Wow….what a weekend! Incase you went on a weekend trip to Mars and didn’t see any of our social media feeds over the weekend….we WON the Get Berkshire Active 'Physical Activity for Health Award' at the awards night on Friday!

It was a truly memorable evening and I will tell you all about that in a minute…but first…lets talk about what we did tonight!

We were back at Sewak Housing to put on a second layer of paint to the skirting and frames. In the main we had the same team as last week, so each pair knew exactly what they had to do.

All formalities and warm up done at base location, we headed out for the 3.5km run to the task with me on back marking (let’s just say it was the heavy legs from yesterday’s Big Half race rather than gin-toxication from Friday night).

Warhol in it to help

On arrival, we got our gloves on, collected our brushes and pots (by a stroke of luck everything was still where we left it last week…or maybe it was a pigment of my ima-gin-ation!

When it comes to indoor paint jobs…I can’t say that we are we are picture perfect however we really do Turner it around and make the areas look all nice and gleamy – way to Gogh team!

As long as we don’t leave the task owners with The Scream…we know we’ve done a half decent job.

• With Ricky and Meera awol tonight it was down to Sutyee and Emily to take the mantel and finish the job…luckily they both been to the task location before so Rembrandt the fun and games they had last time with the small space and tools!

• Jen, who has an ability to get into any space any size!...was painting and yoga’ing at the same time…

• Chris was back to his antics of Dali-ing around

• Jean was in the hallway framing it

• Kam and Kate had the stairs again because I knew they could handle the job!

• Jenny and Lucy took over the upstairs hallway

Second layer of paint on and we were done. Time for clean up! (which can sometimes take as long as the painting itself). All jobs completed …we took the obligatory group photo (with Chris in it this time) and headed back to base.

So….if you want to find out what happened on Friday …then read on!

Let the Evening Be-Gin

With 13 of us traveling up to Reading for the posh awards night, suffice to say we were a little bit excited…Ricky was sooo excited that he actually turned up early!

Being our only GG bloke…every lady wanted to sit with him in the car…but he thought it was only fair he sat on one butt cheek in the boot so that we all had proper seats – what a gent!

Looking all glam and fabulous and not a sports item in sight (well maybe one of us was still keeping it real!)…we had our pre drinks at Nisha’s house and set off on the road trip to Reading.

The awards night was being held at The Hilton in Reading with sports groups, councils from all over Berkshire and of course all the nominees with their friends, colleagues and family members.

After the drinks at the bar, we headed into the drinks reception area where we took every opportunity we could to …take photo’s! Including a red carpet moment..

It was all rather posh Spice and maybe Get Berkshire Active had an inkling of how gin-tastic we were going to be as they put us in the naughty corner…Table 26 (all I kept thinking was…if we win…that’s a long walk to the stage!)

There were 12 award categories in total and we were around 8th on the pecking list to be announced. With that in mind our partners in wine – Meera, Ricky and Sandy were in a right giggling state as they watched Nisha…impatiently wait for our category to be announced…

Goodgym Slough or Goodgym Loud?

Nothing like self-appreciation to make you feel good! During the night, each nominee had a video (mainly of photo’s of their club) playing in the background and most of theirs were 30 seconds long..

Then our clip came on….and the decibels in the venue went up tenfold as each one of our members photo’s or video clips were played…even I had to hang my head in shame at how long we were up on the screen for! We went on and on and on…for all of 2 minutes and 18 seconds…the longest 2 mins and 18 seconds of my life and the loudest!

During the break the CEO of Get Berkshire Active come over to find out who this extremely lively table were…clearly we left an impression…We Sloug’d it tonight!

When our category was called up and they announced Goodgym Slough as the winners of the Physical Activity for Health Award…the ruckus of roars was so loud that I couldn’t even hear the background song they chose for us! It was phenomenal to win! The team were upstanding (luckily so was I)…the joy of happiness from the team filled the venue and I still haven’t stopped smiling yet..(other than maybe at mile 11 of yesterday’s Big Half!)

What a brilliant night we had…and to come home with a lovely award just topped it all off.

International Women’s Day

This year’s IWD is on Sunday 8th March and the theme is #EachforEqual …an equal world is an enabled world.

At Black Park parkrun they will be holding a IWD event by encouraging more females to participate in the event and asking everyone to wear something purple…one of our newest members Jenny will be on Run Director duty on Saturday, so please go and join in.

