If you’ve ever watched a carnival you’ll know what a brilliant atmosphere it is and how much effort goes into the event, but have you ever wondered where all the hi-vis helpers come from or what they even do?

Today, a small but enthusiastic group of GoodGym runners found out. A request from Essex Youth Services for ‘wheelwalkers’ (nothing to do with game of thrones spin off!) saw us meeting up on a lovely sunny afternoon with 2 floats full very excited young people dressed either as Roman Gods or in Stars to represent the theme of the Carnival “Colchester and Proud”. Just in case you didn’t know, Colchester was the first Roman founded city in Britain and the nursery rhyme ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ was written here, hence the Gods and stars themes.

Our job was the walk alongside the floats keeping the general public safe from the big lorries and making sure that everyone who started off on the float at the beginning made it safely back. It meant that on our very slow walk through Colchester (probably the slowest mission we’ve ever undertaken!) we got to see the thousands of people who had turned out to watch, be followed in the procession by two authentic American police cars complete with very loud sirens and give out lots of high fives, fist bumps and whistles.

We had an awesome time supporting our local community, without local volunteers events like this couldn’t take place. So even though we may not get the sound of whistles and sirens out of our heads for a while, it was a real joy to be part of it.