No doubt, this is our Greatest Day in GoodGym Swindon for some time. In fact it had been 494 days since our last group run, you think that would have been enough time to come up with a decent pun for this report but sadly not.

With Oasis now closed, we met at Sainsbury’s. Given the hot day that did allow a quick pop in to the shop for a cold drink before we set off (bonus). We all decided to walk together to allow maximum chat time and not collapse from heat exhaustion which is ideal. Gina and Helen the chat queens as usual :)

The task was clearing up a resident’s garden who is now unable to tend to it. Fantastic to see our good friend and fellow GGer Dominique smiling to greet us at the front door with Tracey in full snow camo having ridden.

When we got to the garden I gave strict and specific instructions: Do What U Like. Thankfully given the experience of the GoodGym crew I knew they would Never Forget how to do a bit of gardening. Although we had the more inexperienced Kingsley in terms of gardening ability.

Straight in to action went Emma our leader, who today reached the milestone of 100 Good Deeds. The time and effort she has put in to GoodGym Swindon has been phenomenal, she is truly a local hero (and a Time Lord - as I have no idea how she fits in doing everything in to her week!) From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU!

The resident was a great cheerleader from the window, providing cans of coke and sweets too, legend. He also let slip that it was his 80th birthday recently, so many happy returns.

It only takes a minute to make a positive difference to someone’s day, week or even year and a half. I think we did a great job today and it was so lovely to be together again.

In this new normal world, there is one thing we can bank on, Everything Changes. It was Alex’s last run with us, as the Moyletts depart for new adventures! We Pray they have a great time as they have been a fabulous temporary addition to the Swindon crew.

Lets hope we are back for good in terms of group runs! I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

GoodGym were happy to return to Margaret Matthew’s Court once more, to help spruce up the gardens which were set on a little river and next to woodland.

Jason, Becky, Stuart and Helen were joined by some of the residents who came out to help and chat...Ms S told us how happy she was to go the dentist (delayed due to Covid) and get her new teeth at last! Ms P also helped us as we dug the lovely new raised allotment bed and planted lettuce, herbs, radish and even garlic. Jason and Becky sorted out the garden near the social area and Stuart planted up the pots by reception.

Mr J also came outside and pointed out the roses for pruning and showed us round his garden and compost area. Lots more work to be done, so sure we’ll be back to help out soon.

We welcomed back Sharon who has not been able to join us for a while due to injury. Rather than our usual fact-based intro, we had a little maths test counting up only in prime numbers. Turns out we had 41 runners not 14.

A short 2k run to the task meant that we arrived before it got too dark but not before it started to rain. Thankfully it wasn’t as heavy as our last visit here in July, which warranted a sailing based pun-report. Also Dominique saw us coming and had the doors open quickly to get us inside. She explained how much the residents enjoyed our last visit but unfortunately many of them were ill at the moment and could not join us this time. Perhaps this why the “tea trolley of joy” also did not make an appearance?!

Three areas were tackled, two of which required some rose trimming. You would think that most Swindon GG Runners would be experts in rose trimming by now, but just to be safe we set two rose trimming supervisors Tracy and Jo. Some of the rose bushes required climbing into the flower bed which meant roses got where they weren’t meant to:

“I’ve got a rose thorn up my ass” (anon)

The de-weeding didn’t take too long and we finished with planting daffodils and tulips. Unfortunately the GG flowers planted last time had been instantly attacked by squirrels so has now turned in to a single G.

Given we had time to spare on the way back we took a detour to find “tappy boxes” (Beat the Street). The Run Leader would have fully prepped the route and the box locations if it was not for a bicycle malfunction on the recce. In the end it got a bit too dark and rainy and we gravitated back to the café for indoor based hot drink consumption training.

The next two tasks are for Swindon Night Shelter:

• A Community Mission on Saturday; we will be heading to their new warehouse for some serious sorting! It's one not to be missed and we need YOUR help! For more info and to sign up; check it out here!

• And then a 'Hump and Dump' task at the most welcoming Haven Day Centre next Tuesday - sign up here today!

Another round of post has made its way to our friends at Guinness Care in supported living in Swindon. More cards, art work, and photos from GoodGym community missions and we've heard that our creatively decorated envelopes have been going down a storm too!

Residents continue to shield with limitations on their social activity so it’s lovely to hear that the letters have helped them to feel more connected to the outside world.

We hope the letters brought some cheer and are a reminder that although we haven't been able to visit to help out with their gardens, we are thinking about them and looking forward to visiting just as soon as we can!

Lots more lovely post has been winging it's way to our friends at Guinness Care in supported living in Swindon!

We've been sending all sorts - cards, art work, and photos from GoodGym community missions and we've been getting creative with the envelopes too with stickers and even some doilies made into rainbows!

Residents are still shielding and we've heard from them that the letters are helping them to feel more connected to the outside world while social activity is on hold. Health and Wellbeing Coordinators at Guinness Care work hard to bring together local communities and generations through intergenerational projects, and we're very happy that this letter writing task is one of those projects.

We hope the letters brought some cheer and are a reminder that although we haven't been able to visit to help out with their gardens, we are thinking about them and looking forward to visiting just as soon as we can!

This was a super busy week for GoodGym Swindon. With coach catch ups, shopping, prescription collections, gardening for one resident, supporting our local virtual parkrun and making desserts for isolating residents it's been a whirlwind of good deeds. But there was still room for one more task as we were in month two of lockdown and were looking forward to writing again to our friends at the Guinness Partnership in Swindon.

We first wrote to them back in April as a way of keeping in touch whilst our group runs are on hold, and to bring a little cheer during what can be difficult times for some. We'd had such a lovely response to our first round of post and were keen to fill the post bag again with more notes!

So ten volunteers each wrote to ten of our friends. We dug out our best colouring pencils, stickers, paints, postcards, and greetings cards to create something that we hope says "we're thinking about you".

Eli, who has just had his third birthday is our youngest contributor and created more lovely artwork. Another GoodGym youngster, Luke, created a beautiful picture of a rainbow fish - very topical - for one of the residents. After which he set off on his bike with dad, and sister Grace to pop it in the postbox, leaving Trainer Emma some quiet moments to catch up on the GoodGym weekly email 😂 Others sent postcards or printed pictures of us on previous GoodGym tasks. Tracey's handwriting has improved since last time but only marginally, so her letter came with another apology and a hope and prayer that it was in fact legible.

While the rest of the nation were battling with shortages of flour and yeast, we were having our own battles it seemed with lack of stamps, not ideal when there is no longer the option to quickly pop to the shops or post office! All the post was soon working its way through the snail mail system though, and we hope they all arrived safely.

While there is some gentle easing of the lockdown, it's worth remembering that this can become an even more difficult time for those who are continuing to isolate. We hope that our post arrives to find our friends all safe and well and with a little reminder that we're looking forward to getting back to see them in person when we can. Hopefully it won't be too long before we're putting down our pens and picking up our forks and trowels and helping out in their gardens.