Yesterday, Anne and Harriet started to prepare the work to paint a beautiful mural “The Hive” on the wall of one of the school buildings. Vikki, the volunteer who organises the work for the school, was not sure whether teachers and/or parents would be able to come and help with the painting. Well, you just had to ask GoodGym: the response was fantastic!

This morning, from 9:00, seven GoodGymers from Woking: Agathe, Harriet, Kirsty Luan, Melanie, Stephanie and Anne, made their way to one of Knaphill schools. They were responding enthusiastically to the cry for help thrown at them yesterday.

Armed with bright coloured paints, brushes of different sizes and clear instructions from Vikki, we all went to task. We enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere and the opportunity to catchup with each other’s news after the summer while some of us could show their incredible artistic talent.

There is still more work to do, but today’s results are very promising! I believe there was a mention of adding some butterflies, ladybirds and dragonflies… which are the names of the different classes.

Vikki’s leadership is exceptional and GG Woking has already promised to come back to finish the mural, paint the other walls of the Hive. We will also give a hand to Mark, Vikki’s husband, who is preparing the foundations for a summer house, on the field. It will be used by the PTA and the Football clubs. Muscles will be required to put the summer house up and more painting will be involved then too!

Thank you GG Girls for today’s un-bee-lievably rewarding mission!

Yesterday, Luan and I were pleased to lend a hand to West Byfleet Matters as they prepared for their Outdoor Cinema event showing Mamma Mia! at West Byfleet Junior School. It was our first time volunteering with the team and we quickly got stuck into a variety of tasks to help get the site ready. We helped erect the gazebo for the drinks tent, unloaded tables, drinks and other equipment from several cars, and moved football goalposts out of the way to create space for the event setup on the school field. It was great to support a local community event and see how much work goes on behind the scenes before everyone arrives to enjoy the evening. A big thank you to the West Byfleet Matters team for making us feel so welcome. We enjoyed helping out and hope to be back again to support future events

I arrived at the church at 08:00am where there were a small group of people to welcome me, there was onsite parking. Initially I helped with a few small tasks but later Terry instructed me and some others to start setting up on the green around the church. We were given a map to show us where each stall was located and hammered posts with labels into the ground. Later helping to setup gazebos at each stall location. I worked with a gentleman named Barry. There were also some parasols to go up at three benches. As the start of the fete began at 11:00am loads more people started to arrive to help, I left at around 09:30am as I thought it would be nice for other people to use my parking space. It was a great start to my Saturday everyone was so nice it helped me to have a cheerful day. Apologies I didn’t take any pictures but was wearing my GoodGym T Shirt so everyone knew why I was helping. I tried not to let the team at GoodGym Woking down by working hard to help as best I could. St John the Baptist Church is an Anglican Church I found out, so CofE as I have grown up a Roman Catholic I mentioned they said they have good relations with the other local Roman Catholic Church in West Byfleet. I’m not sure that I have led a typical Christian life, but the Church didn’t go up in flames or the cross didn’t fall upside down upon my entry to the Church, lol :-) The Church of England has always been more compassionate towards gay people in England so I was proud to help out! Lovely people and a busy GoodGym mission 🙌

The turnout at Woking Junior Parkrun was astounding as per usual!! Wayne, Mel, Ola and Luan were the GoodGym marshals for the morning.

Writing the report I tried to get the stats for the event but, today everyone was pretty chilled at the end so there was no prize giving as there have been other times.

The kids are so cool at Junior Parkrun and a couple of them high fived me as they ran past, OMG they are cute! Usually I personally try to be as encouraging as possible and cheer them on as they pass…

They all did so well to run their 2k around the park!

Awesome :-)

Luan