We had a relatively simple task today of leafleting for Antz Kids Activity Club, Beat the Boat 10k race and of course GoodGym

Our meet up point was Salt Hill Activity Centre with the aim of an easy jog around the park followed by strides before hitting the streets of Slough with a leaflet task. I'm not sure the strides had the same exciting impact on the team as they do on me but when Mehdi says

Yes why not!

Then why not? So off went Mehdi, Ali, Vineet, Keith and I as Jen and Brenda continued with their walking laps of the park.

We always love seeing Brenda, who is Jen's mum and partner in crime! Thanks for coming along Brenda.

So as we left the park towards Baylis Rd I planted the seed of 'hill sprints' on Horlicks Bridge... but I think they thought I was joking!

We split off into smaller teams/pairs to cover as much ground as we could.

Jen and Brenda went down Baylis Rd

Keith and Ali went down Bradley Rd

Whilst Vineet, Mehdi and I took Belgrave Rd

Although it looked like we had a lot of leaflets we all ran out of them within 25 minutes but luckily we had covered most the houses in our subsequent areas.

So hill sprints it is!!!!

Vineet was eager to do 5 reps so that's what we did!

Well done to everyone..

See you next week at Shaggy Calf Lane at 6:30 for a litter pick task at Wexham Park Hospital.

We returned to Slough Outreach's community hub shop for another clothes sorting task.

On Friday we made good headway by clearing a mountain of donated bags into 3 piles and we had managed to find the floor again by the end of that task. Tonight we were repeating what we did on Friday however we did not think the mountain could have grown that fast in just 3 days..yet it had!

We met directly outside the shop with the intention of doing a run before we started the task. Did you feel the freeze today?? So did we! With Hamid, Mehdi and Ali arriving super early, I watched them doing football style drills to keep warm! Hamid had created a star shaped warm up which on arrival new member Ryan plus Ruth and Gauri all started doing. With 20 mins still to go before Shin was arriving we decided to get some walking km's in by going for a round robin loop around the shops. We managed to squeeze in 1.6km before starting the task!

Once inside we did a task brief on what went in which bag.

• Bags for rags;

• Bags for the homeless and;

• Table top of shop saleable items

Oh and a bag for summer clothes

Quickly we got to work. We managed to get the hang of deciphering the good from the bad (via the sight test) and the odour to the odourless (via the sniff test).

Great to have Ryan join us on his first session and Ali returning for his second! Thanks for coming along guys.

Slowly yet surely, we watched the mountain melt down to a small hill to a valley of emptiness! You could see the floor again! Superb efforts by everyone.

We are only in week one of our January challenge and so far we have already clocked up 34 good deeds! Keep up the great work...we should totally smash our target this year.

Our last session of the year brings us to Stoke Park Active and an indoor Christmas present wrapping task. A perfect end to the year.

Clare our task owner cum GoodGym member had given us a Christmas cracker of a task - we were pack some treats into little goody bags, wrap them up, tidy up the venue and get it all ready for the panto that Clare and her amazing team are doing for the children that come along to their sessions.

As the weather had made it virtually unsafe to run on the footpaths due to flooding and muddy conditions, we actually missed the run part and cracked in with the task part....but I had a master plan....there was still a fitness session involved that would earn the team their treats.

So after we had done this and done that, shifted that chair and this table we were ready to rumble.. I had prepared a 12 days of Christmas fitness challenge with a reducing time frame.... 1 burpee, 2 push ups, 3 prisoner squats and so on all the way to 12 star jumps. I thought I had demo'd it all really well....but the videos show that VR was needed as some level of cheating did take place...and some level of mis counting..but it was all in the name of fun and both teams did an amazing job!

As well as the 12 days exercises we had a moves based Chinese whisper type of game! Less said about this the better! And the finale was a strict game of instructions! Fail the instruction - you got kicked out - I had final sleigh on it!

Oh and we had a bit of karaoke!

Thank you to our amazing 14 volunteers for coming along to our last session of 2023! and a very warm welcome to Ali

Let's review our tree-mendous 2023

January

We had double deeds galore as we kick started the January challenge and spent some time guarding the iconic knife angel, and not forgetting a whole load of parkrunning

February

All you seed is love as we helped Artful Hub on numerous tasks this month helping to get them set up in their new unit

March

We made a sweeping statement as we continued to help the Ujala Foundation with their community garden and lets not forget Jean obtaining her 100th Good Deed

April

We had a Ra-leigh good time as launched our partnership with Raleigh and enjoyed some Easter treats.. Jen and Gauri will remember the shed sort out for Shin! We really did like to 'move it move it'

May

We saw some fashion items that were a blast from the past as we continued to help Thames Hospicecare. New tasks were starting to pile up as we started helping some local churches like St Paul's and St Mary's

June

The plot thickened allot this month as the weeds just kept on growing on our allotments task with Home Start. Lucky we had some keen gardeners in the team with Pam, Peter and Jen...plus a handy app to decipher a weed from a plant! This is the month that we built a stronger relationship with Slough Refugee Support and Mehdi, Hamid, Mohammed and Eshan joined us.

July

Hi Five to us all as we celebrated our 5th birthday! Our first group race at Beat the Boat was knot too shabby!

August

Pew..we did it! Plenty of outdoor tasks as we basked in the summer sunshine helping St Mary's Primary school with painting and gardening as we well as plenty of gardening tasks at St Paul's

September

More swede times as our gardening skills grew!

October

Our GhoulGym was out in full force with our Hallo-clean tasks

November

Didn't we win an award (or two??).... Group of the Year...lets just leave it there

December

Wrapping it up now with our networking natters, keeping the rein(deer) as bay and getting some indoor tasks with Shin and Clare

We clocked up a huge 498 tasks in 2023 by 51 members

So what's going on in 2024? PLENTY!

Yule be sorry if you don't attend our January sessions to get your good deeds and km's logged. Our target for January is 55 good deeds and 750km's. I've kept it realistic this year as we do have a natural drop in our good deeds overs the years so hopefully this target feels more achievable.

This is our first community mission on Friday 5th January 10.30 - 11.30 at Slough Outreach shop

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/sorting-out-clothes

We then have a double deed Sunday with volunteering at Salt Hill junior parkrun and then a litter pick (we will actually be doing this every Sunday in January, so plenty of good deeds to be had)

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/parkrun-volunteer-f8984433-06c5-488b-ba7c-6d295b22be77

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/community-litter-pick-740a7a7f-0aaa-47d6-870f-9af261ddf7f2

Then our first Monday eve group session is on Monday 8th January helping Slough Outreach again with a clothes sort out

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/helping-slough-outreach-at-new-unit-in-cippenham-b336979c-bdeb-49f9-9f5d-888cb2290ff5

The following Monday we have a task that requires LOTs of volunteers, so if there is only one Monday that you can do please do this one. Its helping the Not Just a Store - waste warriors shop on the Bath Rd with setting up the Pet Food area.

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/waste-warriors-helping-at-the-new-community-fridge-and-landfill-reduction-shop

So that's all folks...time to Ho Ho Home

Enjoy your rein-beers and have a great festive break.