The excitement was building - not only was it our 3rd birthday 🎊 and Paul's 100th Good Deed, but we were also meeting at Broome Manor, which according to Darren has the "best beer garden in Swindon". One to experience later on that evening perhaps? But we had others matters to attend to first including a walk/run to Christ Church and then some hard core chatting, weeding and trimming...!

It was a lovely evening; it felt like old times before COVID made an appearance. In fact, it almost felt like we had never been away. The difference we made in just 45 minutes was incredible; the Garden of Reflection looked pristine after our tidy-up and the perfect backdrop to any future wedding at Christ Church. Now did I hear someone say that the vicar's son was getting married the following Saturday?!

We do love visiting Christ Church and we were so pleased to see the wonderful work that had been done on the Rose Garden since our last visit back in 2019. We will visit again soon before the dark evenings set in giving us an opportunity to walk/run to and from Broome again. What a great place to relax, sit and chat on a summer's evening - Gina and Helen clearly enjoying themselves with a cold drink 🍺 while Paul disappeared briefly to test out his golfing skills ⛳️ !

Many thanks to Sam for leading the walk who will also be leading next week's Group Run to the Traverser at STEAM. Check it out here and sign up if you can make it. Hope to see you then!

Tonight’s merry band were led by Safety First Simon on his first outing as Run Leader. We were under strict instructions not to heckle, wolf whistle or get up to anything that could be counted as mischevious. The temptation was almost too much! Tonight’s ice breaker was a question about our most embarrassing childhood memories. This was a most revealing question. In her youth Ashleigh ate a worm (plenty more opportunity for that in tonight’s gardening task!), and Charles was still getting over being made to wear those gloves that are attached together with string. Lucky that none of our GoodGym gloves have string although it would solve the conumdrum of lefts paired with lefts and rights with rights!!!

On day two of Autumn and with sunset due at exactly 18.59pm, tonight saw the return of the much loved chest lamp. Yay! GoodGymers who don’t have one are advised to bring one in the darker nights. They are super useful for safety on the run and the outside tasks, and also the flashy setting means we can have our own disco whenever the mood takes us. “Staying Alive” in more ways than one!

Tonight we had walkie talkies and runners, the latter not really up for more than a gentle(ish) jog. Post-race chat had included inventive ways GoodGymers had found to move about with hurty bits...

They had been self-named as “the crab”, “the bum shuffle” and the “John Wayne”.

We’ll leave it to your imaginations to picture what these look like in practice but there was none of that tonight and we all made it up the very steep hill to “The Old Lady on the Hill”.

This was a return visit for us to the town’s much loved Christ Church and we continued the weeding in the Rose Garden. Despite the rain and the chill in the air, this was a tranquil and rewarding task as the roses are intermingled with many remembrance plaques. Clearing the weeds means that those visiting can more easily see the plaques and mementos of loved ones. It’s great to see the difference that 32 hands can make in 45 minutes! In the end there were lots of wet and muddy shoes, knees and bums. Luckily it was very dark on the way back so as not to raise curious eyebrows!

We arrived back to the warm glow of the Oasis, after a much needed (and very professionally led by Simon, we must say!) stretching session. Inside and during coffee and chatter, a rather disturbing scene unfolded...

There was an interloper of the most heinous kind – a snail on Mike’s jacket that had hitched a ride from the rose garden!

Mollusc Lover Mike’s snail was quite unbelievably left to lounge around on the hood of his jacket for the duration (while some of us silently broke out in cold sweats) and the new friends casually left together at the end. Hopefully this will be the last instalment of mollusc mayhem – will it ever end? - and next week there are only plus ones of the human kind!

Next up, we will be running approximately 7km in total to Age UK Wiltshire to help with their improvements to Toothill Community Centre. We’ll be doing some gardening outside the centre. There is lots to do, so rest assured you will be busy! You don't need to be a green fingered expert, just enthusiastic and keen to help out. This is our third visit to the centre and we are very excited to be going back there again! You can sign up here

This Community Mission saw Richard, Charles and Simon visit the Rose Garden in the grounds of Christ Church. We all felt the need to weed and tidy up the memorial rose garden.

