With no Swindon parkrun on today, we were back at the Penhill Haven for our fourth task there for a super Saturday community mission!

The Haven is a community wildlife and garden area in Penhill, and the brainchild of Glynis. In the past we’ve lived life on the hedge, put the petal to the medal in painting garden furniture and scarified the meadow.

Mike and Helen met at the Oasis to run to the task, while Tracey and Simon met us at the Haven.

Glynis is a real campaigner for wildlife and the environment, and told us about her activism in rallying the council to declare a climate emergency and develop the Honda factory into a solar panel factory. She’s also up for a Pride of Swindon award on Thursday night. Good luck Glynis!

Tasks included shifting waste wood for the tip, taking apart a deteriorating table, creating an new insect hotel, and weeding and adding soil to the vegetable beds.

Simon soon started smashing the table and creating a new insect hotel, while Helen, Mike and Tracey got to work on the beds! We uncovered a couple of wood lice nests in the process, which we carefully worked around for the rest of the task.

As we weeded, we each asked ‘what do we remove and what do we leave?’ Helen also discovered a helpful snail on top of the lettuce...

A lovely snail couldn’t harm lettuce, could it?!

Part of the way through, we had a great surprise when we were joined by a Swindon Street Rep and a team of Junior Reps.

Diane and the Junior Reps are part of a voluntary scheme set up by Swindon Borough Council to help with a diverse range of activities to improve their community. Sound familiar?! Mike tried to sell running and GoodGym to them to, fingers crossed we may even get one coming for a group run or to parkrun soon!

The Junior Reps are also up for a Pride of Swindon award - good luck Junior Reps!

The Reps helped us with a litter pick of the area and shifted the wood closer to Simon’s truck to take it away. Diane also gave us some top gardening tips.

Before we knew it, we had some clear beds. Tracey hopped in to start shifting some of the top soil, ready for us to pile in more as provided by Simon. GoodGymers and Junior Reps then combined to boost up those beds, ready for veggies and fruit to be planted by the community.

The hardworking Junior Reps then cleaned the back of Simon’s truck from the leftover mud, and we loaded it straight back up again for a tip run tomorrow.

After a good morning’s work improving vegetable beds, we felt we were ready for a lie down! We said our goodbyes to the Reps, Glynis, and Simon and Tracey as Mike and Helen ran back to the Oasis. Competing with the wind, we even managed a sprint finish!

This task was a great reminder the GoodGym is not all about running; it’s also about supporting the local community AND having a laugh!

Thanks to the Junior Reps on this task too, we couldn’t have got as much done without them.

Our next Tuesday Group Run is a stock take at Swindon Food Collective. Please note that the online register for this is FULL, but please keep checking back to see if a space is made available nearer the time?

Our next community mission is to celebrate WWF’s Earth Hour while helping the rangers at Lydiard Park on Saturday 30th March, straight after parkrun that day at 10.30am. Find out more here!