To Luton Wardown parkrun for our monthly takeover, where we aim to fill as many volunteer slots as possible to support the best and friendliest parkruns around.

This morning’s event was a sea of red as local running club Stopsley Striders was marking the completion of its 2025 beginners’ course with a graduation parkrun. We set up, marshalled and scanned barcodes, helping the Luton Wardown team to put on a hugely successful event for more than 370 parkrunners.

A great event in sweltering conditions. Luckily, ice-pops were on sale in the clubhouse afterwards!

This weeks group 🏃‍♀️ run, 🚶‍♂️ walk and 🚲 cycle, we visited Penrose Roots to Recovery. We had a great turn out if 13 Goodgymers, 4 of which were first timers and 1 joining for their first group run. So welcome to Lee , Dilpreet, Fayemi and Bauyrzhan, we hope you enjoyed the evening and look forward to you joining us again. After heading off from the town centre the team headed out on a 2.5 km run, walk or cycle to join our friend Pete at Penrose. He got everyone shovelling fertiliser on to some beds and when that was done, we all got stuck in to some epic weeding. All in all, a great task that everyone contributed to and a fantastic evening to welcome some wonderful first timers. Great effort everyone, you done a fantastic job 👏 👍🏻 👌 🙌

This weeks run/walk/cycle group task took us to a familiar setting. We recently supported the Shri Guru Ravidass Sangat Gudwara with their Near Neighbours funded cooking classes and it's always a great experience being in the kitchen, but on this occaison we helped in the temple by giving the upstairs a spruce up. When we arrived Sanjeev from the the temple had prepped the carpeted area in the main prayer hall by sprinkling a liberal amount of Shake and Vac across the floor, which once vacuumed up left the room smelling great - we really did "put the freshness back" in the room. The team also wiped down all the woodwork and dusted all the plant pots. We also had a good go at cleaning a bathroom area. Our hosts were grateful for the help and have asked if we can return again soon. This session was the first for Yohanns who met us at one of the previously mentioned cooking classes.

Great job team, well done 👏

Our group run this week had a unexpected twist as our 🏃‍♀️ 🏃‍♂️ and cyclists 🚴‍♂️ 🚴‍♀️ headed out to the task at Ferndale Allotment.
After meeting at our usual rendezvous point, and briefing the team on the evening task, we headed off, runners, cyclists and walkers. As the walkers got near to the task site, there was quite a commotion. The runners and cyclists had stopped as they had witnessed a car accident (thankfully no-one was hurt) and had called the police to attend. After checking the team were all ok, the walkers headed to the allotment to start the litterpick task while the others stayed to give statements to the police 🚔 🚔. Once all back together at the allotment, the team had a successful tidy up on the plots we were asked to tidy and the communal areas and then we all headed back to town. Interesting evening and the first time statements have provided by Goodgymers to the police on a Luton Group run. Great effort everyone.