On Saturday will be doing a bramble cut back task on Farm Lane on Saturday to allow access for a local Church via that alleyway. Details of this Community Mission are listed here - https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/cutting-back-brambles

Have a great week everyone

Nineteen going on Twenty

We’ve had the most epic year this year and its all thanks to all of your guys hard efforts and camaraderie… we’ve laughed, we’ve cried, we’ve celebrated our first year anniversary, we’ve attended the GG 10 year party and even had our moments of fame! Sandy and her epic speech..me and my endless magazine interviews!

It’s been a year full of punny puns…and maybe some not so…but none the less we’ve helped 21 local community groups this year with 7 of them as new task owners.

We reached our 1000 good deed milestone…I reached my 100th…Sandy, Darren, Milly and Ricky got their 50th….with so many more to come in the new year …2020 will certainly be a big one for us.

Not to mention our shortlisted nomination for the Annual Get Berkshire Active Awards! We really do have so much to look forward to in 2020.

Lets flyer away…lets flyer lets flyer away

Our task was to drop a few leaflets for a few local community groups (including Goodgym!) and then head to the local for a few Christmas Cheers…what a great ideer and a nice santament to finish off our final task of the year.

With over 650 Good Deeds done in 2019 alone and over 220km covered….I think the team really did deserve an early night.

So after our usual welcome brief, safety overview, GG News and warm up, we headed out the very short distance to the other side of the park and hit the roads around Baylis. Great to have Erin join us on her first session with us…

The teams were divided into pairs and each pair had a street to target and then meet us back at Pool Lane. The task was done super fast tonight…there was no wine’ing or moaning from anyone…they all shot back to base…ready to hit the local.

So. I can’t top Ricky and the Jingle Ladies jingle bells song rendition tonight…but I do have my own Fa La La La Fantastic version of the 12 days of Christmas…

One the first month of Goodgym, my trainer gave to me:

• A Goodgym Red Tee
• Two homeless feeds
• Three walking lunges
• Four fence panels
• Five good deeeeds
• Six one off missions
• Seven litter pickers
• Eight gloves for gardening
• Nine walls for painting
• Ten flyers for flying
• Eleven river clean up
• Twelve social drinks do’s
• And a birthday in a nice pub

2020 Vision

We have some epic tasks and run distances lines up for 2020… All the Monday Group Runs are on the system so please have a look and book yourselves on..We start with a new task owner (Wexham Parish Hall) on Monday 6th January…with a few firm favourites lined up each week.

Here is a list of all our upcoming Monday runs in 2020 https://www.goodgym.org/my/happenings/group-runs

We will also be doing a Saturday Group Run and Task with Ryvers School on Saturday 18th January as a starter run. Sign up details here: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/school-tidy-up

There will also be some extra community missions lined up…we have already booked a clothes sort at Thames Hospice shop in Langley and a Junior parkrun takeover… Check out all our community missions here: https://www.goodgym.org/areas/slough/happenings/community-missions

So until then…wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year

This evening’s task was to help Home Slough with a bit of a Christmas makeover. We all noel that Christmas is most wine-derful time of the year…so it always brings us great joy to help out a community project with a little Blitzen to give their unit a tinsel and sparkle.

15 Minutes Elf Fame

Before we Dasher’d off to do our task, I had great joy in telling the team that Goodgym Slough has been shortlisted for the Get Berkshire Active Awards for the Category of Physical Activity for Health Award…

I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved in Slough and extremely pleased that our efforts have been acknoeledged in this prestigious awards ceremony…so get your glad rags on…no time to be Cupid…we are going to a posh awards ceremony in February!

But wait…there’s myrrh

Not only were we celebrating our nomination tonight…we also had another 50th! Tonight was Sandy’s 50th good deed…

Sandy is a trooper, she attends as many sessions as she can, is always cheerful and a laugh to be around. She’s like a Vixen when it comes to the task…really getting her claus into every task!

Well done Sandy!

Boldly go where snowman has gone before…

So after our welcome speech, intros, our health and safety brief and warm up…we headed out to where snowman has gone before…Slough Town Centre! Well, I tell a little lie…we go to Town all the time…

We Prancer’d to Home Slough just before 7pm ready to meet our task owner Eva.

Eva gave us the low down on what we had Comet there to do.

We didn’t Donder around…the Elves went straight to work.

The Santa’s Dancer’d around as Santa’s normally do (as with everything…it’s the Elves that do all the work…Santa just takes all the credit! A bit like me and the GG Slough team…ho ho ho)

All the jingle ladies, all the jingle ladies

Sut, Naomi and Kam sponged and lunged the display boards clean.

Keira and Meera were our stars of the night…yule be so impressed when you see their shop front display at Home Slough!

