cemetery clearing Ivy, weeds and litter.

We mostly met at the task but Mandy dumped the tools and ran up to walk Jenni from the Binoy.

We had a quick chat, saw what we had to do, put on some chilled classical music in keeping with our surroundings and set to work.

Jenni started with some litter picking before coming over to join Zoe, Marilyn, Mandy and Didem on the far side.

Lots of graves had been covered in ivy and we needed to try and do some preventative measures before it crept over more of the memorial stones.

Marilyn took some higher areas with the loppers. The others took the lower levels.

We had a nice chat about a variety of things while we pruned and tugged away at the Ivy. It was a lovely calm task so after we had tidied up and taken the selfie it was time for the activity cards to energise us for home.

Three rounds of pick a card hopping, standing abs, squats and other quick fitness before saying our goodbyes with the Windsor curtsy and bow 👑

Thank you all for coming x ♥

Thursday 6:15pm is GoodGym Windsor Night! 👑🏃‍♂️🏃🏻‍♀️

Tonight we were back helping St Edwards Catholic First School develop their new forest garden.

Special congratulations to Bekah for her 10th good deed and to Adam for his 40th! 👏🏻👏🏻👑🏃🏻🏃🏼‍♀️

We all had our own reasons to meet at the task tonight which was a community mission.

Our England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 ⚽️ squad tonight was Jen, Marilyn, Sue, Bekah, Mandy and Caroline and Adam was an honoury member 🤣🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (we won’t tell Wales 🤫).

We followed our previous video instructions from the task owner and carried on from where we left off last session.

Jen took to the naughty corner to work on a dead climbing plant.

Adam and Bekah were on weeds and clearing.

Caroline wasted no time digging and planting and edging.

Sue and Marilyn weeded (mainly as they know what are plants and what are weeds) We moved pallets and stacked them safety.

Mandy took photos and did a bit of this and that. To help others and finding things that would fill the hole left from the removed bath. It does look like we have buried someone. Bekah and Marilyn even danced on it 🤣 I did count us all in and out 🤣 although we may have buried Mandy’s trowel!

So to sum up we did the weeding , clearing, sweeping, removing debris, litter etc to clear the area. We also did some watering of the plants but there was a hole in our bucket.. there a song about that!

Bekah was on camera duty while we played our end of session game. Seeing at it’s was ladies day at Ascot and England playing football tonight the game was a combination.

It involved wearing a silly England wig, walking like a posh lady 👒with a book 📕on your head, galloping like a horse 🐎 (well we are GGs after all), dribbling the ball like a footballer⚽️ and waving the England flag 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

The final seconds were Caroline and Mandy neck and neck but Team Marilyn, Sue and Mandy won! You can see by the photos and Bekah’s video it was a bit mad but to everyone’s relief not a burpee in sight 🤣

Thank you all so much for coming, missing the football game and dodging the Royal Ascot traffic. 👏🏻👑🏃🏻🏃🏼‍♀️

Thursday 6:15pm is GoodGym Windsor Night! 👑🏃‍♂️🏃🏻‍♀️

Tonight we were back helping Age Concern at The Spencer Denney Centre painting the walls in the lobby and doing a bit in the garden.

Who stole summer? Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie 🎶 us some sunshine please! It’s was a grim day and rain was due so we opted in our group chat vote for painting indoors.

We all met at the centre tonight (some walked or by car)and while waiting for everyone to join we played with the baseball in a circle not sure what the name of the game 🎶 was. Still it kept us entertained.

Task owner Rachel had the brushes and paint at the ready and showed us what needed doing.

Special welcome to Nic for her first Windsor 👑Thursday evening session 👏🏻 and Didem has now completed 10 good deeds with today being her 11th so well done Didem. 🤩

The crew tonight were Helen, Marilyn, Natalia, Jen, Sue, Nic, Caroline , Didem and Mandy.

We cleared the lobby area, got set up with dust cloths, chose our preferred brushes and a section of wall.

ABBA was Didem’s choice of tunes tonight although we did seem to get take a chance on me 🎶 on repeat 🤣 but thank you for the music 🎶 anyway!

Sue and Marilyn decided to be brave and did some garden tidying instead of painting and cleaned the garden furniture in case the sun does ever decide to show itself 🙏🏻 and the guests can sit outside.

The others literally finished up all the paint supplies… Mumma Mia 🎶 ! So then one buy one after tidying up and washing brushes in the Waterloo 🎶 we all ended up in the garden anyway … so much for the vote 🤣 still it wasn’t too bad. Most of the rain was coming off the leaves of the tree in the wind.

Not letting anyone go early Mandy put on a quick 10 min Joe Wicks fitness video and we had a go at what we could without a mat.

Then it was time to do our group photo… sorry I missed Helen in this 🥲 then did our Windsor curtsy and say our goodbyes.

Thank you all so much for coming lovely to see you all and some new faces these last couple of weeks 😍

Thursday 6:15pm is GoodGym Windsor Night! 👑🏃‍♂️🏃🏻‍♀️

Tonight we were helping at Saint Edward’s Catholic First School for their forest garden project (the first session here) and this was a GoodGym Windsor milestone. It’s been 5 months since that very first dark and rainy night in Windsor!

