This morning was mine and Callum's first mission in Woking, supporting the wonderful work of the All Aboard team in Brookwood. We got stuck in, building the tracks with the team, letting our creative brains chug along. It was very inspiring to see the children enjoying the team's work, in a space where they can relax and express themselves. This is such important work, bravo!

After a couple of months break, GoodGym Ealing were back at the wonderful London Transport Museum Depot in Acton to partner with All Aboard Club. Overlooking the full size tube trains and buses, the task as always was to build a unique and giant train set for autistic and SEN children.

As usual, everyone started building their own vision, then tried to work out how to connect it to everyone else's pieces of track. Michelle and Sevan started working on neighbouring towns, so had the "how on earth do we connect these?" problem early on, before going on to create and resolve chaos in other parts of the train network.

One of the regular volunteers had grand designs for his track and he wasn't afraid of telling people about them. He told Sevan, then other volunteers how his 4 parallel stretches of track would branch off and merge together with other parts, leading to task owner Richard to say:

"Less talk, more build" - Richard

...and so he did, turning what was in his mind into blue plastic art.

Once set up, the All Aboard Club attendees almost arrived on time, which is rare as they're so excited to get to play with the trains. They were only 5 minutes early today. Another surprise was that they didn't immediately start to rip up and change the lovingly created track. Maybe the troublemakers are away this month 😂.

If you'd like to become a big child for an hour, you can join us next month to help All Aboard Club get their big train set ready at the London Transport Museum Depot. Sign up here for the 12th of July.

All Aboard Club 🚂

This morning Wayne, Alys, & Julie met Richard from All Aboard Club at Brookwood Halls to help build the big train track for the kids to enjoy 😊.

We were joined by a few other volunteers from local organisations. We Helped unload the car and between us took ll the crates into the hall and strategically placed them around.

Alys & Julie started to place the chairs around the hall for the parents then it was time to build. We all started in different area's and started to lay the tracks. within 30 mins the track was looking great. The track had plenty of loops and turns it must of been one of the most technical and interesting tracks we had done, it looked great.

This coming Wednesday we will be doing a leaflet drop around the Goldsworth Park Area for Sam Beare Hospice 😊

All Aboard Club 🚂

This morning Wayne & Priya met Richard at Brookwood Memorial Halls to assist the All Aboard Club with building the big train track for the SEN kids to enjoy 😀

Along with Goodgym volunteers we were joined by young DofE volunteers were volunteering for their awards.

It was great seeing Priya again at a task and was great to catch up. First thing we had to do was place about 20 chairs around the hall for the parents to sit and chat while the kids played.

With so many helpers in no time the train track was taking shape & was looking great, lots of twists and turns, every time we build the track it looks different 😲

Just as the last track was placed in position the kids were coming in to have a fun playful morning 🚂💨

The aim of every All Aboard Club task is to create something complicated by beginning with lots of simple pieces. It's always interesting to see the end result from the creativity of all of the volunteers and today was no different.

There was a big group today to complete the build and they included Siobhan who was at an All Aboard Club task for the first time and her son, Laurence, who Siobhan had recruited for his first GoodGym task. They'd both been on London Transport Museum Depot tours in the past and were excited to get involved with the task. Welcome Laurence! 👏🎉

Through the session, the track flowed outwards to fill the whole of the mezzanine. Challenging junctions were put in to cause the attendees to interact and loose ends were tied up. Most loose ends, anyway. Ten minutes before the children were due to arrive, there were 7 parallel tracks that didn't connect to anything. Sevan foresaw a Junction of Doom ™️.

"We've run out of track" - All Aboard Club volunteer
"There's plenty of track, it's how you use it" - Sevan
"You must be a management consultant" - Richard, task owner

Sevan went to scavenge some useful track pieces from around the floor, then helped the AAC volunteer come up with a plan. The volunteer managed to complete the track before any children showed up. Phew!

Siobhan, Laurence and Sevan set some trains zooming around the track as the first children arrived and watched how the attendees interacted with the track that the volunteers had created. There was even enough time at the end for Siobhan and Richard to chat about groups that All Aboard Club could reach out to, based on Siobhan's local knowledge.

Finishing early? That's unheard of!

All Aboard Club 🚂

This mornings task at the All Aboard Club there was a major milestone. It was Nadia 50th good deed 🎉. Nadia joined Woking GG In April 2024 & over the last 10 months has got to her 50th total in double quick time. During this time Nadia has sometimes done 3 good deeds in a day, 😲 Amazing stuff and also in that period Nadia running has improved so much and long may it continue 🏃🏼‍♀️. Hopefully on the next task Nadia will be showing off her new black GG shirt 😀. We will also try to arrange a social get together to celebrate.

Wayne & Nadia came straight from volunteering at junior park run and were met by Lauren. There were also a few new faces from another charity to help us build the giant train track for the kids to enjoy 😀.

Once again we were welcomed by Richard our expert train track builder 🚂💨.

First task was to get 30 chairs and place them around the hall for the parents to sit on, once this was done we all picked a corner and started to build. It was great catching up with Lauren who has recently got into hiking and was telling us about her latest walk in the mountains in South Wales 🗻 and her up coming expeditions in the lake district, hopefully eventually doing all of UK's highest peaks 🥾

This mornings train track when completed looked amazing full of twists and turns and plenty of ups and downs the kids were really going to enjoy it. 😀

A great morning of volunteering, hope you all have a great rest of the weekend and see you all soon. 💫

Wayne, Charlotte and Nadia were this month’s volunteers for the set up of the All Aboard Club’s train set for children’s playtime. The organisation supports children with ADHD and SEN.

Wayne and Nadia had been to Junior Parkrun beforehand so today was a double day for them. They arrived early and had a good chance to catch up. 💬

Soon after all the other volunteers arrived and we were joined by Charlotte who was telling us of her busy morning managing her household! It was great to see Charlotte again. 👋🏼

We have a few seasoned train track builders now so the team have more intuition on how to choo choo choose and place the tracks. It was an interesting configuration again and as always we were excited to do the final step of placing the choo choo trains on the tracks. 🚂

Some early arrivals jumped straight in which was a delight to see.

Great job everyone on a happy Sunday!