On behalf of GoodGym, five members, Anne, Wayne, Agathe, Stephanie, and Nadia, embarked on their first-ever cleanup mission at the Westfield community fridge. The group combined fitness with community service, running a total of 2.7 km (1.35 km each way) to and from the location.

Upon arrival, the group got to work, scrubbing 🧽 and sanitizing the fridge. Reverend Rachel shared with us that the community fridge has been having a significant impact, with increasing demand as of late. Despite the growing usage, the group's efforts transformed the fridge room into a spotless space ✨

The group's hard work and dedication were evident in the sparkling clean fridge room. With plans to return soon, the community fridge will continue to benefit from GoodGym's efforts. The run and cleanup not only contributed to the community but also provided an opportunity for the members to stay active 🏃‍♀️👟 and engaged in giving back.

On Sunday, the Sun was shining and in the morning it was warning up nicely for 18 °C. Adam, on his way, called James traveling to volunteer for junior parkrun to see if he wanted a coffee? It turns out James wasn't signed up to volunteer for junior parkrun but lucky never says no to a coffee. So with coffee in hand James and Adam make it to the bandstand so register with the parkrun director, where James was given the role as equipment manager. Both James and Adam court up with the other GoodGymers, Wayne and Karen who had already arrived and were dressed with their Junior parkrun hi-vis's clearly happy to be a Hi-Vis heros 😀. With the introduction of Junior Parkrun number 319 the run director gave everyone the rules and guidelines after giving the awards for some youngesters achieving running milestones, an extra special award was given. Becky a run director, and an essential organizer who gives her time time to coordinating and liaising all things concerned with Woking junior parkrun had reached her 500th volunteer credit, an incredible accomplishment 😍. Once she received her flowers, the warm up crew started and not long after the count down to head to the start line began. Karen went to her marshal point 1, next to Wayne at marshal 2. Adam went to point 7 just where the path turns right going down hill towards the ponds. And James stayed near the bandstand keeping an eye on vital equipment. The run started well with all the children making a quick start towards the pathway. As the sun was warning things up well, the children were ready to run fast. After 7 minutes 23 seconds the first runner, George completed both laps. It took another 22 seconds before the next finisher crossed the line! Wayne said goodbye as he had been relieved from his position and was making way home, and it pasted Adam's marshaling point. After the last runner came in, the total number of runners was 159, what a great turn out. Well done all Woking GoodGymers on a task completed well 😄

On the lovely Wednesday afternoon, as Adam got to the meet-up point Kirsty and Brian were outside the leisure center ready and waiting for the training session to start.

Brian promptly got involved with stretching as we waited for the birthday star to arrive, fashionably late as always.

Once James got there, Adam went into details of the fitness session, going through the warm up drills moving on to the main fitness task, 80 meter sprints following up with squats and start jumps until everyone has returned to the start.

We started with a light jog around the leisure center, to an area where we can start the warm up game. The game was to run in a specified area, a person would shout "5". From there you would find the person closest to you and play rock, paper, scissors. The winner would choose the exercise, and the winner would do 3 lots of those exercise while the person who came second, would have to repeat the exercises 6 times.

We started running in the area and Adam shouted 5, to start the game. Adam faced Kirsty, while James faced Brian, where all people quickly started there specified exercises. Next James called 5 and the game started again.

Once everyone called 5, we focused our energies on the sprints. At 80% effort we all went for it. Adam and Kirsty were the first to get back to start, and straight into the squats and start jumps. when everyone arrived at the start, we all had a 20 second reset before starting again.

Within the twenty minute target time to get the sprints in we all managed 11 sprints in total.

To finish off a great workout we all heading to the pub to rest and recover and to celebrate James' birthday. Well done, as everyone gave a great effort during today's session.

Woking Junior Park Run

This morning Wayne, Kirsty, James, & Melanie met at Woking Park to carry out various volunteering roles at the junior park run 🏃‍♀️.

The sun was out ☀️ and so were 103 young runners who tackled the 2k course.In total there were 23 PB's with the fastest time being a fantastic 07:32.

Great running by everyone 😄

On a lovely sunny Wednesday evening, Anne was already waiting outside the sports centre as Adam arrived with a coffee to sharpen his energy levels.

While waiting for the other runners, Anne was talking Adam through the route she was thinking of as she had passed plenty of litter.

It wasn't long before Julie arrived and we had a quick catch up as Kirsty arrived. We decided that we will start with the run and plogging as we can keep Melanie updated with our location as we move along. So from the leisure centre we headed towards Woking park along the stream. Onces we got to the bridge we quickly crossed it only seeing very little litter to pick up. We quickly made it down the path to Elbridge Lane. There were lots of plastic bottles which were thrown over the wired fence making it tricky to get hold of but the GoodGyming persistence paid off and we manned to get most of it.

We then turn to go back into Woking park as we recalled the route being messy in places around the parkrun route. Once in to wooded area there were pieces of litter in little spots to the left and right as we made our way through the wooded area, as the litter became less and less which was a great thing to see something else took our notice!

As we followed the path around to join the stream we quickly noticed some Himalayan balsam along the stream. The first batch we saw was too close to the steam bank to try and tackle and remove it but we quickly came across some more further down. Before a word was said we all dived in and started removing them, and quick stamping then down. It was at this point Melanie joined us feeling a little irritated being late from work. She was very ready to get involved and stomp down on some Himalayan balsam and found hearing the crinkling sounds of crashing the Himalayan balsam rather therapeutic.

Once we noticed we had been crushing the Himalayan balsam for a long time! We decided to get back to plogging on our way back to the lake centre with the two full bags of litter we collected.

Awesome work from Woking GoodGymers 😁

Rob, Stephanie and Julie were working with Woking Environment Action (WEAct) at St John's Lye. At the edge of the wood near the playing field there is a pond which had become overgrown with willow and it was barely getting any light. Due to the dry weather there was no water so we were able to walk on the soft mud, avoiding some tiny froglets, and remove large branches of willow that had grown across the pond. Stephanie and Rob did a great job of cutting the smaller branches, sawing some larger ones and getting all the brash to the habit piles being created in the undergrowth nearby. Within 1 1/2 hours the pond space was clear and looking great. Now all it needs is a good downpour to fill the pond and it will be a great feature for visitors to the area, both human and other species.

Looking forward to our next task on Wednesday, we will be plogging!