This evening we were helping a new task owner, Usman, from College Rd Allotments with a path clearance task.

We met directly on site after a much deliberated afternoon of 'is it on? is it off?' due to the horrendous weather we had. Luckily it was an all systems go type of evening.

Usman showed us the area that needed doing and off we went.... boy do stinging nettles sting!

With a bit of effort and back bone we soon had cleared the path. Next, we layed some cardboard down and covered it with woodchip.

We managed to get a good chunk of the path done before it got too dark.

Thank you all for coming this evening to help.

Did you see the sky tonight? And the beautiful full moon? Experts say its another Northern Lights experience tonight and I think they might be right!

Tonights task was to deliver leaflets for the Food Cycle group who are offering hot meals every Monday lunchtime at the Salvation Army on Stoke Rd. Our task owner Natalie asked if we could highlight the service to locals living nearby.

So that's exactly what we did.

It was so lovely to meet Merlyn on her first ever task with us. And what a lovely gentle first task it was. We met at the Salt Hill Activity Centre at 6:30 and by 6:45 we headed off on a nice gentle walk to Stoke Rd where we met Devajani.

Soon we divided off into smaller groups and started working our way around Grays Rd, Littledown Rd, Belgrave Rd, delivering all the leaflets we had.

Within 45 minutes we had delivered them all.

Thank you all for getting involved in this task.

This evening we helped Raggy Rd allotments.

Sandy and I met at our central meet up point of Salt Hill park whilst Agni and Peter met us directly at the task.

Anita our task owner was on hand to give us the task brief. She needed a basil tree cut back as it was creating too much shade for the plot underneath it; a rosemary bush needed digging out and two planters needed filling with new top soil.

Sandy and I got to work on the basil tree. We were quite surprised at how easy it was the cut back.

Peter got to work on the planters and filling them up whilst Agni helped in all three areas.

This is a great task which we all enjoy doing.

Each time we visit we see such amazing progress to the plots.

There seems to be a link with extreme weather and the allotments task. Last month we had the heaviest downpour and this evening we had the hottest day of the year!

Sandy and I met at Salt Hill park at 18:15 ready to run out by 18:30 to meet Jen and Peter directly at the task.

On arrival we could see the lovely progress made to plot 5 by the Home Start Slough team.

The plot we were working on tonight was solid as a rock! The dry weather had certainly taken its toll on the ground.

That said Jen and Peter in particular did an outstanding job of clearing half the plot.

Tonight’s task was to help Raggy Rd allotments with a gardening based task.

We met at Salt hill park with 6 people signed up. Two met us directly at the task location and four of us ran down the 1km route to Ragstone Rd

On arrival Mona was ready in waiting to give us the low down of the task.

There were planters that needed soiling and a path that needed leveling.

Forkin’ Hell

As we gathered around the compost heap that needed clearing out and the good soil moved to the planters, Keith spotted something moving as he ploughed his fork into the heap! At first we thought it was a snake! But then as another one appeared we realized they were slow worms.

That was enough for Sandy and I to quickly take on the leveling task whilst Keith, Jen and Zoe wheely enjoyed the compost moving planter filling task.

Hard Kaur’s

Abdul soon joined us and was helping the hard Kaur’s Sandy and me with removing layers of carpet and mesh and a few weeds from the path. Our task was to clear the path as best we could so that the plot user who has mobility issues could safely tend to their plot. We actually managed to do it much to our own surprise!

Within 45 minutes we had done as much as we possibly could, so we finished off with a group photos and yummy apple pies. Keith hit the jackpot with fresh beetroot! Just cant beet this task location

Well done to everyone for their efforts.

OG's to Newbies and everyone else in between

It's our 6th birthday ... I don't feel 6 years older than when I first started doing GoodGym! Maybe it's the GG vibe that keeps us young?!! But what keeps us young is all the love we get from being in this group. And OMG I am blown away that sooooo many of you came this evening to help celebrate our 6th birthday! I really was only expecting the 10 that signed up to be there so when I saw another 10 mysteriously appear behind the church doors...it was like a devine intervention! Thank you to you all for making the effort to come along tonight.

Five going on Six

This past year we have as always achieved so much. We won an award at the Slough CSV #OneSlough Awards for our Innovative Ways for helping the community. We celebrated Jean's 90th birthday. We've had new task owners like Global Education Trust and Raggy Rd Allotments as well as our usuals. We've formed new friendships. We've had new members from the refugee community join us and sadly we've lost a few too. We battled the Bibby (and won!). Ricky finally got his 100th!. Jen hit 450 plus!; Ruth served her century (tonight); Sut soared to 400; Pam ploughed to over 370 and Sara smashed out over 260, Sandy succeeded with nearly 230 and Helen hacked out 77 heading towards her 100th! We karaoked at Christmas; have been frequent flyers and litter heroes and had allot of fun digging around. We've networked and insta-lly promoted GG as soon as the task has been done. We Beat-the Boat but still have The Big Half, Berlin and Vitality to smash!

There is always so much going on in the small yet compacted town that is Slough. And we've collected over 100 bags of rubbish around Slough since our last birthday!

We started the evening doing our usual. Meeting up Upton Court Park and making our way down to our task location of St Mary's Church (with the little surprise at the Church). Our task was to do a bit inside and a bit outside. Inside we had Sandy, Abdul, Roisin, Ruth and Pam sweeping, dusting and wiping whilst everyone else were outside either litter picking or cutting back overgrowth. With our usual grace we got through the tasks fairly swiftly, leaving enough time for cake....

But as with any special event we did have a twist.

Goodlympics

I don't know about you but I love the Olympics and watch as many events as I can. So whilst I was watching the ladies Rugby last night I came up with the idea of doing our very own Olympic events. Luckily I have 3 very eager helpers in my household who designed some of the games, drew out the signs and even made us an Olympic flame

It's never good to be too prepared

At home, I had prepped a sheet of paper outlining each person signed up (the good ones who signed up!) with a partner and a little Olympic style game. But when you get 10 others turn up (the bad ones for not signing up..but oh so good to see them!), I had to throw my paper away and improvise..

So in the end we had:

• Runners Beans We had Sara, Pam, Gauri and Meera on bean bags races. Pam showed so much grace as she eloquently balanced the bean bag on her head whilst walking round the war memorial without it falling off her head even once! Gold standard right there;

• N'Sync were Jenny ,Sandy, Ruth and Roisin on a synchronized swim routine. And wow how good were they! They could (just maybe) give Tom and Noah a few tips??;

• The Happy Hoppers were Harsha,Keira ,Chrissy, Agnija, Jen and Devajani. They gave us an entertaining minute of their show jumping skills using litter pickers! What style; what class!;

• Bean Poles were Abdulaziz, Peter, Ricky and Jean on bean bag throws. Ricky took an early lead closely followed by Abdul, but Jean stole the show with her sideways throw!

Each team displayed excellent execution, flare and skill. Team GB doesn't know it's missing some key players from Slough over in Paris

Flaming 'ell

We ended the night with the Goodlympic flame being passed from member to member as it makes it's way (slowy...might take it 4 years) to LA. Great solo efforts by all!

Ruth's 100th

Huge well done to Ruth on achieving her 100th Good Deed tonight! Ruth has been a founder member and supporter of ours since we started and we love having her along whenever she is free. Well done Ruth.

And then there was cake! Thank you to Helen for baking such delicious cup cakes and to everyone for being such good sports in all my mad games.

Thank you all so much for making another birthday event an enjoyable one.