We like to celebrate in style in Swindon and there was much chatter and excitement amongst the 36 runners and walkers who gathered at the Oasis for our first birthday group run. It’s been a fantastic first year – 119 of us have run and walked 65 times to support community projects in Swindon, doing 901 good deeds, making 21 visits to older people and together we’ve covered 20285km, that’s more than half way round the world! And while there are a good number of data nerds in GoodGym Swindon, these figures only tell part of the story.

I think we’d all agree that the real success is the difference that GoodGym Swindon has made – to the community projects we have supported and to our own runners – and the new friendships that have been made while running, eating biscuits or over a well-earned cuppa.💓 It’s no wonder we were in party mood!

The chatting stopped momentarily as Emma the Trainer, put to use her famous Swindon parkrun Silence skills and gathered us together for the task briefing and getting to know you session. There were lots of new faces and some very familiar faces ones too. Welcome to Swindon first timers Addie, Ashleigh, Ciaran, Paul, Sharon – we hope you’ll join us again and become part of our GoodGym Family! We also welcomed Alexander Kenmure, who had spent the day with us talking all things GoodGym and piling on the pressure for this run report writer! Fingers crossed that this lives up to expectation!

We broke the ice with tales of memorable birthdays – many of which turned out not to have been remembered well at all, apart from Sharon’s, when aged 7 her new skateboard had an unfortunate encounter with a newly glazed door; not quite the smashing day she was hoping for! And then it was time to celebrate our achievements and soon the skies of Swindon were ringing with applause as we congratulated Stuart on becoming our first runner to complete 50 good deeds – we look forward to seeing the new black top soon!, thanked our Task Force for all that they do to support GoodGym by run and walk leading, back marking, organising community missions, taking photos and run report writing – here’s to you Andrew, Charles, Helen, Mike, Jo, Paul, Richard the Vicar, Sam, Simon, Simon and Tracey, and last but not least thanked the people who had got GoodGym Swindon up and running Emma the Trainer and Paul, and everyone who has run and walked with us over the last year!

And then we were off…our red tops snaking our way through the streets of Swindon, running, walking and of course chatting, on our way to the Haven Day Centre. The Haven offers food, support, mentoring, work experience, training and help into rehab for those who are homeless or vulnerable in Swindon. This was our largest ever group run but Carol at the Haven is always well prepared and quickly organised us into teams to power through the to do list.

Team Window Cleaning were soon polishing and shining away, making this task look pane-less. And You’ve Been (window) Framed was the photo theme for the night with many sill-y shots being taken! Meanwhile, Team Hedgerow got stuck in to cutting back brambles – a thorny problem but no match for us as we chopped and hacked our way through. And then there was the Demolition Gang, tasked with taking down a shed. This team showed no mercy and with under starters orders of “ready, sheddy, go” were roofless, quickly reducing the shed to just 4 walls and they soon disappeared too – before we knew it, the shed was demoliSHED!

With that, it was time to knock it on the shed and head back to the Oasis for birthday cake! Huge thanks to Stuart and Tracy who baked and decorated a cake that Mary Berry would be proud of!

What a fabulous way to end a fantastic GoodGym evening – so good that we almost got locked in to the Oasis! Time really does fly when you are having fun!

The fun will continue, come rain or shine, on Saturday when we are taking over Swindon parkrun. Don’t delay – sign up for this community mission HERE today! And then the celebrations continue with our GoodGym birthday party – we’d love to see you there!

Next week, we have a group run to Renew Swindon for a classic GoodGym Swindon hump and dump task – sign up here. We also have a community mission to We’re Open – now we’ve flexed our chatting, eating and drinking muscles with all these celebrations, it’s time to put them to good use supporting Sanctuary Seekers from across the world! We hope to see you soon!