We had a great lunchtime task today of litter picking at Black Park whilst enjoying a lovely walk in this beautiful forest setting (fir for a film crew!).

We started the session with our newest Run Leader Jenny carrying out her practical assessment to finalise her Run Leader training. And what a marvellous job she did of welcoming us, giving us route and task briefing of highlighting all the risks and considerations! Well done Jenny

We then went off for an 'off the beaten track' walk. I personally was hoping Jenny and Helen knew where they were going as i was clueless!

Luckily they did!

As we walked and talked, we hunted for litter! There was hardly any there (which is great)! and we did 'fight' for the scraps of litter we could see until Alicia found the sole of a shoe!

An hour in and we had reached the cafe where Jenny completed her assessment with 5 cooldown stretches.

A lovely task with great company

There are some Goodgym tasks that are so impactful that you dont actually realise how much so until you do the do...

Today was one of those tasks

What started out as a networking opportunity to promote GoodGym turned into a protest march alongside the Mothers Together team to share the message of

Drop the knife... save a life

This march from Harvey Park to Langley Memorial Park was organised by the Mothers Together campaign leaders (Madhuri and Julie) alongside the mum of Temur (who was sadly killed by a knife a year ago), Tatiyana.

Ruth, Rosa, Mabu and I were all involved in the march to show how the community connects with the drop the knife message.

Pray with your feet

After doing the march we descended at the Pavillion at Langley Memorial Park and intently listened to all the key speakers about the community action needed to help young people out of this unnecessary need to carry a knife. As Comstable Sunny put it

Today is not a moment.. its a movement

With the minute silence completed we arrived inside the hall where Dr and Mohamed were waiting ready to talk to any residents about GoodGym

Peace Garden

One of the initiatives of this campaign is to create a peace garden. After Becs gave us an overview and with a few tools at hand we decided to make a start. Savi and Mohamed did a cracking job of pulling out all the high growth whilst Rosa and Ruth gave the garden a tidy up.

We had help from the Together as One volunteers too which was great as many hands make light work!

So much accomplished in just one afternoon!

Thank you all for getting involved

Four good gymers met with members of Stoke Park Active to litter pick Upton Court Park and walk to Eton. It was a chilly and misty morning and a brisk walk was needed to keep us toasty. The trees were stunning and Jean posed gracefully with a swan gliding by.

Seven goodgymers met with two volunteers from Stoke Park active to litter pick Upton Court Park around the car park and scout hut. The area was cleaned up in no time with so many helpers, some new and some more experienced. A few wet feet after a misty and soggy start but it soon brightened up as we walked to Eton.

Everybody enjoyed being outdoors in nature, though perhaps not the slippery mud!

A particularly special day today as we had our last session with Manjit as the area activator for Slough. Thank you Manjit for everything you have done with GG in the Slough community in the past 6 years.

A quick coffee and cake was grabbed in Eton before returning to Slough - - a good 6k return walk.

Nice to have a few goodgymers out on a bank holiday Monday for a bit of doing good and getting fit.

It all started as a nice evening task. Our run part today was actually a strength based fitness session which we did at the end of our session.

The park itself was pretty eventuful this evening. The play areas were full of children enjoying themselves, the main park was full of people playing football and cricket, the families were out having picnics and then there was us... litter picking up behind everyone.

Tonights hoard found us a ready salted crisp packet with a use by date of 2019! It was hidden away in the deep dark depths of the bushes.

Cutting hedge technology?

Speaking of bushes... Abdul found a kitchen knife in the ones adjacent to Bath Rd. Luckily no signs of blood! We reported it to the police but were told to just dispose of it!

So we did our best to cover up the sharp end with cardboard then double wrap it in bags before 'safely' disposing of it.

As we continued our litter pick we found a gun!!!!

But don't worry... the only thing shooting out of this one was water...

We disposed of that safely too! Some serious trouble shooting going on tonight!

On a lighter note, there was a lovely wedding ceremony taking place on the green outside the Karahi restaurant.

Cant resist a good slam

After collecting 5 bags of rubbish we ended the session with some resistance band exercises followed by kettlebell and slam ball sets.

Thank you to everyone for coming along this evening.

Next Monday we will be helping Raggy Rd Allotments. Hope to see you there.

After an extremely wet parkrun which I did at Upton and Jen did at Blackpark, we convened at 3rd Upton Court Scout hut for a networking event to promote GoodGym.