What is the #Magpies150Challenge?

This year Maidenhead Magpies Football Club are celebrating their 150th year. As part of their celebrations, and at a time when many local charities have been terribly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, they have launched the Magpies 150 Challenge, through which they are aiming to raise at least £150,000 to support 15 Maidenhead and Windsor based charities. You can find out more about the chosen charities by visiting their website here.

GoodGym Windsor and Maidenhead are supporting this brilliant initiative by taking on a different challenge every month, each one based around the number 150. In September we collectively ran over 150 miles, in October we each picked up 150 pieces of litter, and in November we donated items to charity. We are fundraising via this Just Giving page, so make a donation and/or encourage friends and families to sponsor us for our efforts. Even just £1.50 from everyone would make a big difference.

The December Challenge

In December we challenged ourselves to go on 150 runs in Christmas fancy dress. The idea was to keep us all moving at a time of year when it is all too easy to go into hibernation, and to do some good at the same time by spreading some festive cheer and raising money for the Magpies' Challenge.

And do cut a month long story short, we did it!

We reached the target 150 runs just after Christmas. We ran dressed as Santas, elves, a snowman, Christmas teddy bears, angels, and a shepherd complete with cuddly sheep. We ran in lots of pairs of Christmas leggings, Christmas pudding hats, Christmas jumpers, reindeer antlers, tinsel, fairy lights, and festive sunglasses. If it was Christmassy, we ran in it...with bells on (no really!) and just for good measure we threw in a Mummy Pig costume and a couple of pirates too. And in case our costumes weren't festive enough we also made Christmas Strava art including reindeer, a Christmas tree and a cheeky elf.

We were joined by our kids and friends, both human and canine. A special mention to Sophie L's dog Leah, who looked gorgeous in her very own Santa suit. We also spotted lots of others out running in festive attire, including a couple of horses!

A special mention to those runners who were also doing the December Daily Dash in aid of Sue Ryder - Juli, Amanda, Angie, Anna, Michelle, Fran, Lara, Ankur, Amy, Rich, Sani and Jen, who has daily dashed every year since the event began 6 years ago. Running 5km or more every day is no mean feat, especially at this time of year.

Whilst out running we were honked by lots of friendly car horns and cheered and thanked by passers by. It was great to see the smiles on people's faces and in our more conspicuous costumes we even raised shouts of 'you've made my day!' and 'that's the best thing I've seen all month!' It was also lovely to hear people pointing us out to their children and to think that we had brightened their walk.

We have now raised over £520 for the Magpies Challenge and still hope to get a few more donations to our page.

We will be taking a break from the #Magpies150Challenge in January as we focus on the GoodGym January Challenge - to run, walk and cycle as far as we can in a friendly competition against other GoodGym areas. We can't wait to get out there!

Happy New Year everyone!