What a great way to end April! 23 people attending tonight’s session with 5 of them being new. Great to have Denise, Floris, Hannah, Louisa and Dave join us on their first session. Good to see Roisin, Anna and Ella again this evening.

Our task this evening was over at The Jubilee River Riverside Centre helping Jamie with a yard tidy up.

As I had just completed the London Marathon yesterday we offered a walk option on this session which had a great turnout. 6 of us walked down to the centre whilst Run Leaders Sut Yee, Ricky and Darren did all the formalities of the welcome brief and warm up with the runners. Huge thank you to Ciaran from Active Slough for supporting tonight’s session too.

The Riverside Centre is a great community space that is used for kayaking, rowing and paddle boarding. Jamie does a great job at also keeping the Jubilee River area free of litter and has a schedule of community clean ups in place. Some of us will be joining him on Wednesday 29th May for a litter pick. Join us if you can. The community mission details are below https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/litter-pick-the-jubilee

Both the walkers and the runners then made their way to the Riverside centre to meet up with task owner Jamie.

We then divided into 3 small teams and cracked on with the tasks Jamie needed doing. We had:

• The Yardies
• The Weeders
• The Picker

Barking Mad

Darren and the yardies had the task of decluttering the area and making it more usable. Logs were shifted, benches were moved, gazebo’s were rearranged, floors were swept and we still had time for a tree-t with some log posing and with Ciaran joining us tonight clearly at least one selfie had to be taken!

Leaf it out

The weeders were on it today. Jean, Ella, Louisa, Dave, Anna, Kam and Roisin worked hard to remove all weeds and overgrown grass outside the Centre. I did hear one of them say thistle be the end of me but still they cracked on till the end. There is never enough thyme on a weed job.

A bit of a pick me up

Chrissy, Denise and Floris were on litter duty. For a nice change the car park was litter-alley free of litter! And the riverside was also looking gleaming. Jamie’s environmental clean ups are clearly making a difference.

Last but naut least

In no time at all today and mainly due to a great turnout within 30 minutes all the jobs were done. That left us enough time for a speed session for the running team. The walkers by now had started to make their way back to base. With the extra running by the running team we ended up making it back to Salt hill all together

26 Smiles

I can’t write tonight’s report without giving you a brief summary of the London Marathon. It is a truly oar-inspiring event with so many runners running for charities, clubs, with ballot spaces or just the incredibly talented elites.

However they got there, whatever their training was like and no matter how nervous or excited they all were, one thing that gets you through London is the crowds. They anchorage each and every runner with such conviction that you feel like those thousands of supporters are there just for you.

Come hell or high water, those crowds get your second wind. I had an absolute whale of a time yesterday. I didn’t focus on my watch too much and just ran to effort. And canoe believe it! I actually got a new PB!

What made the day even better was the support I had from the Goodgym Slough runners. Chrissy and Pete followed my progress around London and Sara and Ricky were at mile 25 Goodgym cheer point. Plus the rest of the team tracking me online. Phenomenal support! Thank you so much

If you were inspired by yesterday’s race then act on it! It is a once on a lifetime experience and one that anyone who loves running should experience. And as the legend himself says ‘Baby we were born to run’!

Hot off the press

We have our first coach run happening next week! I have been allocated a coach and really looking forward to starting these sessions.

Mission number 3 is set to take place next week.

Bank holiday blues

If you are around next Monday then please come and join us for a community clean up task https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/bank-holiday-monday-community-clean-up

Have a great week

Our first Monday evening back doing our Group Runs and Good Deeds and it felt great!

A warm welcome back to Monday nights to all our regular runners and 4 new runners today – Colin, Lois, Ela and Katarzyna. Great to have you on board, even if we did ‘pick up’ Ela and Katarzyna in the park and highjacked their run to come join us.

This evenings task was to help our sporting counterparts at Everyone Active with a spot of dusting of windows and sills, giving everyone a better view on life.

As the task location was a hop, skip and jump away, we decided to add to our January miles by running a few extra km’s around Salt Hill Park. A nice steady lap following by a bit of Fartlek running for good measure. Chris was adding to his miles by running around every tree he could find!

After 20 minutes we made our way to Montem Sports Centre and met with the Duty Manager Rimmi who gave us our brief and tools to hurt that dirt

As always we don't hang around and straight away got to work to bust that dust, dividing into two teams and taking a floor each. Not sure the gym users knew what hit them with this glass act.

Meera nearly lost her rag at the amount of dust build up there was and as usual Sut and Ela were cracking jokes as they quickly and efficiently dusted almost everything in sight (including a few gym users)

As we were in a sports centre, it could only mean one thing after our good deed – A Fitness Session! Everyone Active were kind enough to give us access to one of their fitness halls so we eagerly made our way to the room to get started!

With one round of balance work followed by one round of agility work (and repeat), the runners were ready to hit a bar (or maybe me!). Extra squat exercises were added in at Chris’ request, Darren was working on his inner Mr Miyagi moves and Sandy had perfectly perfected the runner drives by turning them into dance moves. Great effort by everyone.

The chat soon turned to future runs (of which the next 4 weeks’ worth are on the system, including our parkrun takeover), so please have a look.

The next social has been requested! Watch this space. I’m sure we can find something to celebrate

You guys totally smashed it tonight - well done!

Next week we are running to Wexham Park Hospital. A nice 4km each way and litter pick task.

