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

Tonight's task was to help Raggy Road Allotments with their allotment plots and help get them ready for their service users.

It was lovely to meet Sharon, The Chair of the allotment association as well as Anita our task owner. With 4 of us on duty tonight we wanted to crack on to get the tasks completed so after the introductions we got to work - it was a grape day for a bit of digging!

The smell of mint was just beautiful. The whole allotment is actually very stunning.

Peter helped Sharon on her plot and removed all planting on it getting it ready for the raised planters to be moved onto it.

Whilst Pam, Sandy and I worked on a plot of a lady with disabilities. All we had to do was turn it over and remove the weeds! Easier said than done. We definately got the 'gym' part of GoodGym in tonight..

Within 45 minutes we had done a fair amount of work, and were ready for our photoshoot!

This is a lovely task to do. Great deal of satisfaction and we actually have tasks booked most Saturday's here. They very mulch appreciate our help in case you are free at the weekends.

It's Bank Holiday Monday and it's bin a while since we actually did a task on a holiday Monday but I'm glad we did as 8 of tonight did something good and got fit doing it!

Great to have Claire join us on her first session with us. Lovely to meet you Claire and see you again in a couple of weeks.

We started the session with some warm up exercises and a game of 'tribe', followed by a run/walk to the motorway bridge where we did 8 reps of hill sprints!

We then headed back to the car park at Upton for the litter pick task, where we collected enough rubbish to be happy with although sad that we filled the bags!

Thank you for coming along today.

Next week we are meeting at Langley memorial park on Langley Rd and will be helping The Langley Academy Primary with a playground tidy up task.

Tonight we celebrated Earth Day with a digging task. It was a continuation of what we started last week at St Mary's Farnham Royal Primary School in their learning garden.

Last week we dug up bed 2 and removed as many weeds as we could. This evening we carried on ensuring the bed was weed free and did a little bit more around the strawberry and garlic sections.

We met directly at the task and our task owner Chrissy made sure we were given all the access we needed.

Great to have Firmo and Jason join us on their first task tonight. And Anna on her second task. Hope you enjoyed it and will come back again soon.

It's your bEARTH DAY!

So what exactly is Earth Day?

Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EARTHDAY.ORG (formerly Earth Day Network) including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries. The official theme for 2024 is "Planet vs. Plastics." 2025 will be the 55th anniversary of Earth Day. It includes a wide range of events and activities arranged by Earthday.org. Check out their website for more info - Earth Day: The Official Site | EARTHDAY.ORG

Planets vs Plastics

The theme this year for Eath Day is Planet vs Plastics

Did you know?

• Global plastics has reached an estimated 460 million metric tons in recent years;

• It is estimated that 75 to 199 million tons of plastic are currently in our oceans;

• One million plastic bottles are purchased every minute worldwide, while up to five trillion plastic bags are used a year;

Earthday.org have a goal to reduce plastics by 60% by 2040 (60X40).

At GoodGym we are very active in litter picks and keeping our outdoor spaces clean and clear, we get involved in helping community groups with restoring their nature areas back to useable spaces as well as supporting conservation groups with their projects....but can we do more?

Check out this toolkit for some ideas -

EarthDay-2024-Toolkit-March-12th-Update.pdf

So after all this information on Earth Day 2024 and completing our task this evening, we did a mini fitness session in the playground - after all it's important to keep ourselves active and fit! The team did really well in the circuits based exercises which consisted of ladder exercises; med ball throws and slams; kettlebell swings; cone to cone running and good old fashioned playground hopping and jumping!

We will be sad to see Hamid leave Slough. We hope you will come and visit us and we are always here to help you Hamid so please keep in touch.

And finally….. huge congratulations to Ricky on his London Marathon race yesterday! He smashed it with a new marathon personal best as well as a huge time off his half marathon timing!! And he looked fresh as a daisy when Harsha and I saw him at mile 23(ish) with the GoodGym cheer squad! We are all so proud you!

Next week we will be meeting at Salt hill activity Centre, in Salthill park, Bath Rd, SL1 3SS. Our task is to help Raggy Rd Allotments with their allotment space. We will be walking or running down to the allotments.