We used group runs and individual missions to deliver important cash collection envelopes on behalf of our local Prospect Hospice to Swindon & the surrounding suburbs. These envelopes are vital in raising much needed funds. Please give our Sam a lot of 'eewws and aahhs' for the injuries sustained whilst tumbling off her bike during this mission.

Fifteen GoodGym field agents pounded the streets of Swindon, Highworth, Blunsdon, Wroughton and Wootton Bassett delivering ‘Light up a Life’ Christmas celebration service packs on behalf of the Prospect Hospice.

Restrictions meant the service this year was held online, rather than in the grounds of the Hospice. The service successfully maintained the traditions of readings, carols and the lighting of a life candle, keeping those lost in the thoughts of their family and friends.

The ‘Light up a Life’ service packs were split into post code areas for distribution. Delivering the deliveries to the deliverers were Simon, Luke, 8 and Grace, 5 (although the latter two stayed in the car playing on their iPads).

GoodGym'ers walked, ran, cycled and pushed a buggy around every nook and cranny finding streets and getting all the packs delivered. A massive thank you and congratulations to Gina for delivering 40 packs around SN3, mostly on her bike on her 100th good deed. Wow! And Becky for managing to run a whopping 30K delivering packs around Wroughton, Overtown and Chiseldon. And a big thumbs up to Mike for delivering two packs earler than anticipated late at night. And, finally, well done to Ashleigh and Cath for safely making it through Murder Alley dressed as Spiderman and Wonder Woman!

A huge thank you to everyone who took part and got over 150 packs safely delivered in time for the service.

Our weekend mission was to “takeover” the gift wrapping stand in the Swindon Brunel Shopping Centre to raise money for Prospect Hospice.

You can read all about Part One in our separate report. Part Two of our epic all day Community Mission, 9 hours in total (!), started during the lunchtime hurry flurry. The afternoon dream team were Safety First Simon, Tracey, and Sue who took part in her first Community Mission and had stepped in to save the day at the last minute. Tracey arrived just in time to take the reins from Jo who was mid-way through wrapping a pair of slippers – a popular choice of gift this year! And from that point we were rushed off our feet for a couple of hours. Some customers had so many gifts that all three of us had to help out.

We wrapped all sorts of gifts – big and small ones, single gifts and piles of gifts, easy shapes and more tricky ones. Some wanted elaborate bows, others curly ribbon. There is a certain amount of pressure wrapping gifts for donations quick-speed with expectant eyes watching as you battle with folds, and tape, and glitter! Simon was feeling a tad under pressure being watched by no less than his mother in law, and then wife Emma The Trainer and children who had turned up to cheer us on! Did we mention that Sue is also Simon’s mother in law and had spent her weekend visit to Swindon helping out Goodgym. Our hero!

We helped people choose paper and ribbons, removed price tags, wrote Secret Santa labels so as not reveal the giver, and even wrapped a birthday gift in the least Christmassy paper we could find! After a couple of hours there was chance for a short break. We think everyone else must have been having afternoon tea! Not wanting to miss out and to warm us up from the artic conditions, Sue popped off in search of hot drinks. Meanwhile, Simon seemed to enjoy flipping his Santa hat about his head, much like you would with long hair, as he declared that it had been a long time since he had been able to do that!

One of our favourite bits of the task is chatting to donators about the gifts they’d bought and their connections with Prospect Hospice. One lady was a patient of the hospice herself. And there was a lovely dad who was explaining to the children why they were getting gifts wrapped as it was important to support the hospice, before one of the children pointed out that it was also because Dad was rubbish at wrapping!

We also helped answer questions from passers-by such as:

• Do you know where Santa is? Yes, just follow the elves
• Do you have a pen? Yes we do, thanks for checking!!
• Have you seen Bernice? Maybe, but more importantly, has Bernice seen us!?

We clearly looked like a friendly helpful bunch.

We made an ace team. Sue had a natural flair for the bows and the chatting, Simon turned out to be a real charmer too and had mastered the hexagonal box by the end of the day. Those customers seemed to just know that he was a dab hand at a six-sided gift. And Tracey was noted for speed and educating customers on the art of the wrap so they could go home and pretend they’d done it themselves - all part of the service!

It’s another Christmassy task on Tuesday for our last group run of the year. If you want to start your ‘doing good while getting fit’ New Year’s resolutions early so you can feel all smug about it, come along and join us! We’re off to Gateway Church in Eastleigh to help sort toys for Good News 4 Swindon’s Christmas Toy appeal. We will be sorting toys ready for distribution to families in need. It’s a 6k run there and back, in total. Sign up here. A lovely way to end our Goodgym Year!

At Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid…of wrapping awkward shaped presents, because the GoodGym professional wrapping crew is at hand! Returning for our second year to support Prospect Hospice with its Christmas gift wrapping service, this year we had been invited to takeover the wrapping station all day.

On the morning shift, braving the torrential rain (missing parkrun suddenly didn’t seem a bad thing) were Special Kay, Gaby, Queen of Puns, Jo and Jo’s husband, Jonathan who was roped in as Chief Tea Boy.

Having collected our trolley full of wrapping paper, ribbon and collection buckets, we set up our stall in arguably the coldest place in Swindon – the front of the Brunel Centre. Jonathan was swiftly dispatched for hot drinks – but the latte didn’t last long after a coffee catastrophe. After a quick Supermarket Sweep style trolley dash for emergency kitchen roll to clear up, we donned our Santa hats and set to work.

With Kay’s floristry expertise making her an expert in bow making and Gaby’s previous experience of gift wrapping for a very famous high street store, they made the perfect wrapping team leaving Jo and Jonathan to shake the collection buckets and draw the crowds in. The beautifully wrapped presents were soon stacking up, all topped off with magnificent bows...

everyone was BOWled over by how good the gifts looked!

