It was flippin' cold as we gathered outside the Oasis on Shrove Tuesday. Inspired by Tracey's GoodGym branded pancakes - with baked in red batter and not strawberry sauce, just in case there are any remaining doubters - we discovered there's a clear preference for the traditional lemon and sugar topping on our pancakes.

But it's Richard's impressive efforts in once eating 27 pancakes that will take some beating...although not all heroes wear capes, this red-shirted hero certainly eats crêpes!

With that, it was time to beat the streets and whisk ourselves away to Age UK at Toothill Community Centre with Charles leading the way and the Dodgy Bum Gang, hamstrung with hamstring and glute niggles, bringing up the rear. Matt was there to greet us at the Community Centre with everything prepped for our painting session.

Last time we visited, we painted the walls with paint of the consistency and colour of scrambled eggs.

After some work at the centre, they've had un oeuf of that, and our task was to paint the walls with what looked like pancake batter but was in fact magnolia paint.

We split into two teams with Helen, Richard and Jason taking on the high rolling activity of painting the upper panels in the large hall and the rest of us tackling the upper hall, including repainting that famous yellow brick wall. The not so mellow yellow paint was soon covered up, but it looks like a second coat will be needed so a return visit is on the cards. Was Matt yolking when he asked if anyone would like to take the eggy paint away with them? We'll never know as there was no one brave enough to take up the offer!

Regular readers will know that we love a hump and dump task in Swindon and tonight we squeezed in a bit of lifting and shifting of an enormous oven with Jake and Mike leading the way in the muscle-flexing crew. After all that exertion, Matt's offer of a drink in the lovely cosy café at the centre was very welcomed. Matt really was the host with the most, offering a variety of coffees, tea, hot chocolate, cold drinks, crisps and biscuits (including our favourites, Jammy Dodgers). Hannah was particularly excited to be offered a choice of regular or red Fanta - we're expecting the full tasting notes to follow! It was then time for the photo shoot - we're still not entirely sure what gestures Richard was making but if the photos are a bit blurry, it's because we were all laughing too much at his slightly unusual interpretation of jazz hands.

The café is such a warm and welcoming place that we reluctantly had to head back out into the chilly wind.

It's a good job that Emma the Trainer had her motivational speech ready - "I really don't want to run back" was the inspiring battle cry!

Fortunately we're made of strong stuff and, under the moonlit sky with Venus shining brightly, we were soon back at the Oasis for more coffee and even more chat. There's a lot about Richard in this report, but he also tells that if we had a telescope, we would also have been able to see Uranus - it seems there's also a lot about bottoms in this report. And on that bum note, it's probably best to finish there!

If your goal is to get even fitter and do even more good in 2020, we have just the Community Mission for you. We'll be at Bridlewood School on Saturday putting up some football goals. The next time that Leap Year Day falls on a Saturday is 2048 - that's a long time to wait, so don't miss out this weekend!

Next week, we are running to a new venue - St Paul's Church and Community Centre - it's a longer run but there's plenty of support and encouragement and as always, the run will be backmarked, and no one will get left behind. We hope to see you there!

We started the evening with an ice breaker (thankfully only figuratively this week!) about our favourite aspects of a wedding - some market research for our run leader Mike. Unsurprisingly, Richard the Vicar trumped all other suggestions, and has definitely been to the most weddings! Ice well and truly broken, we set off on our task.

Not content with the distance of one of our longer runs, we went on an 'accidental' detour around the local lanes before we reached our location. After deciding to go left based on absolutely no information at all, we made it to Men in Sheds at Chippenham Close Community Centre, our location for the evening.

We were there to help with a number of different tasks; sanding various pieces of furniture ready for painting, freshening up some walls with a lick of paint, and 'cutting in' in the toilets. Once Luke and I had learnt what on earth 'cutting in' actually meant, we split into teams and got cracking.

After misplacing the sandpaper - rough start - team work made the dream work over the in corner, where we were sanding down a large cabinet ready to transform it into a slate grey paint storage unit. Very chic!

Things got emulsion-al at just how good the hallway looked with a fresh lick of paint...

Tracey got pretty handsy with some dust, and Sam tidied up after us all with the hoovering - task in the bag!

Before leaving the task, we devoured some delicious sausage rolls handmade by Dawn (where does she get the time? Between 18:00 and 18:20 apparently!), and then ran back to the Oasis to celebrate Stuart getting his wings for 100 good deeds with a fabulous cake made by Tracey. It was so good you couldn't even tell it was gluten free! Congratulations Stuart!

Join us next week to run or walk to the Haven Day Centre for Swindon Night Shelter, ready to make some windows squeaky clean for the guests staying at the Winter Housing Provision. Check it out here!

This week, we scrabbled together a team of 19 great GoodGym’ers to clean a kitchen and sort some board games!

This week’s achievements:

• Welcome along to Sarah for her first GoodGym Swindon task

• Congratulations to Jo for the unveiling of her shiny new 50 good deeds black t-shirt

• Well done to everyone at GoodGym for completing the January challenge of 8,000 Good Deeds, and 10,0000km in January – 113 deeds and over 1,700 of which were from Swindonian GoodGym’ers!