Bekah, Mandy and Marilyn met at The Binoy. Marilyn cycled ahead to the task and Bekah and Mandy ran the long way round.

There we meet up again with Marilyn 🚲 and also Natalia, Caroline , Didem and Adam at the school.

Very special night as well as we had two first GoodGym sessions by Marilyn and Natalia … a huge welcome to you both 👏🏻👏🏻

We were let in the school garden (task had been pre-arranged with Liam and Paula) by caretaker Ken and his black and white cat 🐈‍⬛

We had been sent a brilliant video on our instructions ahead of the task so we got to work with some dance tunes chosen by Bekah 🪩 in the background.

First task (not on the to do list) was to take a photo 🤣 📸 couldn’t resist a GG pose with the bath 🛀🏼 before immersing ourselves with the task of lifting it out of the ground to fill with any garden waste.

We all did a bit of everything whilst under the watchful eye of a GoodGym Robin wearing his free GG red t shirt! Lots of weeding, tidying some edges, digging, planting and watering.

There were some hidden surprises under the stinging nettles and in the earth for Adam, Natalia and Bekah 🐛🪲🪳a decaying pallet that was host to lots of bugs that Mr Robin was very happy to have for supper 🪱. Also some very large roots that caused a bit of an issue deeper down but we managed to get the plant in. Caroline and Bekah also found hidden treasure 💎💎 in the borders!

Marilyn did a brilliant job chopping down and compacting the waste in the hole in the ground plus watering and giving the Robin some nice fresh water to drink and bathe in 💦👏🏻

Didem had a little sit down 🤣 while digging a hole for a little fern tree. But it turned out to be a better technique with the tool we had brought along. 🌲

Then further along the flower bed, having already done some raking Caroline started digging a new hole and Didem assisted and they planted another plant. 🪴

We then all tidied up any mess and put things away.

Just had time at end for two quick rounds of fitness playing cards with some Turkish, Welsh and German counting by our very international team tonight! Then the Windsor curtsy and bow before piling into the boat for another silly picture 📸

Thank you all so much for coming. So nice to be out in the light evenings, doing good, getting fitter, meeting new people and have the odd giggle! 🪴👏🏻♥️👑 thank you for all your support over the past 6 months x

Thursday 6:15pm is GoodGym Windsor Night! 👑🏃‍♂️🏃🏻‍♀️ and we're happy again ☔

Tonight we were helping Braywood CE First School in Oakley Green, Windsor.

Of course it’s half term so the weather wasn’t being kind ☔️ so no painting outdoors for us so tidying the small area in front of the school gates was our task instead.

Jen made her way on foot from The Greene Oak pub but Sue, Devon and Adam met at the task greeted by task owner, Head Teacher Susan. Mandy joined the task half way through as the rain was causing other issues as well 💧🪣 Huge thank you to Jen for stepping in as task force for the first part 👏🏻♥️

The front of the school had got a bit over grown so we wanted to create an area that maybe could have some planting added at a later date and give a bit more space as access to the parents and children.

Setting to work weeding and pulling up ivy, cutting back over grown hedgerow so the path has more space for when the children return next week.

We chatted about our week and touched briefly on the election but no heated debates were had! Devon took it all very well 😃 and had a break from knocking on doors.

Adam had a great technique playing leaf golf with a stick as part of the clear up at the end. Sue as always brought her mobile tool shed.

Lots of black bags were filled and put aside ready to go in the skip.

After the group photo we said our goodbyes , did the Windsor curtsy and made our way home.

As always thank you all for coming 👑😃👏🏻

Photos by Jen and Mandy

Thursday 6:15pm is GoodGym Windsor Night! 👑🏃‍♂️🏃🏻‍♀️

Tonight we were back helping Windsor and Eton FC CIC with removing the loose paint from the wall panels.

Special night for Helen with her 10th good deed tonight 👏🏻

Jen, Helen and Mandy met at The Binoy. Jen went ahead walking while Mandy and Helen chatted about drink leakage issues 🤣 then we ran a longer route to the task.

Didem met us there as did the task owner Willie and we set to work at about 6:45pm.

Now the clue is in the title as we were under the expectation that we would be met with easy peeling paint like the first task we did a few weeks ago on this panelled wall. But we were wrong … SO wrong 😬 The wall opposite was a tough wall to peel. That pesky paint was just not wanting to part from its panel so full body weight was required and some serious sanding. Puzzled by the difference we thought about all the reasons why this should be. Same paint, same surface different sides 🤔We had a quick scrape of another wall and that was coming off like a dream. So we had a good wall 😃and a bad wall ☹️ still the dance music kept the energy up.

A hoover round to get rid of the scrapings of paint and dust to finish off.

We think we can all pretty much prep like a pro now.

After the task we said our goodbyes, took a Windsor curtsy 👑 and made our way home.

Thank you for coming I hope your arms are not aching 😬💪🏻 xx