What an amazing turnout for this evening's session to help at Wessex Primary School, particularly considering we didn't meet in our usual start location. Just when I thought I knew how many we were, more would arrive! Maybe we could call ourselves the Countless of Wessex?

A very warm welcome to Helen, Rachel, Jennie and Alison, who joined us from the school community. It was also great to meet Sion and Sam, who Jenni invited from Reading to find out all about this weird and wonderful thing called GoodGym. We hope you can launch in your area soon - we'll definitely come and visit when you do!

A great big cheer for Taskforce member Louise, who organised our task for this evening and recruited many of our newbies from the school community. Top marks and a gold star for you!

Many thanks also to Mr Beaven and Mrs Pope, who welcomed us to the school, treated us to some jelly babies and stuck around until the end. We talked about a return visit later in the year to help with pond area...can't wait!

During the first part of the session lots of us went for a run or walk around Cox Green. The walkers did a scenic 2km (we passed not one but two Co-ops!) loop, and the lucky runners did similar but with a few extra back and forths to give the walkers time to catch up. This helped us to arrive at the task all warmed up and ready for action.

Lou did a great job of rapidly dishing out tasks to eager GoodGymers, and soon enough everyone was busy. Jennie, Alison, Georgeta, Rachel, Gillian and Helen bravely tackled brambles in a nature area, Adam, Clara, Jenni and Chris bravely tackled brambles next to a fence and Angela and Sara made speedy work of sawing down an overgrown shrub.

Everyone else focused on an area in the middle, where jobs included emptying a raised bed of plants (behaving like locusts), sanding a fence and bench, and painting the fence. An intriguing mix of small toys was also uncovered in the process.

Many hands made the to do list disappear fast. Lou has already received a big thank you from Mrs Corbett, who teaches in the area where we were working. She plans to take the children out first thing to admire our work.

So why the reference to smarty pants? Are we calling Lou a smarty pants because she organised such a bumper evening? Or is Jenni a smarty pants for bringing her Reading homies? Maybe we're all smarty pants for going back to school? Or should that be smarty 'paints' because of the awesome job the painters did blitzing the fence?

Well all of these would be excellent guesses, and quite true, but no. The title pun celebrates the GoodGymer who got paint on her trousers and didn't want to get it on the seats in my car, so had the bright idea to remove her trousers. I couldn't park right outside her house, so (looking quite a lot like an Olympic track star) she did a sprint finish down the road in her pants. What a memorable evening!

A chilly cloudless night. In the deep dark woods and over the frozen fields, a distinct sound of many crunching boots. Not a soul around to watch the dozen make their way with shovels, rakes and wheelbarrows.

Sounds of chatter breaks the silence overseen by millions of stars. Orion twinkles in the distance.

They approach their destination and set to work. Shovels can be heard far and wide while they pack in the wheelbarrows. Little lights twinkle from their head torches as some of them trudge up a frozen muddy path with those wheelbarrows. Two take up the rakes.

In less than an hour, their work is done.

A few head off into the woods in one direction, most others take up the much used tools and head back in the opposite direction.

When the sun shines tomorrow, walkers will come out with their dogs and wonder who made their path easier to walk on with the newly laid mulch.

It was just another GoodGym group session on Wednesday night in Maidenhead.

Well done to all the GoodGymers who came along this evening for a fun mix of scavenger hunt, Christmas crafting and cake. Our official Christmas night out is tomorrow at the Off the Tap pub quiz, but this evening felt like a party to me! Maybe I've been to too many 5 year olds' birthday parties recently...

Of course there was some method in our madness. I will explain in reverse order:

The cake was to celebrate Claire's 50th good deed. Claire's first good deed with us was rescuing baby toads, her 50th was making reindeer, and in between she's done everything from planting oak trees to marshalling a Santa dash in fancy dress.

Congratulations Claire, we love having you in our group! A huge thank you also to Rachel, who made a fabulous chocolate cake AND a free from lemon drizzle.

The Christmas crafting was our task for the evening. We were making decorations for the first GoodGym tree at the St Luke's annual Christmas Tree Festival. The festival raises money for the church, plus their chosen charity, No 22, the Maidenhead and Windsor Youth Counselling Service.

