Run/walked from Homebase car park, over to the mini car park at the back of the leisure centre. Picking litter along the way. But primarily clearing litter from around the car park.

Gorgeous sunny day to be out making the most of the lovely green space near our town, chatting about everything from the toy industry to parkrun, to how precious life is! We agreed we wouldn't have motivated ourselves to go out for a run at this time by ourselves, but going as part of a group gave us the impetus we needed. Well done to everyone who came along.

A fun challenge to coax one more run out of us before the end of January. This was a little sequel (or grand finale?) to our January game of running Bingo. We learned that windmills are few and far between in the Royal Borough in January, and there ain't so many trains on a Sunday. Well done to everyone who had a go!

What is the #Magpies150Challenge?

This year Maidenhead Magpies Football Club are celebrating their 150th year. As part of their celebrations, and at a time when many local charities have been terribly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, they have launched the Magpies 150 Challenge, through which they are aiming to raise at least £150,000 to support 15 Maidenhead and Windsor based charities. You can find out more about the chosen charities by visiting their website here.

GoodGym Windsor and Maidenhead are supporting this brilliant initiative by taking on a different challenge every month, each one based around the number 150. In September we collectively ran over 150 miles, in October we each picked up 150 pieces of litter, and in November we donated items to charity. We are fundraising via this Just Giving page, so make a donation and/or encourage friends and families to sponsor us for our efforts. Even just £1.50 from everyone would make a big difference.

The December Challenge

In December we challenged ourselves to go on 150 runs in Christmas fancy dress. The idea was to keep us all moving at a time of year when it is all too easy to go into hibernation, and to do some good at the same time by spreading some festive cheer and raising money for the Magpies' Challenge.

And do cut a month long story short, we did it!

We reached the target 150 runs just after Christmas. We ran dressed as Santas, elves, a snowman, Christmas teddy bears, angels, and a shepherd complete with cuddly sheep. We ran in lots of pairs of Christmas leggings, Christmas pudding hats, Christmas jumpers, reindeer antlers, tinsel, fairy lights, and festive sunglasses. If it was Christmassy, we ran in it...with bells on (no really!) and just for good measure we threw in a Mummy Pig costume and a couple of pirates too. And in case our costumes weren't festive enough we also made Christmas Strava art including reindeer, a Christmas tree and a cheeky elf.

We were joined by our kids and friends, both human and canine. A special mention to Sophie L's dog Leah, who looked gorgeous in her very own Santa suit. We also spotted lots of others out running in festive attire, including a couple of horses!

A special mention to those runners who were also doing the December Daily Dash in aid of Sue Ryder - Juli, Amanda, Angie, Anna, Michelle, Fran, Lara, Ankur, Amy, Rich, Sani and Jen, who has daily dashed every year since the event began 6 years ago. Running 5km or more every day is no mean feat, especially at this time of year.

Whilst out running we were honked by lots of friendly car horns and cheered and thanked by passers by. It was great to see the smiles on people's faces and in our more conspicuous costumes we even raised shouts of 'you've made my day!' and 'that's the best thing I've seen all month!' It was also lovely to hear people pointing us out to their children and to think that we had brightened their walk.

We have now raised over £520 for the Magpies Challenge and still hope to get a few more donations to our page.

We will be taking a break from the #Magpies150Challenge in January as we focus on the GoodGym January Challenge - to run, walk and cycle as far as we can in a friendly competition against other GoodGym areas. We can't wait to get out there!

Happy New Year everyone!

Holyport by name, potholey by nature

Holyport FC is a volunteer-run football club, which provides football coaching and games and acts as a social hub for the local community. The access track to the club (which is now based in Maidenhead rather than Holyport) is prone to potholes, so GoodGym runner and Holyport FC committee member Richard called us in with the goal of filling those holes and keeping the track smooth and safe.

Pothole lotta fun...

The evening got off to an exciting start as Richard, Carole, and Claire helped a driver who's car was stuck in the mud before the official task had even kicked off. They then met the rest of the team - Amy, Gareth and Sophie, and Richard got us set up for the main event. He equipped us with wheelbarrows, spades, a rake and some some snazzy lights, and lead us into the dark to find the potholes and a big pile of shingley, dirty, stoney stuff - sorry I can't remember the technical term! There was something quite special about working in the crisp fresh air and darkness, especially with the atmospheric lighting.

All the shingle ladies, all the shingle ladies! (Plus Gareth and Richard)

We then got to work shovelling the shingle into the wheelbarrows, tipping it into the holes, and using the rake and our feet to spread it out and stamp it down. Whilst vaguely reminiscent of a burial scene in a horror film, the rhythmic scrape and thump of the spades was also very satisfying to hear, and it was great to see the holes disappearing. Every now and again a group of cars would come past, lighting up our handiwork, testing it for smoothness, and doing a bit of road-rolling for us.

After about an hour we realised we were on barrow-ed time (thanks Gareth!) so we headed back up the track. On our way Sophie spotted some litter along the road-side and she litter-ally couldn't resist picking it up. Before long she had filled a wheelbarrow.

Before we finished we gave the Holyport vets a quick cheer in their game vs Goring vets, and then we ran off. Sophie and Amy stopped by on their way home to deliver some vinyl Poppies that Sophie's mum has been making to raise money for the British legion - yet another good deed in the bank!

We hope to return for another fixture soon with this great local club.

Goodness me, this community mission really crypt up on us! Time flies when you're having fun...

A very warm welcome to Carol, who joined us for the first time this evening, and a big three cheers to Laura, who logged her 10th GoodGym good deed - even the church bells rang for her!

Ana, Carole, Laura and Claire did a great job this evening helping the Windsor Homeless Project have a big sort out in their storage space at Holy Trinity Church in Windsor. They were joined by a number of guard mannequins, who thankfully also got the memo about red tops and social distancing.

Claire and Carol braved the crypt to sort donated clothes. Their hard work helps the charity have a clearer picture of what they have and what they need more of in order to help their clients.

Meanwhile, upstairs Ana and Laura sorted food, which is being donated to Driven Forward, a local charity which has hugely increased its scope during the Covid crisis, and has recently set up the 'Community Fridge': a project which helps surplus and short dated food find its way to those facing hardship, a growing community due to the Covid 19 pandemic. We have a community mission planned for to help the Community Fridge on Sunday the 11th of October and we would love to see you there. Find out more and sign up here.

With everyone wearing face masks, communication was trickier than normal...you might even say it was a bit cryptic... Those chaps in the red jackets didn't have much chat either. Still, the team did a fantastic job. As task owner Liv said in her post-task message:

Thank you to the team, they were stars.