Wrapping up our final Wednesday visit of the year

For our last visit of 2020 to help St Anthony’s Church and the Antz Kidz Activity Centre, the five of us channelled our inner Christmas elf and got to work packing away a range items into storage.

As we moved things from one place to the next, we worked as a collective, staying together to transport the pieces while ensuring everyone had enough light due to the dark and slippery conditions - while also (unsuccessfully) trying to avoid the tree branches in our path.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go... or should that be ho ho, ho ho...

As we marched back and forth, we felt a little like the seven dwarves during this task... which got us thinking about who would be who in our gang. We opted for the following - sometimes giving ourselves opposite traits or ones that matched who we are...:

Manjit - Bashful (clearly an opposite)

Mabu - Grumpy (because he's definitely not)

Sandy - Dopey (you can decide on that one)

Sara - Sleepy (she never tires of good deeds)

Naomi - Sneezy (because her hard work is nothing to be sneezed at... and someone had to be it haha)

Eva - Doc (for her organisational prowess)

Salvo = Happy (because he makes us happy!)

A bit of a masterpiece

You'll see in the photos that one of the things we were putting into storage was a rather impressive display piece. We later found out that the model had won second place in an international art competition run in conjunction with the Natural History Museum. Thousands from across the world had entered the contest themed around endangered animals, and we can understand why this original and unique entry got the attention of the judges.

The talented team at Antz Kidz came up with the idea of using memories and photos of wildlife they had seen on holiday, and with the help of a recycling artist, created a scene made from upcycled items that depicted the continents Asia, South America and Africa.

What a talented group they are! We look forward to seeing more of their amazing talents as we continue to work together in the new year.

Big thanks to everyone involved in the wonderful times we have had on each weekly visit. We enjoy our Wednesday missions so much, and are touched by everyone's mutual kindness, generosity and support whenever we are together. Roll on 2021!

Raking it in

For this week's Wednesday's visit to St Anthony’s Church and the Antz Kidz Activity Centre we continued to do an un-beleafable job maintaining the site's outdoor area.

Armed with rakes, brooms, dustpans and brushes and a wheel barrow, the tree of us had a wheely good time collecting the leaves and debris and adding it to their compost pile.

Once we made our sweeping statement and completed the task at hand, we rounded off the evening with a little festive fun... and dressed up a nearby bush as the Grinch! The likeness was uncanny! Though the Grinch himself probably would've hated it!

And on that note, l will leave you with some choice words from the green one himself - perfect for this time of year: "Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store, maybe Christmas, perhaps means a little more."

It's been runderful being back and supporting our lovely task owners for the last few weeks of the year now that the restrictions have been lifted. And we look forward to many more weeks working together in the coming year.

For the last few weeks we have been helping St Anthony's Catholic Primary School and the Antz Kidz Activity Centre with a rather fun and therapeutic activity.

As part of their new playground refresh project, we were tasked with priming and painting recycled car tyres in preparation for them becoming part of a brightly coloured play area.

This week five of us continued adding vibrant shades to the rubber rings, as we chattered on a variety of topics as always. As the colour scheme for the tyres is that of a rainbow, it got us all thinking about the much-loved eighties children's TV show of the same name, plus its iconic characters...

I was dubbed the group's Zippy - for obvious reasons, while Pam was sweet-natured George, and Naomi was inquisitive Bungle. And our lovely run leader Manjit was of course presenter Geoffrey.

But who were guest star musicians Rod, Jane and Freddy? I figured as task owner Salvo was a music lover himself, he could be Rod, GG newcomer Jess could then be Jane.... making fellow task owner Eva... Freddy - for absolutely no reason! Or perhaps Eva could be Georgette, George's cousin! Tune in next time to find out!

This evening, Manjit, Sandy and Milly got together (at a safe distance) for the first return task of the lockdown 2.

We were helping St Anthonys Church clear leaves that had filled the adjacent school playground and made it rather dangerous due to rain.

• Sandy got swept away and soon finished the job
• Merry Manjit made light work of it
• Milly muddled along and mucked in.

Five wheelbarrows later we had cleared the way and made the area safe again.

We enjoyed our biscuits and watermelon; thank you so much to Eva, Salvatore and the team.

Another lockdown eve task and another few weeks of postponing all non essential activities but we wont let that leaf us sad! Oh no we won't! We have the be-leaf that we will be back sooner than you can think of the next leaf pun!

Our task tonight was to clear the school's side entrance of yep, you've guessed it... leaves!

• Harsha was gleaful as ever

• Sara was still in disbeleaf about Costa Coffee

• Naomi was merryleaf carrying on with the task despite the burpee chat!

• Jenny was slow-leaf collecting piles for her wheelbarrow and

• Manjit was close-leaf following everyone around giving them the light

We must of filled the wheelbarrows 14 times over ... just goes to show how leafy Slough is!

Harsha our Supersta

• With all her Wolfpack challenges

• She motivates us to make things happen

• Always smiling and happy

• Even when shes doing burpees

• Well done supersta Harsha

• On your 50th good deed... we salute ya!

Congratulations!

And as always! thank you to our wonderful task owner Eva for our special flowers! We love coming to St Anthony's School and Church and will miss our sessions over the next few weeks!

The terrific trio were out tonight! Great to see Sara and Meera back out on a task.

On arrival Salvo our task owner teased us by asking us to come inside the annex... ooh an indoor task we thought... but we were just walking through to get to the back garden...

And actually, we all needed the fresh air so it was good to be outdoors instead.

The task was to rake the leaves, barrel them up and dispose on the dump... easy peasy!

Sara and Meera started raking the leaves into near little piles, whilst I had the job of wheelbarrowing them to the leafy pile. After watching my method of squating, bending, lifting... smarty plants Sara suggested I used a dustpan to scoop them up in! Genius!

Around 15 trips later we were done.

Thank you as always for our little treats after the task.