This evening's mission was to deliver leaflets to Furze Platt residents sharing St Peter's Church's Christmas programme. A huge thank you to Taskforce member Jess for initiating and organising the session. She connected with the church, collected the leaflets, planned walking and running routes and even printed colour coded maps for us. And a big well done to the hardy bunch who showed up despite the cold, wet and windy weather courtesy of Storm Barra. You might even say they deserve barra-kudos!

The group split in two with a walking group of 3 and a running group of 4. Now over to Jess to report on the walkers:

"The walking group, Anita, Jen and Jess, headed west from the church to the Cranbrook Drive area of Maidenhead. They had a 5km route to cover with 5 roads to deliver to. At each road they split up with Jen on one side of the road and Anita and Jess covering the other side and meeting somewhere in the middle! Lots of houses had put up Christmas lights and decorations and the group enjoyed seeing these as they went by. Even with the icy wind and rain showers they didn’t ‘leaf-let’ the weather get in the way of the task!"

And thanks to Sophie for sharing the runners' experience:

"Sophie, Amy, Georgeta and Steve opted for the running route, which Jess had carefully planned out. First target was Bridle Road, where it was a bit 'Brrrrr' but they were anything but idle. They then split into 2 sub teams - Sophie and Amy tackling the Belmonts and Georgeta and Steve heading to the end of Spencer’s road. Like something from a Bel-monty python scene, the weather was grim, but the mood jovial. Sophie didn't find the holy grail, but she did find a cheque book lying on a driveway, which she returned to it's owner. Amy was busy admiring the beautiful houses and Georgeta and Steve went the extra mile when they ran to meet Sophie and Amy at Calder Court - or should that be colder court!? By Sophie's watch the group covered over 6km and ticked off a daily dash!

Jess's expert planning skills had everyone arriving back at the church within a few minutes of each other and the planned finish time, AND we delivered every single leaflet - hurrah!

7 runners took a pre-task night-time dash up a hill to help St Peter’s Church in Maidenhead.

The 7 intrepid explorers met in in the carpark and set off into the darkness. Head-torches and running lights provided guidance down the dark lane where the running and walking groups then split. The walkers headed off directly to the church whilst the runners took on Spencer’s Hill in a high effort climb to the top. They were rewarded with a beautiful view of the night sky including a bright moon, Jupiter and the North Star. Scenery taken in they then dashed back down the hill and onto the church to meet the walkers.

On arrival at the church Diya and Kanika had already dived into the toys and started the task of cleaning them. Dean, Amy, Jen, Jess and Georgeta quickly got stuck in too. There was a mini cooker, walkers, duplo galore, food items, animals of every kind and cars to just name a few! It was like being in Toys ‘R’ Us! Each item was carefully wiped to ensure they were clean and sanitised for use by the children of the playgroups which run in the church centre.

Once the mountain of toys was cleaned the group let loose with hats being adorned, ‘cups of tea’ being ‘made’, and even the pop-up tunnel made an appearance as Amy showed us her best impression of the worm! It really was playtime for the big kids!

Everyone finally ‘lego’ of the toys and tided away and the group made their way outside for a circuit fitness session, with laps of the flower bed, planks, burpees, tricep dips, press-ups, squats and lunges all making an appearance. It was then time to return home, with walkers, cyclists and runners heading off back into the dark.