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!

It was great to be back at a Maidenhead Waterways Saturday working party after a few weeks off during Lockdown.

A very warm welcome to Jordan, who was clocking up his second GoodGym good deed this morning, and Erin, who joined us for the first time having read about GoodGym in the book 'Running Like a Girl' by Alexandra Heminsley (one for the Christmas list!) It was lovely to have the chance to chat to you both. Extra kudos to Erin for running 11km from Windsor to join the group, and walking the same distance back after the task. Erin reported:

It was a cold and early start to run there but its great to be running with a purpose and be able to watch the day getting lighter as I got closer.

Erin, Jordan and I met Ian, David and Matt from Maidenhead Waterways, who had brought with them their amazing array of tools including extendable rakes, hooks, a heavy 'tarmac rake' and an inflatible dinghy. Our mission for the morning: clearing fools cress (weeds) from one side of the channel between Stafferton Way and Green Lane Weir to enable the water to flow freely. The other side was to be left, offering food and shelter to ducks and moorhens.

Unable to resist the lure of the dinghy, Erin and I leapt in, miraculously avoided capsizing, had a good giggle at my rowing skills, picked up some litter, and then headed back to the bank, from where we decided the fools cress was best tackled. Jordan also enjoyed a paddle but reached the same conclusion.

Hauling in the weeds from the bank was a great workout and incredibly satisfying. We found we made swift progress with the hooks and the tarmac rake. Much like twirling spaghetti onto a fork, the trick was to hook the weeds bit by bit, not taking so much onto the tines that it became unamanageable. We left the weeds on the bank so that any creatures caught up in the weeds could easily make their way home to the water. While we were working it was lovely to be thanked by passers by for our efforts, and there was an impressive transformation in the channel as the vegetation heaped up on the banks. As Mr T from the A Team would say, 'I pity the fools (cress), I do!'

Meanwhile at East Widbrook, GoodGym member Helen was working hard with another Maidenhead Waterways group, having joined their working party directly. We don't know too much about what she got up to, but having seen her in action at another session we have no doubt she was very productive, and if her big smile in the photograph is anything to go by then she also had a good morning. Well done Helen!

Later in the day it was lovely to recieve this message from Ian:

Thanks for a tremendous effort this morning to clear the channel of fools cress. The result is better than I had hoped....Please thank all your Goodgym members for the tremendous help they have given to Maidenhead Waterways this year.

We all look forward to working together more in the New Year!

Credit to Ian for the photograph showing Amy, Jordan and Erin.

#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 numbers 150, 15 or 1.5. In September we collectively ran over 150 miles, and in October we challenged everyone to go out on a run or walk and pick up 150+ pieces of litter.

Our November 150 Challenge

This month's challenge was to see if we could donate 150 or more items to those in need - a fitting task as we approach Christmas and a season that is all about giving. Our focus was on food banks and appeals for Christmas gifts, such as the Baby Bank's pyjama appeal.

This was a community mission which people completed on their own at any time during the month, which worked well during Lockdown. As ever, it was great to see photos and cheers coming through on the WhatsApp group and Facebook Community as people completed the challenge.

Blood, sweat and teas

In fact, to say that our runners completed the challenge would be a huge understatement.

In total we donated over 300 items.

Jen got the ball rolling right at the start of the month by taking a wagon-load (literally) of gift bags to the Baby Bank packed with pyjamas, books and treats that she had gathered during October.

Sula quickly jumped on the wagon (not literally) with an incredible donation of 98 items to the Foodshare point in Waitrose. This was not a one off for Sula. She and her neighbours have been extremely generous all year and have great plans to donate toiletries and seasonal food for December too. Another runner who coordinated food donations from neighbours was Lara, who gathered an amazing 28 items, including the biggest box of tea we've ever seen.

Well done also to Sara P, Stephan, Jess, Helen B and Anna for their generosity with Foodbank donations. This was also Anna's first GoodGym good deed, and on her run to make her donation she pushed not only a bunch of tins but also her toddler in a buggy, so please head over to her profile and give her an extra cheer!

Claire H, Tara and Paul were also incredibly generous with donations to the Baby Bank pyjama appeal. I would be surprised if there are any children's pyjamas or gift bags left in stock in Maidenhead shops now!

Amy and James Lovell also donated to the Baby Bank's appeal, and Amy had the pleasure of seeing these gifts being packed up to send to families when she joined a community mission at the Baby Bank a couple of weeks later.

Sara P knows only too well what this sea of pyjama gift bags looks like and the major operation that goes on behind the scenes to organise the bags and get them sent off to the right families, as she has volunteered at the Baby Bank an incredible 7 times this month alone. Her endless ability to think of Baby Bank run report titles is impressive, let alone the huge amount of time and energy she has given this charity this year.

A big special mention also to Fran, who donated a whopping 30 advent calendars through her children's school.

And in an 'out of the box' interpretation of the challenge Jen even gave blood!

Fundraising for the Magpies' 15 local charities

This month's challenge involved a lot of giving, so we are not expecting the participants to make further monetary donations to the #Magpies150Challenge, but if you are impressed by our efforts, then please show your support by heading over to our Just Giving page and making a contribution. Even just £1.50 would be very gratefully recieved!

You can also show your support by clicking here and signing up for the December challenge. This one is all about running in festive fancy dress and it is guaranteed to raise a smile... it's Chriiiiissstmaaaaaas!!!

Another busy morning at The Baby Bank. It was hands on deck.

Helen, did an amazing job sorting through the clothing donations.

Whilst it was down to me to move confectionery and toiletry donations to a more suitable location. The sweets made the mouth water. After completing these tasks we were asked to make up weaning packs ready for collection.

This charity is such a pleasure to help out at.

Wow, it was a busy morning at The Baby Bank. Donations were coming in so fast we couldn’t keep up.

Our first challenge was to sort all the toiletries out. Rebecca, asked if we could make up adult gift bags. Helen, did a fantastic job getting everything into order and preparing the packages.

It was then full steam ahead with sorting out all the Christmas donations. It was chaos! At one point we couldn’t even get out as these much needed gifts were everywhere. We proceeded to sort all the gifts into age catagories, which became challenging as we were running out of room.

The Baby Bank are always so grateful for our much needed help.