The dreaded Covid-19 may have meant the postponement of this year's summer Olympics in Tokyo but the GoodGymers of Swindon plus our guest Daniel from GoodGym Bristol were made of stronger stuff and so the first ever(?) GoodGym Swindon Olympics took place within multiple venues without the need for any masks or gloves.

As the clock ticked down to the start, webcams throughout the town sprang into life as we all 'Zoom-ed' into view and the weekly GoodGym Swindon met up with each other virtually once again. Host Charles took up the challenge of organiser for this week's task and the Swindon GoOlympics was duly launched. Alas there was no James Bond to parachute in HM the Queen with her Corgis to formally open the proceedings, just a hairy Yorkshire Terrier mutt.

After a 'complaint' about the way

that Charles had posted messages

on the WhatsApp forum

tonight's 'contestants' were welcomed

to the event

word by word

with one word

on each page...!

After the glorious sunshine over the Easter weekend, this week's icebreaker which was to state what song reminded people of summer or summer holidays and what an eclectic bunch we are with everything from Cliff Richard to the Isley Brothers. Then it was time to get your running shoes into the starting blocks as each item was produced and off everyone ran to see who could locate the object first. The objects ranged from a piece of fruit, a pair of clean socks and from a corkscrew to a DVD. After ten objects had been located there was a tie between Stuart and our Zoom host Gaby, with Gaby winning the 'playoff'. A virtual gold medal has duly been awarded. After the virtual closing ceremony, like every post GoodGym task, we had a good old natter till suddenly our time was up.

We hope you enjoyed GoOlympics and it helped you forget everything that is going on for an hour. See you again next week for another fun social!

As many of us are now connecting with friends and family using Zoom and Houseparty for video chatting, it was time for a different type of house party. After giving our brains a workout last week, this week we connected and caught up over a game of Hoy Bingo. What bingo, I hear you ask? Well, if like me you have enjoyed (or even endured) many family holidays incarcerated at a certain (not red coated) holiday camp, you’ll be familiar with this high stakes game, that uses playing cards instead of numbers. Fun for all the family – so much so that my brother-in-law was roped in as a special guest to be our caller!

Having set ourselves up on Zoom, with the customary glitches that have neatly replaced the usual GoodGym Swindon Strava palaver, it was time to welcome Dave (or was it Claire? If so, lockdown has hit her hard) to explain the rules. Make a 3x3 grid of 9 playing cards and when your card is called, turn it over. Shout when you get a line, stand up when you only need one more card, and when you’ve got a full house, shout Hoy!

Having made the executive decision to mute everyone – Mike Etiquette is not a new GoodGym member but may be Adam’s best friend – we got underway. Soon players were on their feet, waiting for that one last card and the sweet taste of victory. It turns out that we are quite a competitive lot! I wonder if Emma the Trainer has ever had so much excitement on her birthday?!

With cats, dogs, children and the occasional husband all joining in, the games flew by and we kindly released Dave/Claire back to what passes for normality.

Hopefully everyone had an ace time!

But of course, it wouldn’t be a GoodGym Swindon gathering if we didn’t chat long into the night – the Oasis lockins may be off the cards for a while, but that didn’t stop the usual chatty suspects until it was time to jack it in when the laptop battery died.

We’ll be meeting up again next week for more virtual fun – meanwhile, stay safe and if you haven’t already, why not sign up to our Community Mission to write letters to our friends at Margaret Matthews and Prince Rupert Court? For further details and to sign up contact Emma at emma.s@goodgym.org

We’re all missing our Tuesday night Group Runs, so the GoodGym Swindon family have been getting together virtually to share some fun!

Last week, we got together to focus on self-care. This week, Quiz Master Mike and Scoring Extraordinaire Jo (plus thanks to Gaby for question checking) hosted a GoodGym Swindon focused quiz. The theme? A round each on the famous GoodGym slogan:

Do Good, Get Fit (and answer some questions about pictures!)

There were laughs, there were quandaries, and at one point we even thought Helen spilt beer all over her laptop! Want to take part? Check out the questions here and the Quiz Master script with answers here!

We’re hoping to keep a GoodGym Swindon activity going on Tuesday nights over the course of the crisis, with plans of bingo, alongside lovely cheery activities that can be done at any time such as our current Community Mission writing to some of the residents at Prince Rupert Court and Margaret Matthews Court.

We know 6pm is a tricky time for many (we had two people join the quiz this week cooking dinner!), so we might review what time these take place. Watch this space!