Happy bird-day to us! This week marks 4 years since we launched GoodGym in Windsor and Maidenhead and it was brilliant to see a record number of GoodGym chicks and chaps at our celebratory group run/party. This evening's brood included 25 of us, the biggest number since launch night back in 2020.

Our evening was a fun mix of team games and an eggcellent task: filling knitted chicks and bunnies with chocolate eggs for Alexander Devine Children's Hospice Services' Easter fundraising campaign. As one GoodGymer from team 'Diya's Darlings' put it, we helped with 'reverse births for our four birthdays'!

A warm welcome to Didem and Amy, who were joining us for the first time. I warned them at the start that this 'group run' might not be 100% representative of our typical Wednesday evening, but maybe it was the perfect introduction to the weird and wonderful stuff we get up to?

There was loads of laughter, silliness and cheering, we did some walking and running round the park, we used litter pickers and hoops, hi vis and gardening gloves (in our relay game) and there was a lot of chocolate (although this time we didn't eat it as was part of the task). With many hands we blitzed the task super quick and made a difference for a local charity. There was also quite a lot of fancy dress and a healthy dose of competitive spirit.

Just a 'normal' GoodGym session then!

Something we don't normally do at GoodGym is have epic games of GoodGym themed Pictionary or 'Guess the GoodGym beneficiary' quizzes, which we did enjoy last night. However these games gave us plenty of opportunity to share stories about what we've been doing for the last 4 years, so hopefully it was a nice overview for newcomers as well as an opportunity for everyone else to reminisce.

The chick stuffing task was a cracking task, partly thanks to task owner Yazmin being so organised and bringing everything to the community centre for us, and partly because the chicks and bunnies were SO CUTE! Huge kudos to the army of skilled crafters, including a team of GoodGymers, who made these little characters.

Now you shouldn't count your chickens, but we couldn't play 'guess the number of chicks' without a count, so Yazmin and I risked it. The grand total was 356, which is worth a fantastic £1068 to the charity.

At the end of the evening I tallied up all the points from the various games and the final scoreboard read:

2 Awesome for this 30 points (although I regret not awarding Jess points for her amazing Victorian child meets washer woman fancy dress, so maybe that number should have been higher)

The Mighty Ducks 40 points

Diya's Darlings 49 points

The Regal Bunnies 58 points and the win! This team really shone in the Pictionary and pun rounds.

Having said that, I really think everyone who came along this evening (and who has contributed to our last four years) is a winner. We've now helped over 90 charities and community groups, venues and projects in our local area. We've done 5,375 good deeds in our local area, including 625 visits to isolated older people.

Winner, winner, chicken winner!

7 Goodgymmers answered the call for volunteers to knit or crochet Easter chicks or bunnies, which will each be filled with a creme egg and sold in aid of Alexander Devine Children's Hospice. At the time of writing, 29 have been completed, with maybe some more on their way before next week's deadline. Each will be sold for £3, meaning that we will have contributed at least £87 to this worthwhile charity. Well done to the team of Clare, Claire, Gillian, Jess, Nicola, Rosie and Sheila. Egg-cellent work!

On a freezing cold morning, Clare, Sol and Sheila made their way to Windsor to help marshal at the Santa Dash in aid of Alexander Devine Children's Hospice. It was an early start, gathering before it was light, but we were welcomed with hot drinks and a friendly group of volunteers. We had been asked to come looking Christmassy, and we all filled the brief, and Claire certainly did not disappoint, coming dressed in elf leggings, snowman hat and santa glasses. She looked fabulous and was nicknamed by one of the young runners as the Funky Outfit Lady! After a briefing fron Tai, our Taskowner, we were split up into groups, each responsible for marshalling 1 km of the course. We were assigned to the stretch along the Windsor Castle walls under the leadership of Sally. We put the signs out and walked our section of the course, deciding where to place the marshals. Our biggest concern was keeping the runners out of the way of the tourist groups queuing to visit the castle (or was it the other way round?), and a very narrow section due to some walkway resurfacing works. Some discussion with the castle staff resulted in the tourists being let into the castle grounds earlier than usual to relieve the pressure. Eventually the first of the runners came through, and we encouraged them along with clapping and cheering as they toiled their way up the hill to the castle and down the other side again (and helped keep us warm too). It was quite a sight, seeing them all in their red Santa suits, and the tourists cheered them on too. There were lots of families taking part, and some faces we recognised - Goodgymmers Amanda and Vikie and their families, and maybe others we didn't recognise, hidden under their Santa beards! 400 or so runners later, we could leave our posts and make our way back to the finish. Well done to everyone that took part