This evening it was our 1st year anniversary group run and task. And who better to work with tonight other than our very first task owner Claire from the Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust.

It's amazing to think that one year ago we launched with 29 new people joining us on our first ever task. Some of these guys are still with us today. But today we had a massive 30 runners turn up! Great to have Liv, our GG trainer from Ealing join us tonight – thank you for coming. And a very warm welcome to Jill on her first session with us.

All I can really say about the past year is that I have LOVED every Monday evening. Spending it with what truly are some of the nicest, funniest, good-hearted people you will ever meet.

‘Alone, we can do so little, together, we can do so much’

I love the diversity of runners that we have in Slough. Our team consists of new graduates; experienced runners to some who have hardly run at all; runners in their 20;s, 30;s, 40’s; 50’s, 60’s and even one runner in her 80’s; we have runners with young families to runners with older children and 3 Goodgym babies will be born this year too! Whatever their reason to run and do good is, all I can say that I am truly grateful for their ongoing commitment and support to Goodgym Slough.

So in our 1st year of running and doing good we have completed 819 good deeds (around 350 hours of voluntary work) and helped 22 different community groups in Slough. We’ve trained 3 runners to become Run Leaders and 6 as Task Force team members and slowly but surely we are making progress with coach runs and missions. Can’t wait to see what our second year holds for us.

Toad-ally awesome birthday task

An environmental clean-up of a stream to give the wildlife a chance to thrive, building an insect home, log clearance and a litter pick were the tasks of the day.

And really only task owner Claire could be so accommodating of such a big group tonight – Thank you Claire!

So after the usual welcome brief, we headed outside so Run Leader Sut Yee could do a warm up with the team.

Run Leaders Darren and Ricky then took the team out for a little run around the park whilst Claire, Sut, Denise, Louisa and I got the tools ready for the task. We then divided into four teams:

• The waders
• The diggers
• The loggers
• The pickers

Ace of wades

The waders are always a hit…wearing oversized onesies is quite fashionable in Slough so Sandy, Emily, Antonio, Sara, Harsha, Liv, Jenni and Lucy litter-alley could not wait to don their waders, collect their pickers and started to clear the Salt Hill stream of litter. And what a task they had!

Can you dig it…yes you can

The diggers who were bugging us the most, were sent off on a hive of activity to dig the insect homes. Mo (who actually hates digging) was on digging duty alongside Gauri, Jean and Kam. The aim of the holes were to fit the bigger logs to create a tree like climbing area for insects to thrive in. It was ground breaking stuff.

Log In Log Out

And the loggers worked out a log-ical method of collecting the logs.

Judging by the state of Harry’s t-shirt, this was no mean task. It required skill and co-ordination. Pam and Jas had a great technique going. They used a log in, log out method to prevent bumping into each other….And the team were tree-umphant in completing their task. Harry, used a cave man style, whilst Emma used her rugby skills and scrummed them into position.

Litter bugs me

The pickers were on a mission to clear as much rubbish as they could and they actually did go down that alley way – litter-alley! Tim, Meera and Nisha tackled that alley way, whilst Jen, Ruth, Jill, Denise and Louisa refused to give up and picked up every litter bit of trash they could find.

As luck would hive it, with so many of us tonight, the tasks were done in no time. Just check out the photo of the amount of rubbish we collected! Over 15 bag fulls!

It’s a bit swarm

As it was such a lovely swarm evening, we thought a nice quiz on all that knowledge we had on Goodgym was in order.

Quiz Master Manjit divided the groups into 2 teams with Run Leaders Ricky and Darren heading them up.

There was an ulterior motive for playing this game – remember last week when Sut Yee was soaked by Darren and Ricky? Well, today was pay-back time.

The losing team leader – in this case, both the Run Leaders! were soaked to the bone in a very fair and orderly water gun flight.

Life is what you bake it

To finish off the evening we had to have cake! I did offer to bake a cake, but for some reason Darren said no and Meera and Sandy insisted it must be a cake box cake!

So we headed into the centre for cake, pakoras and samosas! Thank you Lucy for baking the homemade blueberry muffins and Sut Yee’s aunty for the banana cakes.

I was so touched (the tears showed that!) by the video clip footage of everyones well wishes. Honestly, I cannot tell you what those messages mean to me. I do what I do because I love helping others and to know that this has somehow positively impacted so many of you means so much.

Have a fantastic week and see you at next week’s task.