GoodGym Westminster

WestminsterCommunity mission

A Challenge Day at Paddington Rec Junior Parkrun

Sunday 19th October

Written by Hounslow runner

Today I went to discover a new Junior Parkrun at Paddington Recreation Ground, outside my usual area. I arrived quite early, so I helped the marshals set up the course signs. They told me how lucky they are to have the Parkrun there, as the council manages the park really well. I was pleasantly surprised to find a small running track in the middle of the park, something I wasn’t expecting!

For today’s event, I took on the role of tail walker/runner for the first time.

There were a few challenges during the morning:

  • I was expecting to meet a new GoodGym member, Shriya, but unfortunately, she couldn’t make it at the last minute. The Parkrun team quickly found a replacement volunteer, but they mentioned that in the future, if a GoodGym member needs to cancel, they should send an email before the event so the team can plan ahead.

  • Two enthusiastic four-year-old runners decided to stop after their second lap instead of completing all three. This caused a bit of confusion when checking the results and made it tricky to confirm that everyone had finished. As the tail runner, I stayed with them, which meant I couldn’t keep track of the rest of the field as closely as usual.

At the end of the morning, the Parkrun team also faced some technical issues submitting the results. I really enjoyed discovering a new Parkrun community and trying out the tail runner role for the first time!

Read more
WestminsterMission
Nick Moore

Spin cycle.

Thursday 16th October

Written by Nick Moore

Ms D was in a bit of a fluster this morning when I arrived - her neighbour was apparently up on the roof clearing leaves and her physio hadn't been able to visit due to her dealing with a domestic matter at home...so we needed a few minutes of calming down time before we ran through the list, for which the most most important item was a new box of clothes washing tablets...and anything else I could think of that she might have missed. Fortunately everything she needed was findable in the aisles, and she was delighted that she could finally do some washing when I got back with this week's treasure.

Read more
WestminsterGroup run
Natalia Serrano
Anastasia Hancock

Total Kermit-ment to the task

Tuesday 14th October

Written by Anastasia Hancock (she/her)

A huge welcome to Natalia who joined for her very first GoodGym session last night - great to have you along Natalia!

We met at our usual spot in Hyde Park for some warm ups before heading off for our task for the evening at a local estate. Along the way we talked about all things tennis and our favourite spots in London, and before we knew it we had arrived at Lillington Gardens.

We located the tools before walking over to the triangle which is slowly but surely being transformed into a growing space for the residents to use. For a central London estate, there was plenty of wildlife around! We had been warned about the wasps nest in the corner of the garden and avoided that, but we weren't expecting the number of frogs (or were they toads?) that made an appearance - it was all hoppening in Westminster las night!

Carefully dodging anything that might have made the garden its home, we pulled up weeds, raked, cleared and chatted our way through the evening and the time flew by. Before we knew it there was just time left for a selfie (I still haven't learned how to take a good one!) and to pack up. The garden was looking much clearer and almost ready for planting - we'll be back soon for the next step!

Next week we're picking up food for the homeless -hope to see you there!

Read more
WestminsterCommunity mission
Brenda SMITH

Volunteering at the Royal Parks Half (13.1mile) run

Sunday 12th October

Written by Brenda SMITH (She/her)

It was such a privilege to be part of the volunteer t-shirt finishers team, greeting the runners after they completing a half marathon.

Read more
WestminsterMission
Nick Moore

Easy as 1-2-3.

Thursday 9th October

Written by Nick Moore

Sadly Ms D's lottery ticket didn't win her the big one last week, so it was the usual list to hunt down in the world's politest supermarket today - she did give me £2 to buy her another ticket for this week so...otherwise all went smoothly around the aisles, and in fact it was a reduced list as Ms D was still working her way through last week's treasure - lots of 2's and 3's of the things she needed, which made things quick and easy, and gave us time for a good post shop catch up.

Read more
WestminsterGroup run
Kamil Wieszczek
Anastasia Hancock

Get your skates on!

Tuesday 7th October

Written by Anastasia Hancock (she/her)

After many visits to the oldest youth centre in the world, we thought we knew it pretty well. But the tardis-like building still has some surprises in store for us! Kamil and I were led through the busy foyer (with kids playing a very fun looking sweetie-based version of the traditional bar game Beerpong!) to find yet another storage space that we had never seen before.

This area is used to store music equipment and more roller skates and blades than we had ever seen in one place before! Our jobs was to sort out the equipment so that is was accessible and ordered.

We got to work pairing up the shoes and trying to create space to fit everything in neatly. Kamil discovered a very cool pair that lit up when used, and we paired up every set in size and style.

It was a strangely satisfying task, and once all the symbols and music equipment in, it was very pleasing to see all the skates lined up neatly for the kids to use. We even resisted taken them for a spin round the room ourselves!

Read more

Loading...