A great turnout for our first school task... No school dinners on the menu today but we did offer a shoulder to crayon at Ryvers Primary School... Thank you to Chrissy one of our regular runners who arranged this task for us

A Squat is a Squat..No??

As we had a longer distance to run today, we headed to the park for a quick warm up and stretches... and Chris learnt that there was more than one variation to the squat! A new piece of knowledge was then shared by Chris regarding pedestrian crossings! We learn so many useful facts from our runners!

I ran so fast I got in-DIG-estion!

We made it to school in super speedy time ( clearly the childhood chills of being late were in the back of our minds) and the lovely Chrissy gave us a low down on the tasks in hand... we divided into three teams and got straight to work

1. The Planters
2. The Potters and
3. The Painters

Even in darkening conditions the teams did really well! The painters had quality control checks in place via Sara No fence slat was left untouched... The potters planted cress... I mean viola and pansies which all looked like cress to me into 4 pots... and the ploughers in super quick time cultivated the two large flower beds... and lone man Darren got the task of ensuring the smaller plant holders got the love and attention they needed

Aloe from the other side..

We faired goodbye to Chrissy and team who were doubling up as task owners and runners today as they stayed behind to lock up the school gates and we headed back to base...

Setting Trends the Teachers Way!

Have to give a special mention to our teachers runners Gail, Meera and Keira for always thinking outside the box! When we talk about safety and protective personal equipment they went a step further and donned the white overall

What better way to make sure the red t-shirts stay red! Well done ladies

Next weeks task is a shorter run of 2km each way to The Riverside Centre at Jubilee River..

We have the whats app group set up now so please do feel free to join it ( email me with your number and I will add you)

Christmas PARTY - FRIDAY 30th NOVEMBER 19:30 The Corner House, Windsor

Drinks at Salt Hill Activity Centre on Monday 15th October after the task/run

Everyone is welcome

Have a great week everyone Manjit

Goodgym Slough are now 8 weeks into running and doing good deeds... Each week new runners join us and this week it was Meera who took the plunge to run and do good with us...A warm welcome to you

Before we headed out to help ** The Parvaaz Project** we were joined briefly by Fiona Perry, Healthwatch Officer from The Healthwatch Slough. She gave us a brief overview of what they do as an independent national champion for Slough people who use health, social care services.

More about Healthwatch can be found on their website www.healthwatchslough.co.uk

Thank you for visiting us and the free pens

We did a couple of warm up games before heading out on our run... which dare I say it... confused the runners.. Mental note on a more simpler warm up next time... Thanks to Darren, Chrissy and Keira for back marking today

Raison D'etre

On arrival at the centre, Alex, our task owner, who is visibly so passionate about the centre and the work they do, showed us some photos of the centre users and how it has impacted their lives.

Hearing the stories was heart warming and is great to hear the difference our good deeds make

Skip it out

Our main task today was to clear out the bin store area and empty everything into the skip

Michelle, Chrissy, Ashu, Darren, Rachel and Keira jumped straight into this task! Keira literally jumped into the bin store and Darren actually jumped into a full skip... Never seen so many happy runners with their hands in soggy bin bags

Great job though Team Gloves

Another Brick In The Wall

Ricky and Dan Our tools men needed little persuasion to don the gloves and the mask and got straight to work on scrubbing off the peeling paint from the brick wall

Don't stop be-leafing

The rest of the team cleared away bags of Autumn leaves and public litter from the car park areas.

Once again, so great to see how 30 minutes of our voluntary work has on the task owners premises..

Thank you team Goodgym Slough for such a great effort again.

To Plank or Not to Plank..

Meera said Not! so after one round of plank vs run, we let our newest runner decide for us ( much to the relief of everyone else)

Missions Are Go!

Pleased to report that we are getting some Mission referrals on the system and GoodGym central are busy pairing verified runners with missions

If I have checked your docs and they have been approved then please double check your settings (via profile pic) and make sure you click 'mission' under settings

Chris and I look forward to doing the first mission in a few weeks

Slight change to next weeks task. Claire from WWT has asked if we could help label pavement drains with Yellow Fish Plagues rather than cutting back the brambles around the stream. More details under Group Runs

Social!

Michelle suggested we have our first social! Everyone unanimously agreed.. so lets get a date in the diary..

I've set up a what's app group.. to join it just send me a message (07718 905 286)

We can use this group to agree tasks, training runs, put forward any suggestions... and book the odd social...

Thanks again to everyone who came this evening

Manjit

14 runners braved the unknown, donned their waders and dug deep clear the stream last night in Sloughs Salt Hill Park!

We had 3 new comers to GoodGym last night, big welcome to Darren, Shalini and Nick who all did a great job last night and got stuck straight in on their first task! We also had three tourists from GoodGym Ealing including myself who was covering for Manjit while she’s on her holidays, thanks for having me!

We started outside the activity centre with a few introductions before heading out for a couple of laps of the park. As our evenings duties were taking place in the park itself we needed to get in a bit of running before we got started! The group did laps at their own pace stopping at the same point in between and doing squats to regroup each time. After a couple of times around we were ready to meet Claire from Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust who was all set with the waders and litter pickers laid out for us!

She gave a little health and safety information to prepare us as best as she could but who knew what we were to unearth…

What lies beneath…

We had two groups, one on the banks helping to bag all the things we collected from the stream and one team knee in the stream itself digging around to get out as much rubbish as possible!

A few mystery bags were uncovered and TONS of litter but probably the worst was the floating dead rat… we decided to leave that where it was to naturally decompose!

I’m glad to say there were no accidents and as much as we all love a comedy fall everyone emerged from the water nice and dry with no leaky waders!

After packing up we had plenty of time for a good fitness session where we had 4 ‘stations of hell’ (they weren’t that bad!) with a mixture of different HIIT and strength exercises at each. We also had sprints in between each station to really get everyones heart racing! We then finished up with a little team sprint off before saying our goodbyes!

Thank you!

Thank you for a wonderful evening and for all your efforts to help your community. It was great to see a new area and meet you all, it’s fantastic to see a new area thriving with lots of members really getting into the GoodGym spirit!

Nothing stopped our super seven runners this evening.... after their body parts warm up they cartwheeled their way around Slough dropping leaflets in the freestyle way only GoodGym runners can ( one leg in front of the other!)... for Slough Gymnastics Club

A very warm welcome to Jen as a first timer and to Anthony as an old timer but first time to Slough

Tool less

Fifth session for Ricky but no tools this time... just 200 leaflets which were delivered in a jiffy

Speedy Seven

After completing the task in a supersonic time we all headed out to Godolphin Playing Fields for some anaerobic speed work

I think the guys were hoping for a nice gentle end to a bank holiday Monday but instead they got this:

• 100 meter sprint.. 30 second recovery
• 200 meter sprint...60 second recovery
• 300 meter sprint... 60 second recovery
• 400 meter sprint... and sprawl out on the floor until ready to reverse repeat the session... phew!

And the judges scores are in

10 out of 10 for effort, grace and style! Amazing run by Anthony who really tested his lungs today... to Jen, Keira and Lorraine for their superb efforts and finally to Ricky and Aneta for motivating each other ( or maybe competing against each other!)

Whats up?

Various runners have suggested we put a whats app group together for our runners... I'm more than happy to set this up... just message me your number on 07718 905 286

Holiday... celebrate...

I'm away next week so the lovely Liv from Ealing will be covering my session.. It will be a local affair... salt hill park to salt hill stream with our launch task owner Claire from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust... be ready for those waders

Have a great week everyone and I'll see you on the 10th for the Wexham Park Hospital task