And thanks to the generosity and kindness of the people of Swindon, the collection buckets were soon very heavy – Prospect is a much loved and valued local charity and it is always heartwarming to hear just how many people have benefited from the care and support that the hospice provides.

With a quick drinks and mince pie break (it wouldn’t be GoodGym in December without a mince pie or two) the morning flew by and it was soon time to hand over to the afternoon crew of Tracey, Elf and Safety First Simon, and Simon’s mother-in-law Sue to complete our last weekend Community Mission of the year. But it’s not quite yet a wrap for GoodGym Swindon in 2019, coming up this week we have: Toy Sorting for Good News 4 Swindon's 'Christmas Toy Appeal', our last group run of the year!

Our last Community Mission of 2019 – We're Open Christmas Party @ Coffee 1!

Saturday saw GoodGym Swindon take over a paint station at Prospect's Run the Rainbow at Lydiard Park.

This colourful event helped raise vital funds for the end of life care centre serving people in Swindon, Marlborough and North East Wiltshire.

We welcomed Zdeni who joined us from GoodGym Bristol. Andrew was particularly impressed with her 'wings' and 134 tasks to date!!

We met up outside the Forest Café, before moving onto the event field for the obligatory portrait, landscape and square photo call. We were lucky enough to be pictured by Swindon parkruns resident snappy chappy James ‘Photo’ Booth who had turned up to take photos for the Prospect Hospice.

Photo session over, Emma 'The Trainer’ led us over to meet the organisers, who briefed us to basically lob paint over the runners (avoiding their faces) then clear up after ourselves. We collected our marshal bibs and dust masks and headed off to the red station close to Jo’s Junction to set up and get ready for the start of the run.

Kirsty, Mike, Emily, Charles and Tracy along with mini GG’ers Owain, Rhys, Luke and Grace were the ‘decorators’ while Helen was busy taking the all important pictures of the event.

It wasn’t long before the runners came through. Soon a red mist descended, but all in a good cause, in fact Sam was looking at the world through rose coloured glasses.

We were joined by the Black Shirt of the family, Stuart, who hot footed it from pacing at the Kew 10K in London to join us for the final moments of the event. Before we knew it, the fun was over and was time to clear up before making our way home to clean off and clean up.

This was a great event to be a part of, knowing we were helping runners raise lots of money for such a great cause.

Keen to do another Community Mission? We have another one coming up this Saturday, once again at Lydiard Park but this time at St Mary's Church for GG Super Saturday! Don't delay - help us celebrate 10 years of GoodGym by signing up HERE today!

Five enthusiast GoodGymmers arrived at the stand in the Brunel Shopping Centre on Saturday afternoon, ready for four and half hours of volunteering to collect donations for Prospect Hospice in return for gift wrapping services. Emily, Jo, Sam, Ashleigh and Tracey took over from the morning volunteers, at a large stand inside a white picket fence covered in tinsel – how festive! With a beautiful array of rolls of wrapping paper, ribbons, gift tags and donation buckets we had everything we needed.

We split into two teams, one inside the picket fence of productivity, and one outside to gather donations. Crazy Legs hadn’t even managed to get her Prospect Hospice sash on before one eager customer arrived, needing help with making their gift look bow-tiful (!). Jo was doing a great job of multi-tasking – encouraging people to part with spare change whilst directing people to the stand and introducing Tracey as a ‘professional’ gift wrapper – eeek! – no pressure there then!

We wrapped gifts in all shapes and sizes from tiny pieces of jewellery, unusual shaped bottles and a huge foot spa and everything in between. With a few items of clothing to wrap, folding skills were also needed. We even added to the service by looking out for price tags that had been left on some items. All for a bargain minimum donation of £2 per gift...

No wrapping paper rip-off here! From the compliments we got, it’s clear our scissor and folding skills were a cut above the rest!

One of the most enjoyable parts of the day was chatting to the customers and listening to the stories behind the gifts - the ones that were thank-yous for the local post office and pharmacy, the ones that were secret Santa gifts, the ones that were going overseas. The people of Swindon are very friendly and good chatters!

We hadn’t appreciated the pressure of getting the just the right size of paper so not to be wasteful, making crisp folds, making the sellotape tidy, tying bows and curling ribbons. And how do you get rid of lots of red glitter that's escaped from the ribbon when you have a white fluffy dressing gown to wrap - but challenge overcome! It was surprising how many people asked to leave gifts for loved ones with us while they went off to do more shopping or to get cash for their donations, although this wasn’t allowed so we politely declined but it’s good to know we didn’t look like gangsta’ wrappers!

We were quite near the doors and the temperatures were suitably wintery. A couple of hours in and in need of refreshment...

...the cavalry arrived in the form of Crazy Legs with cups of hot bru(nel). After a quick warm up we were back on a roll!

Many customers knew people who had benefited from Prospect Hospice and it was good to be helping a local organisation that provides such a valuable service and is so dependent on the donations like the ones we were raising. The good people of Swindon were very generous, with most giving more than the minimum donation and countless others emptying their pockets into the collection buckets.

Ashleigh and Sam did such a good job we estimate their arms were a good inch longer than the start of the day due to the weight of their bucket!

We were Swin-don and it was soon time to wrap up for the day. We’ve tried to think of more great puns about wrapping paper, but they were all tearable. After a quick pack up and return of all the kit and donations to the management office, we were on our way – some to the comfort of a sofa and warm cup of tea and others to the comfort of more lovely GoodGym company at Christmas do at the bowling alley. Another successful community mission complete! Why not join us for another Community Mission this week at Darkroom Espresso? We need your help to make it a success? Click here to find out more and sign up!