The festival is also a great way for charities like GoodGym to raise awareness of their involvement in the community, and many of the trees (including ours) are donated to families in need after the event.

It is a really festive spectacle, and very much worth a visit while it's open to the public from the 8th to 10th of December. Click here for full details.

Many thanks to the Maidenhead Community Centre for providing us with a venue for our crafty task, and to the GoodGymers turned elves, who led our various crafting activities.

Nicola made sure we weren't flagging while we made bunting; Jess's snowmen were the stuff(ing) that Christmas dreams (and nightmares!?) are made of, and Sophie and Claire had us making reindeer. I Donner know how they were Blitzen so many! As the evening unfolded I also renamed myself origAMY, Can you guess what I was making!?

A special mention also for Georgeta and Sheila, who weren't with us this evening, but who have still made decorations for the tree. Georgeta has made a beautiful quilted star including the GoodGym GGs and Sheila has crocheted a gorgeous doll, complete with GoodGym t-shirt. I can't wait to see them on the tree!

And the Scavenger Hunt..?

Since the Community Centre was also our start location, there was no real need for a run or walk this evening, but I wasn't about to let everyone wriggle out of doing some exercise. Before we settled down to our creative gluing, cutting, folding, and tying, I challenged the group to a scavenger hunt. They had no more than 25 minutes to find and photograph as many things from my list as possible - including things like a dog, a snowman and a post box.

We formed two teams of walkers and two teams of runners and gave the walkers a head start while the runners warmed up. Teams devised their own routes and impressively everyone ticked off everything on the list and made it back to base on time, having covered 2-3km on foot. There were also some very creative photos taken along the way, and some entertaining chats with dog owners. I think next time I will need to make the challenge a bit trickier!

Thanks everyone for your contributions to a fun evening. If you would like to help hang the decorations on the tree at St Luke's, there is one space left on this community mission next Wednesday from 4-6pm. Do also check out the listings for all the group activities planned so far for December and January. Hope to see you soon!

This evening we had our annual torch-lit adventure to Burchett's Green Infant School to help uncover the playground from a blanket of leaves.

We met at the Butterfly Trail Car Park armed with lots of lights, welcomed everyone, warmed up and headed off into the dark, dark woods of Maidenhead Thicket.

We came up with a game called 'Rabbits and Fox' to challenge the runners whilst keeping them in sight of the walkers. If I called 'Rabbits', the runners turned heel and ran back the way we had come, until I yelled 'Fox' and they ran back to the walkers. Depending on where we were on the route in relation to obstacles like gates, I sometimes switched it up and called 'Fox' first to send the runners ahead, before 'Rabbits' brought them back to the walkers again. It was a great way not to lose anyone! The walkers covered just over 2km, whilst runners did over 3km.

We were welcomed at the school by head teacher Mr Harris, and by GoodGymer Tony, who had made his own way to the school so he could bagsy the leaf blower.

We quickly got stuck into the task and made great progress sweeping up leaves, bundling them into hippo bags and tipping them out of the playground. We were provided with some excellent tools for the job, including a broom perfect for a 5 year old and a plastic tractor, which Nicola and Jess put to good use.

Sol, Matthew, Scarlett and Emily made unbeleafably quick progress at the far end of the playground and Claire did a broomin' marvellous job on the steps, while Tony was chatting away on the blower.

While we worked, Mr Harris recovered some balls from beyond the fence and Nicola and Jess seemed to be having so much fun with them, it only seemed right that the rest of us down tools and join in. I asked them to come up with a fun fitness game for us and they did not disappoint. We had to leap over a crate, weave in and out of buckets, throw, catch and duck! Sol liked it so much she had a second go.

Then it was time for a quick group photo on the climbing frame, an even quicker weeeee down the slide, a goodbye to Tony and Mr Harris, and a second round of Rabbits and Fox on the way back.

It is always a treat to head away from the bright lights of Maidenhead and into nature. The woods and fields can be spooky, but with lights and friends they feel safe and even magical. It was a chilly evening, but our walk/run, super satisfying task and fitness game warmed our bodies, and the good company, silhouetted trees, moonlit clouds and stars warmed our spirits!

See you there same time next year?