Have a great week

12 runners went to help our local NHS hospital (Wexham Park Hospital) for our final good deed for 2018. Wexham Park Hospital is a firm favourite of ours so it was only fitting for this to be our final group run for this year. A huge thank you to Ciaran from Active Slough for being our back marker this evening.

5 bags of rubbish picked and swept. The competitive spirit was blooming today with Darren and Ricky claiming to have the biggest and Chrissy, Sut and Ciaran claiming to have the dirtiest…and Michelle, Ruth and Sandy having the prettiest….BAGS of course! Tools down (or not so…Sorry Ricky.. No tool too big tonight) we managed a clean getaway to get back to base in time for a few well deserved drinks and cakes.

It’s been an epic 5 months! We have achieved so much in what feels like a blink of an eye:

• 21 Group Runs
• Run 100km
• 310 runner volunteers in total
• 9, 300 hours of voluntary work
• Helped 11 Community Groups/Charities

It’s fair to say that we’ve had an impact on the community groups and charities in Slough

We’ve cleaned, litter picked, painted, wrapped, swept, waxed, dug, cut back brambles, decorated halls and leaflet dropped

And all this….thanks to you…our GoodGym runners

Having used up every pun there possibly is over the past 5 months, I will have to do some serious research in my punopedia to find some more over the festive period.. I will puncil some down and be punstopable in 2019

So in my Goodgym style, here is the final run report for 2018

We’re leaving together

But still it’s farewell (just for 2 weeks mind!)

And maybe you’ll come back (I hope so!)

To Salt Hill, who can tell?

I guess there is no one to blame (well maybe GG central for giving us 2 weeks off)

We’re leaving Goodgym (leaving Goodgym)

Will things ever be the same again?

It’s the final countdown

The final countdown

Oh

We’re heading for Christmas (Christmas)

And still we stand tall

‘Cause maybe the in-laws have seen us (seen us)

And welcome us all, yeah

With so many presents to go

And things to be bought (to be bought)

I’m sure that we’ll all miss Manjit…..no?

It’s the final countdown

The final countdown

The final countdown

The final countdown

(Ok, you can stop signing now)

We have so much planned for 2019. January is going to be a busy month so I hope you are all up for the challenges The first challenge is to just keep in some kind of healthy, co-ordinated state over the holiday period although pundamentally to just have pun and enjoy yourselves

Then, to come back to GoodGym with a spring in your step

Our main challenge is to have 90 runners over the course of the month on our Group Runs/Community Missions/Mission tasks

And…to run a total of 450km…so get your trainers on, activate Strava and get running

We also have a couple of Saturday tasks on in January. One is to help Ryvers Primary School with their learning garden and the other is a take-over of Upton Court Park’s Park Run

Please do have a look online to see all of the January runs

So that leaves me now to sign off for 2 weeks and wish you all a wonderful Christmas break.

But I can’t finish off this report this evening without saying a massive thank you to Sut, Chrissy and Keira (apologies if I’ve missed anyone else)…for my AMAZING card and cake! I really wasn’t expecting that and am blown away at the effort you guys made… You all make a very enjoyable job even more enjoyable!

Happy Holidays Manjit xxx

Tonights task was a lovely indoors decorating task for Slough CVS at the premises of Home Slough. Home Slough's aim is to increase opportunity and awareness of all arts in Slough.. and the Slough Council for Voluntary Services help people who want to start a voluntary group... what a perfect partner for Goodgym

Missed the Memo?!

At base camp the Goodgymmers were merrily chit chatting away when Santa Darren and Elf Ricky turn up in fancy dress!

Clearly these two had a chin wag and the social on Friday evening and decided to come in new head gear... I dont noel why they didnt tell anyone elf!

We had a short run distance today so had time for a few warm up games... it was tree strikes and your out on the knee tag game... Ricky nearly knocked me out a few times.. suppose that's the claus and effect of tagging!

All warmed up and briefed we headed out to town centre with Sally back marking.. thank you Sally

On arrival we were met by Yvette from Slough CVS who briefed us on tomorrows event and the work needed to make the premises look all festive

We had 40 minutes to turn the old Top Shop floor around... with boxes of donated decorations and 13 happy elfers we got to work

We divided into tree teams and with group run leader Manjit baubling on and on with Do as I sleigh instructions, the teams cracked on

ELF AND SAFETY

At Goodgym we take safety seriously... Head Elf Ricky made sure Cheeky Elf Chrissy and Kurious Elf Keira in particular had a little noeledge on working at heights and safe use of tools procedures

Conspicuously abstana was Darren but we soon found him banging a nail in the wall with a rowing machine! Now yule noel why Darren got the Grittiest Determination award on Friday!

Meera, Ruth, Jean, Gail and Kam busily wrapped the presents for the homeless... whilst Sally and Anna set up the chairs

That left the rest of the team using their creative flair to decorate the premises...it took a lot of elf control to keep these guys in check... a stage, a guitar and a captive audience was too much temptation for some of them! Gift me strength

40 minutes later and we were done! A festive hall ready for the good people of Slough to enjoy at their party tomorrow... we wished the team farewell and headed back to base but only after another photo by the biggest Christmas tree i've ever seen in town centre ( good job Slough Borough Council)

Next weeks task is another indoor Christmassy one for the DASH Charity... this time lets not forget the memo!

Have a great week everyone