Sunday 2nd September 2018
Report written by Nicky West
5 runners ran/walked 3km to help set up ahead of the Kingston Carnival.
We arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed (sorry Samia for the bunny pun!) at 08:30 on a Sunday morning. While others were laying in bed, we were laying out tables for the "Green" eco-stalls which included some familiar faces from our previous group run tasks at Canbury Community Garden.
Tables set up and gazebos erected, we headed back to our familiar home of Guildhall for our next task briefing, which was to decorate some of the carnival floats. Unfortunately there had been a slight delay in getting hold of the trucks but we weren't deflated and instead put our hot air to good use blowing up balloons to hang on the floats. Nik and Caroline demonstrated that their years in the scouts had provided exceptional knot knowledge and together with Kate, Samia and Nicky they created a fantastically fit factory line of beautiful balloon blowers!
We were full of hot air and floating away when we lent a hand setting up Kingston Carnival this morning pic.twitter.com/dkWYGrn5RE
— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) September 2, 2018
Balloons blown and floats decorated we then moved onto our final task of barrier carrying and "crowd control" before the next wave of volunteers arrived for the main procession. Although a slightly more sedentary task Nik channeled his inner Mark B with an impromptu barrier stretch session incorporating Samia's favourite calf stretch of course!!
Our time on barrier watch was not wasted however, as we were approached by 2 separate runners who were keen to know more about GoodGym and how they could get involved! Hopefully some new faces to welcome at a group run soon. Good deeds, decorating and recruitment all in one community mission and all before lunch!
Kingston upon Thames
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