Another successful morning at the Pond, clearing brambles, ivy, overgrown bushes, reeds, pond weed and litter.

We filled two industrial sized green waste bins and a skip and exposed more of the surrounding fence and footpath making it more accessible and safer.

We found a small newt this time too, or should that be a minute newt?!

Up bright and early to meet a group of residents and the local councillor who have formed a voluntary working group to restore the village pond to it's former glory.

There was lots to get stuck into - cutting back brambles, nettles, ivy and general overgrowth. Rescuing any litter along the way.

Lots of bending, pruning, raking and digging - it felt back breaking at times but the refreshments supplied by the village pub kept us focussed. Seeing the transformation and watching the frogs emerge and the ducks return was incredibly satisfying. It was nice to receive lots of thank yous from passers by too.

I walked back home armed with my litter picker and collected half a sack of litter on my short walk back too.

This mornings community mission was to support The British Legion with their annual Poppy Appeal.

They had many slots that needed covering in Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury.

Nisha and I rose to the occasion and offered to help on the 10-1 slot in Tesco.

We had such a lovely time, talking to shoppers and listening to their war stories or just stories of how they collect poppy pins and look out for new designs.

We had loads of customers and very generous ones at that.

Arriving on site at around 10.30 I joined the merry band of volunteers helping to set up the carnival.

After collecting my hi-viz I then walked round to make sure the stall holders had everything they needed to set up. This sent me on a mission to find spare ground pegs so we could get the better of a marquee flapping in the wind.

Wandering around all the stallholders gave me the opportunity to try a few early raffle ticket sales.

I then helped to put a few signs up - one at the farm animals signposting bags of animal feed for sale and one for the Royal British Legion poppy stall advising that donations were welcome.

As the gates opened and the Lord Mayor officially set off proceedings, I moved to the main information tent and took on selling raffle tickets duty. With a first prize of £300 in cash, there was a constant stream of customers hedging their bets on ticket purchases.

It was great chatting to so many of my local neighbours and community and supporting a worthwhile cause. All proceeds were being split between Slough Outreach (Supporting the homeless) and the defibrillator fund.

As the carnival packed up around us it was time for litter picking so with two laps of the arena and car park several bags were collected and combined with the stallholders rubbish bags a good pile had amassed leaving the recreation ground looking as litter free as its been in a while.

I finally headed off around 5pm, with aching feet, feeling tired, but fulfilled by experiencing a wonderful day full of community spirit. Next years carnival is 6th July so save the date if you want to be part of it!

The weather just doesn’t seem to be easing off does it? However that still didn’t dampen our spirits in delivering leaflets for The Cippenham Royal British Legion Club.

They reopen on the 20th and wanted to let the village know that they are back!

Task Owner Bridget had already delivered half the leaflets in one end of Cippenham over the weekend, so we had the task to cover another area.

With 5 of us in tow, we split into 2 teams.

Each team took a few roads each to paint them red! Or just deliver leaflets... the painting a town red isn’t permitted yet!

Who knew Cippenham had so many flats?

Access to them was a little tricky so we opted for the 3 up 2 downs instead. Even they weren’t as easy to find! Cippenham really is a maze.

Sara and I took on a never ending cul de sac, whilst Pam, Gauri and Naomi found their own labyrinth.

An hour in and we were done ... well almost, maybe a few leaflets saved for next time.

It’s over and we did it! Totally smashed last years good deeds and mileage challenge! So what were our stats I hear you ask?

137 Good Deeds ** Done by 35 participants ** Covering a total of 1282 km

Overall, we came 2nd in the Silver League! And Goodgym smashed the 8,000 good deeds target by 641 good deeds…

So much goodness achieved in just 31 days…thank you to each and everyone of you who came out when you really didn’t feel like it, ran in the rain, did a good deed when you felt less than 100%....your efforts, camaraderie and determination to get Slough as high up as we could on the leagues table is very much appreciated..

And a super well done to the new members that joined us in January…hope to see you in February – December too.

Focus on fly-ering

We had a fair bit going on tonight…as well as our leaflet drop task in Cippenham for the Cippenham Community Fitness group and Neighbourhood Watch Scheme which one of our runners Mabu is helping to set up...We were also helping Erin with her University dissertation.

Erin came to us at the back end of 2019 asking if we would help her in a couple of focus groups for her dissertation looking at the motivations and benefits of community sport volunteers! Five team members were going to help her tonight so ably led by task force members Sandy and Jen, this team left a bit earlier in order to get back in time to focus!

Welcome brief, task overview, safety elements all ticked off….we let our walkers Gail and Helen head off (Gail and Helen are also our task owners at a local primary school that we help out – so it was great to have them along tonight) whilst we did a quick warm up and then set off.

A very warm welcome to Jenny on her first session with us tonight and great to have Kate back after coming along to our starter session in January. Thank you to Pam for back marking tonight.

Fly’ering with leaflirts

To make the task of flyer distribution a little more exciting…I set the team a challenge of finding and evidencing as many red things they could find to tie in with the February ‘give it heart’ Goodgym theme…

Team Ricky (yes he’s back!) got a kebab van and apparently Meera is now available in a winter sale!

Team Sutyee had Kate’s red nails

Team Helen had the SCS sign

And our team…well we had a red bench from a red bus-stop where red buses go along!

Within 40 minutes we had completed the task. Each team had to meet back at Costa by 19.45, where we then gave the walkers a head start whilst the rest of us did a fitness session of press ups by Pam; single leg drops by Meera; skaters by Sut; single leg/arm raises by Mabu; squats by Ricky; star jumps by Jenny; side bends by Jean and finally pavement step ups by Kate! (Don’t think I actually need to come to any more sessions…these guys got it nailed).

Great efforts by everyone...

See you all next week