The GG three were immediately put to good use humping, but carefully storing (no dumping on this mission!) an antique table carried up to the Church form the Vicarage. On the alter Richard the Vicar spotted a cross made from two spanners. The (other) Vicar's wife Nicola said it makes a great TORQUEing point at Sunday Service!!

The main task was to clear weeds from the Rose Garden. In the shadow of the imposing Church Spire, we donned our gloves, got tooled up and set to work. Safety First Simon bored everyone with the latin botanical names for some of the weeds. Who doesn’t like pulling out a bit of Achillea millefolium on a Saturday morning?! After Richard and Charles woke up we discussed all topics from the best way to get about in Rome, getting free upgrades on flights to decommissioning grave yards for building developments!!

Mid weed, we were rewarded with coffee and an assortment of chocolate biscuits, kindly provided by Nicola.

We de weeded three quarters of the first bed. After collected a good wheelie bin full of weeds we called it a day and went on our way. Richard to another run, in Bishop Cannings. Charles to crack on with some jobs around the house and Simon to more gardening tending to the formal garden at Sperring Towers.

Well weren’t we a lively bunch this evening! Even the prospect of no post-run coffee because we were ousted from our meeting place by a certain chart topping boy band couldn’t dampen our spirits. There was a twist on the getting-to-know-you question and we introduced the person to our left with a compliment of loveliness – this was easy! Less easy was completing a Crazy Legs warm-up routine and more than one person got feedback on their unruly body parts. Names (and body parts) have been omitted to protect the innocents!

This week we went to the beautiful Christ Church, which has one of the finest peals of ten bells in the country (if our very own bell ringer Teresa says so then it must be true!), to do a bit of weeding in the rose garden.

We were given a good selection of trowels, forks and hoes to tackle the weeds between the prickly rose bushes, which provided much material for jokes that can’t be repeated here! Amongst the roses were memorial plaques and clearing the weeds meant that it was prettied up and they could be seen more easily by visitors.

With the general consensus that the lovely Charles and his red t-shirt have had far too much publicity for one week, there were cunning attempts to obscure him from the photos. First it was the turn of Jenny’s ponytail followed by a spade in the face by Jo.

Beardy Bloke was caught looking menacing with a gloved hand, holding a pointy tool very near to Carly’s head while she was distracted by a low down weed. More worryingly, we know those gloves were not returned at the end of the night. Has anyone seen Carly today? Anyone?!

As always we attempted to answer the big questions of the day – why are all images of Stuart running the London Marathon of him eating (well done Superstar!!); is it socially acceptable for the task photographers to take pictures of peoples bottoms (the answer apparently is: only if they are nicely lined up); does Jenny’s ponytail have a life of its own – and other equally highbrow topics. Soon our time was up and the roses were battling it out with a lot fewer weeds. Job done!

Most of the Walkie Talkies and runners headed back and a few excited and slightly nervous ones headed to BBC Radio Wiltshire. We were this week’s guests on Let’s Get Physical – an hour long weekly look at what gets Wiltshire moving with Sue Kinnear and Kelly Morgan.

Sandy Sam spent the run there repeating all the swear words that she was absolutely not (no way Jose, under any circumstances, no siree) going to say.

The fabulous multi-tasking Roo greeted us, took us to the green room and made us all a brew, all in between producing the show – just how does she do that? Helen was in the middle of doing that thing that only girls can do by removing a lower layer of clothing without removing an upper layer when they announced they were ready for us. Eeek! After warm welcomes from hosts extraordinaire Kelly and Sue, mic tests and other technically whizzy stuff, the red lights went on! What a fun hour! We loved chatting about all things GoodGym and spreading the word to all corners of Wiltshire. Not one Wiltshire accent between us so we hope we could be heard loud and clear! We got to choose the final song which was Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush and then our moment of fame was over. We hope we were entertaining as well as increasing awareness and attracting new members and tasks. We consider it a success on account of nobody’s mobile phone went off, nobody swore, nobody accidentally pressed a technically critical button and took us off air, nobody was caught in a state of undress (only just!).

There were no paparazzi waiting for us after our media fame so we were free to get back on the streets for the run home. You can listen to the show here at 1hr 12mins 45 seconds.