Before we left the Oasis, this week’s icebreaker was in honour of the late Nicholas Parsons, who presented ‘Just a Minute’ on Radio 4 well into his 90’s. We shared who was the most inspiring older person we had worked or volunteered with.

This was an icebreaker that really provoked some interesting and poignant stories. These were a real mix of fondly remembered family members and friends who worked to a ripe age before sadly passing away, to inspiring tales of people still actively contributing to parkrun, their workplace, or charities into their 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 100’s!

Inspired by these tales, we were soon off running and chatting, although maybe not through 'Manningtree' (Mannington Rec) marshes as per Rector Run Leader Richard’s original route!

We arrived at Toothill Farmhouse, and split into two groups. But this was no trivial pursuit – team 1 sorted a heap of board games, while team 2 gave the kitchen a winter spring clean.

Need a cluedo of who did what?! Was it Mr White in the kitchen with the fairy liquid… or did he have a monopoly on mug cleaning?

We soon had the kitchen spic and span, and the games shifted and sorted, not to mention our hot drinks quaffed, and biccies bitten.

Back at the Oasis, we shared what’s coming soon!

Next week’s Group Run we’re painting and DIY’ing for Men in Sheds @ Chippenham Close Community Centre. Sign up here!

We’re also on the lookout for Run Report Writers. We have a small team, and we could do with two or three more to help out. Is this something YOU could help with? It doesn't take up much of your time and can be as short or as long as you like! You also don't need be an English Literature Expert to write our reports; anything goes at GoodGym. Please come forward and help out!

Also, how about an Easter Social. What should we do, where should we go? Any ideas – get in touch in the comments!

This weeks task was a return visit to do a spot of gardening at Prince Rupert Court (part of the Guinness Partnership) which provides supported housing for older people.

Our usual outdoorsy huddle was abandoned in favour of a quick hello indoors and a very sensible proclamation by Run Leader Sandy Sam that "the sooner we get going the sooner we'll be there". Nobody disagreed given the hooley that blowing outside, so off we set into 94% humidity. But first we welcomed back the lovely Jake and Jaime who returned for their second group run, in their shiny new GoodGym t-shirts - yay!

This week we took a safety in numbers approach and ran as one group as storm Brendan continued to be a party pooper, backmarked by Jo. It was a tough run being one of longer distances and the weather was the worst in GoodGym Swindon's history. The prancing about trying to avoid puddles was soon given up in favour of just stomping through them.

We arrived and were met by our host Dominique who is also one of our GoodGym family. You know you look a bit damp when the first thing you're asked is if you would like to use the tumble drier! We were shown to the laundry room where a certain amount of civilised stripping off commenced. Lines were drawn at revealing soggy pants since we were in polite company! and we debated whether the damp inside our waterproof gear was rain or sweat but by then most were passed caring. Teresa, Special Kay and Alethia, aka 'The Sensible Ones', met us there.

Dominique announced that there could be no gardening due to the inclement weather so Plan B was launched and we were to eat, drink and be merry by chatting to the customers, playing pool and playing darts. We could have hugged her!

All proper thoughts of January diets, stiches on the run home from eating and needing the loo were discarded in favour of lots of tea, cake and SAUSAGE ROLLS!!! This is just one of the reasons our Guinness Partnership visits will always be close to our hearts - they do know how to host a good gathering!

As well as the obvious fun that can be had with a bunch of competitive friends, a pool table and a dart board (no bullseyes hit!), we loved that this gave an opportunity for lots of intergenerational interactions with our friends who live there. And although we weren't able to complete the Plan A task, we did also succeed in bringing different parts of the community together and helping with our fitness. We caught up on Christmassy news with those we'd met before (still allowed as we're still in January, right?!) and general getting-to-know-you chatter. Wins all round!

We reluctantly and with a bit of difficulty got back into our wet, and by now cold, gear - with universal looks of sympathy from Prince Rupert Court! - and took on storm Brendan for a second time. On the run home Stuart was treated to being the filling in a Tracy/Tracey sandwich, and declared that the one with the E was less good for you - charming! 🙂. Charles was also entered into the Tracy/Tracey sandwich club. A special honour indeed! Then there was the swapping of favorite chat up lines. All of which, without exception, cannot be repeated here 😁 With all that entertainment, the run back sped by and we were back at base for yes ....... more tea and chatter!

Up next is our bumper January Community Mission at Seven Fields parkrun on Saturday 18th January

There is much excitement in the air this week as we prepare for our parkrun takeover. We're off to Seven Fields parkrun which is Swindon's newly created second parkrun. We have upwards of 25 volunteers signed up to the roster. If you've not done it already, make sure you sign up on the GoodGym Community Mission (admin will love you for it!) and on Facebook if you can. It would be great to have your red or black GoodGym t-shirts on show on the day. Sign up here!

Next Tuesday we are heading to the MS Therapy Centre for an indoor task

Interested? Then please sign up here! It's not so far; just over 5km altogether.