Volunteers from GoodGym and Filling Good joined forces to uncover and dust the shop shelves, ledges and nooks and crannies. While the broom was a bit late (it over-swept) and we battled with the vacuum (Dyson with death), the end result was a clean shop. A happy shop! Sheila (Sheila) was a star, rolling up her sleeves and cheerfully throwing herself into our search for the cleaning of life. It was our first deep clean of the Filling Good shop, and we achieved loads. We also learned loads, and expect to be back bigger and no doubt a bit grubbier before too long. So please keep hold of those cleaning gloves! Thanks to everyone

It is always fun helping out at The Baby Bank. When the red door opens you never know what challenges await.

Robert, volunteered to go into the room of doom-(brave). This room is always a challenge-(piles of garments), hence the name. Robert, was asked to sort through all the school uniforms. He did an excellent job and must have enjoyed it as he wanted to stay longer.

This was Claire’s first visit to The Baby Bank and they were very grateful for her help. Claire rolled up her sleeves and started sorting out clothes as soon as we arrived , placing them beautifully folded in the correct boxes.

Out the back the Christmas Pyjama appeal was in full swing. Rebecca, asked if we could sort all of the kindly donated gift bags into gender and age ranges.

These little give packages will make such a difference to so many children on Christmas Day.

It was a great team effort all round.

Two Teams are better than One

Thankfully the weather stayed dry but crisp for us for this Waterways mission. We were split into two groups so unfortunately I have no idea how GoodGym member James and the team he was part of got on but I'm sure they did a fabulous job!

A warm welcome on a crisp morning

GoodGym members Sophie L and Robert met with Waterways volunteers David and Malcolm and we also warmly welcomed Sophie H to her first ever GoodGym mission! Water-way to get stuck in at the deep end Sophie! We hope you enjoyed it! The 3 GoodGymmers all put their hands up to wade in the water so we got kitted up with out waterproofs, rakes, saws and hot drinks in flasks to take with us. It was around a 400m walk to the start of the task at a certain spot of the stream.

What lies beneath?

At this point, faced with the prospect of clambering down the steep bank and getting into the deep, murky water, Sophie wondered what she had let herself in for and whether it was too late to turn back! But, in we all went with trepidation letting Robert lead the way as this was his second Waterways mission - the first one being a few weeks ago where he got totally soaked from head to toe due to torrential rain. Well done for coming back Robert!

Knickerbocker-not-much-glory

Before long Sophie L, Sophie H and Robert were all in the water, David and Malcolm were on the bank with the rakes and we set to work. The water was super cold, a bit smelly and very gloopy underfoot but that did not deter us....It didn't take long before the female members were even comparing notes as to whether the water had leaked into their knickers which we can confirm, was the case for both! The male members were not quite as forthcoming with any areas of leakage.....! Not only that we had mud splatters to the face, water leaking into our gloves and our feet sinking in what felt like quick sand. But we soon acclimatised to the conditions and got on with the job at hand and had great fun doing so!

I keep going to the river to pray....that I don't fall in

Our job was to clear a long stretch of water to remove reeds, weeds and any potential blockages to improve the flow. The gentleman on the bank by the end of the task said they were struggling to keep up with us as we were hauling so much out the water - wish we had some before and after photos! The reeds in some cases were really tough to get out and we were giving it all our strength to pull them out, making some amusing sound effects whilst hoping that we didn't lose balance and fall in!

Tree-mendous job all round

At one point, we even needed to saw off a tree to let us pass and Robert was doing an amazing job with some loppers to cut back brambles that were blocking the way. After about 1.5 hours we stopped for a quick tea / snack break, after scrambling our way up the steep banks with the help of David and Malcolm and some rakes. Sophie had visions of one of us falling backwards into the water during this part of the task but thankfully we all got up just about in tact! We then headed back in the water for another hour or so before calling it a morning after the biggest and densest section of reeds which really tested out upper body strength.

Like a bridge over un-troubled water

We all felt a huge sense of accomplishment and job satisfaction with this task and after the walk back to the cars we compared notes once again on where the water had leaked to, how it looked like we had wet ourselves, but most importantly looked forward to the first thing we would be doing once getting home - a hot shower!

Amy, Robert and Juli met in the pretty Berkshire village of Bray to help Clean Conscience by distributing leaflets to residents. This was GoodGym's third leaflet dropping mission for the charity. It was lovely to be out in the fresh air, and armed with gloves and hand sanitiser we made safe and speedy work of the task. We all got our steps in for the day too: we ran 3.5km on the task, Juli also ran 6km in her round trip to and from our meeting point, Robert went for a post-task run, and Amy ran 7km on her way to and from another GoodGym session later in the day.

A bit more about the charity:

Clean Conscience works with the luxury hotel industry to save discarded hotel toiletries from landfill. Collected soap is sorted, sterilised, reshaped and distributed to those in need of sanitation both close to home and abroad. Recovered plastics are baled and sent for recycling. Their volunteers include groups with disabilities, who also benefit immensely from being able to contribute to a positive initiative.

Like so many other organisations, they are having to adapt during the Covid-19 pandemic. Whilst their hotel partners are largely closed, they are taking in donations of good quality clothes and other items. These are then either distributed to the charity's beneficiaries or sold in a lovely pop-up boutique that they have set up at their unit here at Thimble Farm Business Park.

You can find out more about this fantastic charity by reading the leaflet we were dropping (in the photos for this report) and by visiting and following their Facebook page here.