Roisin, Jean, Sandy and Lucy put up the mini Christmas trees and candy cane’s.

The rest of the team cleaned off the chalk boards to make the walls more presentable.

Freeze frame

The unit we were in tonight was the ex Top Shop shop so I guess there was only one way to celebrate Sandy’s 50th Good Deed tonight as that was with the mannequin challenge! The video is brilliant even if I say snow myself! Check it out on our Instagram page.

Task finished.. we headed back out in the bitter cold…so cold infact that our noses were bright red and helped guide us back to base just like Rudolph….phew…that’s all the reindeers now mentioned! Plus the extra one..

Say it aint Snow

Afraid so…it’s our last session of the year, of the decade in fact next week.. To reward all of the runners for all of their efforts over the past year we will be heading to Masala and Cole after we have done our task… https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/slough-group-run-2019-12-16

Go the whole jog

Get ready for the annual January challenge. For those of you looking to up the ante with their running distance, please join in on the Red January challenge or the race at your pace challenge.

A few of us will be starting our marathon training so 100 miles will be the target, but you can do anywhere from 15 miles to 250 miles…you can walk or run these…just make sure you have it recorded on your Strava account and that it’s linked to your Goodgym profile. https://www.raceatyourpace.co.uk/running/

With Red January you can do any physical fitness over the month of January and help to raise money for MIND at the same time. https://redtogether.co.uk/

Be ho-ho-hold….It’s December…and you should all know–ho–ho what that means? There is no time like the presanta to start wearing your Christmas head gear…and the team did not disappoint me..

With the countdown to Christmas already started…we now only have 2 more runs leaft till the end of the decade.

Tonight’s run and task was the last garden tidy up of 2019 and It was to help The Parvaaz Project on Northampton Avenue. This centre helps children and young adults with learning delays to enjoy a social environment and gain access to activities that would normally not be possible for them to do.

The Grass of 2019

So before we tell you what did today, I wanted to say a big thank you to all our runners who come every week and make Goodgym Slough such an enjoyable fitness and community give back activity.

A couple of weeks ago we had our Christmas social and I presented those who could come with their annual certificates in good ol Goodgym style.

For those who couldn’t make it…they got their certificates today.

So from our Fame Game, Jeff’ll fix it, Our Running wings to our Legends and ‘Am I bovered’s…I hope you all liked your awards…keep the GG spirit growing as you are all true superstars.

Snow White

Another runner reached a milestone last week….Our Social Queen, our tweet twoo – insta enforcer https://www.goodgym.org/admin/runners/emily-miller got her bullseye…well done Milly!

Emily is now not going to be able to join us for the rest of 2019 …so as we missed your big 50 we did our own little video for you…hope you enjoyed it

 5-0…5-0 its off to Auss she goes…Bon Foliage Milly, see you in 2020!

Weeding by example

So back to what we actually did tonight. 15 runners.. after the brief, the speech, the awards, the warm up all headed out the relatively short distance of 1.5km to the task. Thank you to Jenni, Sara and Sut Yee for being our walking crew tonight..

On arrival we were met by Alex and he asked if we would help clear away the never ending leaves and give it the garden space a Spruce Spingsteen Clean….

Alex is always mulchos grassios for our help…so after the brief, he handed us the lock up padlocks and said Auf-Weed-Ersehen and headed off home.

When push comes to shovel

As we were in a relatively dark area, lit only by the glow of the runners and a few extra lights, we stayed in small groups and worked as safely as we could….with no garden fast rules, we started to dig into the task.

• Dazz-a-maz (our very own elf on a shelf) used sheer brut force to break down the fallen tree branches.
• Sooty and Sweep (also known as Sut-yee and Nisha) did a sweeping job of the leaves once I leaft them alone to actually get on with it!
• Jen, Pam, Jenni and Lucy did a shovely job of using the shovels to rake up all the leaves
• Ihfraz (who was on his 2nd group run with us tonight)…well, he’s a smart cookie and took the only tool for the job tonight – an actual rake
• Sara and Meera made it a clean sweep as only they can..
• Mabu was our action man and getting into every nook and cranny to find leaves
• Whilst Roisin, Kam and Sandy leaft no stone unturned in their quest..to chim chimney, chim chimney chim cher-ee, a sweep is as lucky as lucky can be…

14 bags of leaves and a fair few broken branches later we were done…just in time for our video shoot for Emily!

Great run and task #TeamGGSlough as always…countdown is on…2 more to go Have a great week and see you next week on our Christmas decks task…