Next week we will be running approximately 8km in total to St John's Church and back, home of the Allstars Running Club. We will clean some windows but can also participate in 'Paul's Run', which starts at 7:30pm - a yearly remembrance run for Paul Gee. There are three runs to choose from: 5km, 7km and 10km. We will run, chat and eat cake with other running groups with all donations going to the Prospect Hospice and Cancer Research UK. Participating in Paul's Run would mean running more than 8km that evening, and a later return to the Oasis. There will be a Run Leader available for anyone wanting to return to the Oasis straight after the window cleaning task. We will be meeting at the usual time of 18:00 at the Oasis Leisure Centre; just look out for us in the red GoodGym tops! Click here for more info and to book on!

GoodGym Swindon welcomed four fabulous new runners last night; Dan (from Oxford), Darren, Jenny and Jon. Thank you for joining us; it was great to chat to you all (I just hope the run up THAT hill didn't put you off at all)?! I promise our runs won't always include such a steep incline, but everyone knows that the only way to get into Old Town is up some sort of hill?! And we must also remember that the task was at Christ Church, kindly nicknamed by locals as the 'Old Lady on the Hill'. On the plus side, where there's an up there a down, and everyone seemed to enjoy running down THAT hill after the task.

So we started the evening gathered together in a circle outside the front doors of the Oasis Leisure Centre, sharing our names and favourite subjects at school as a mini icebreaker and headcount (I'm really keen to speak with those of you who loved English at school; how about writing these Run Reports occasionally?!) There were 18 of us. We were going to get a lot of weeding done tonight! Keen to get going, everyone waited patiently for me to work out where the Strava App was on my watch and thankfully after a minor delay (!) we were away!

With myself as Run Leader and Lewis 'Backmarker' Bird (please note the recent change in nickname) at the rear, we ensured that no one was left behind on the journey from the Oasis to Christ Church. I was impressed with Richard's ability to talk AND run up THAT hill. I asked him afterwards how he manages to keep a decent conversation going while under such physical pressure. Apparently it's not just about fitness; it's part of his job. He loves talking to people; Richard will talk to anyone at any time anywhere! This is what we love about GoodGym; it's fun and social and not just about running. We get to have a bit of a laugh, while getting a little bit fitter. It's great!

It had been pre-arranged that Gareth Bailey from BBC Wiltshire was going to join us that night and that we were to meet him outside the radio station, which also happens to be at the top of THAT hill (also named as Victoria Road by local residents). What we didn't realise was that he was going to film us trying to run up it. Now, that was funny. A few of us did try and smile, wave and make the whole thing seem a breeze (when in reality it wasn't), before turning left onto Union Row welcoming the short downward incline to the front gates of Christ Church. We then gathered together on the driveway (I did notice at that point how many of you are now wearing red GoodGym t-shirts, which is absolutely brilliant) and after a short recovery, the wonderful Rev'd Simon Stevenette (Vicar of Christ Church and ultra keen runner) met us with open arms and led us to the beauty of the Rose Garden.

We spent 45-minutes in the rose garden, weeding, clearing, chatting and laughing while being interviewed and filmed by multi-tasking Gareth. We were lucky enough to be there for the bellringing as well and apparently Christ Church has some of the finest bells in the country with ten bells in total. I was told this last week while litter picking with the wonderful Teresa who unfortunately couldn't make it to Christ Church last night, but whose local knowledge was greatly received. Once our time was up, we had a group photo, cleared away our tools, thanked Simon for hosting us, and then set off down THAT hill to Queens Park (with Gareth somehow managing to film us while running backwards?!) for a short exercise session on the grass (set the previous week by Drill Master Emily 'Crazy Legs'. Pyramid training is apparently the way to go in terms of improving stamina and fitness? I hope you all enjoyed it?!

Once the exercise was over, we sped off, past the geese and swans and interesting smell (?!) through the park to the streets of Swindon Town Centre. We reached the Oasis in no time at all ending with a little bit of stretching and a cuppa in Coffee Corner. What a fabulous evening. Please join us again next week. We will be heading to Toothill Farmhouse for some much-needed painting and gardening with super friendly Paul Bonner.