How many GoodGymers does it take to put a ladder up? We're still not sure...but we had a very enthusiastic turnout for a Wednesday night of chair-fixing, painting, and plenty of cake at Maidenhead Community Centre.

As well as our tasks for the evening, we held a belated celebration for our amazing friend Kanika, who recently marked an incredible 500 good deeds! We were reminded of the poem written when she reached 100 (repeated here with an extra 400 added for good measure):

500 good deeds by Kanika!

This GoodGymer is one awesome chica.

Skilled with a paintbrush, a spade or rake,

And she doesn’t fuss when she can’t have the cake.

She’s always smiling, thoughtful and calm

An animal lover, who would do no harm.

Her capacity for good knows no limits,

She even bought us all baby Guinness.

She cycles here and there on her Carrera

Even the Brighton 50km didn’t scare her!

She walks a lot too and even parkruns

She inspires others to get off their bums.

As a Taskforce member she goes beyond and above

She helps me share the GoodGym love.

She has lead on over 30 a session

And she fits this all in around her other obsession...

You think I mean Diya, but that’s not it!

I’m talking about a team with a red and white kit

Thank you Arsenal for bringing Kanika to the UK!

And now there’s only one thing left to say…

We love you Kanika, we do

We love you Kanika, we do

We love you Kanika, we do

Oh Kanika, we love you!

Thank you to everyone for coming, to Rachel and Sheila for the yummy baked goods, Amy for a medal complete with a tiny high-vis jacket, and to Georgeta for being brave enough to scale the ladder!

A single wall stood no chance against the onslaught of roller brushes and paint brush wielding not-so-dirty dozen Goodgymmers!

The photos "paint" the full picture of this evenings session. Task owner and GGer Jack was very pleased with the output of this fantastic group.

Watch this space for another potential session for a second coat.

A dozen GoodGymmers, a few chairs to be mended, and some pumpkins that didn't need juggling but were juggled anyway. That's pretty much how this Wednesday's session went.

In between, we had enough time to catch up. Some tried their hand at the coffee machine, some others were brave enough to try the output.

Fixing the chairs is a fiddly task but again the GG spirit won out.

The best part, we saved the community center £1700 in just an hour by mending those chairs. Task owner Jack can sleep easier tonight, though I hope it's not on those chairs!

A small but perfectly formed group of 6 Goodgymers met at the community centre to form a litter picking plan

After splitting into pairs we made our way round the streets and in no tome at all had filled 6 bags with an array of rubbish including a few single pairs of frozen gloves!

We made our way back to the community centre to deposit of sacks, (like santas poor relations) and then onto our homes to warm up

Another good deed done!

7 Goodgymers attended the Maidenhead Community centre to help mend chairs. A satisfying but fiddly task with a production line quickly set up.

Tony with the drill to widen the holes of the previously ineffective plastic attachments. Sol, Jen, Angela and Sheila on the delicate task of inserting the receiving bolt into the top of the seat and hiding it beneath the fabric.

Matt was in control of screwing the seat to the frames before the final quality control station manned by Jack.

The experienced among us brought crotchet hooks and made quick work of getting stuck in and keeping the production line going.

We lost a screwdriver and searched high and low to find it back safely in the toolbox. The joys of searching in the sofas brought out all sorts of delights from their former owners. But this time a domino and Scrabble piece for our efforts.

All tidied and hoovered before time was up.

10 Goodgymmers met at the Community Centre for tonight’s chair mending task.

We welcomed first timer Mark to the group by introducing ourselves and naming a film starting with the first letter of our name.

The group then headed into the park for 3 rounds of meet and retreat. Runners set off clockwise and the walkers anticlockwise, when they met they did a different exercise each time (jumping jacks, squats and lunges) and then retreated back the way they came. When they met again they confused themselves and went the opposite way to the last time and repeated!

Once all 3 rounds were completed the team headed back into the community centre to tackle the task. There have been multiple chair mending tasks this year but for Adam, Anne-Laure and Mark it was their first time and so Jack, our chairperson for the night, gave a demonstration and the team set to work.

Mark, Gillian, Rachel, Adam and Anne-Laure tackled fixing the screws onto the seats, whilst Scarlett, Matthew, Amy and Jess worked on attaching the seats to the bases. Jack and Amy then caused confusion on which way to turn the screwdriver – clockwise or anticlockwise? And was it a different direction depending on how you were looking at it??! I’m not sure this ever got resolved!

Lots of screwing, poking, pushing and pulling later the team had fixed 10 chairs, saving the community centre another whopping £2250 on purchasing new ones!

Just in case we weren’t dizzy enough by this point we then played a round of musical chairs where the chairless person came up with a chair based exercise for everyone to complete. Of course we completed the rounds both clockwise and anticlockwise and were serenaded with a series of ‘chair’ based songs such as ‘I’ll be chair for you’ , ‘Reach out (I'll be Chair)' and of course music from Cher herself!