13 Runners ran 3km to help The Parvaaz Project

Our 2nd Slough Group Run and we did good. Great to see so many people returning to get fit and do another task this evening and a warm welcome to Dan on his first GoodGym session. Thirteen runners came along to our central meeting point at the Salt Hill Activity Centre to get their fingers green and help a small yet vital community group The Parvaaz Project to restore some life into their little communal garden
( https://parvaaz-project-taha.business.site) for its centre users to enjoy again.

Massive help!

After a welcome brief and brief warm up, we headed out 1.5km to the centre, where Alex, the Deputy Manager gave us the warmest of welcomes and an overview of the centre and how our efforts this evening will hugely help the centre and its users. Alex's welcome brief was heart warming and left everyone wanting to dig right in literally! The team divided up into smaller groups and got stuck into their self assigned roles of:

• Litter pickers
• Rakers
• Post bashers
• Sweepers

Man on a Mission

Ashu saw the tools and his superpowers took over! He was a man on a mission to knock down the dilapidated posts....One man...one axe...one swipe and it was all over! Well done Ashu!

Only two weeks in and we realise that Ricky is a man who likes a tool! Last week it was the wheelbarrow, this week it was the rake...I wonder what it could possibly be next week??

Jacqui and Nisha did a great job at litter picking.... between them and Micheal on sweeping duty they cleared up over 12 bags of rubbish and dried up leaves from the main car park area. The rest of the team did a brilliant job at reviving some life back into this garden. Everyone commented on how much can be achieved in 30 minutes by 13 people and they all 'Got That Feeling' that I'm surprised we didn't break out into a Justin T song and dance routine...maybe next week?......You totally smashed it tonight team...well done!

Nearly half a century

Jenni, a long term GoodGymer and Ealing Task Forcer is nearly on her 50th good deed! Slough are honoured to be her number 49!

And they think its all over

Thirty minutes in and tools down...tidy up done...site locked up and we head off back to base... Only, its not quite over just yet. Manjit had a nice little fitness session lined up for everyone...few fartleks.....with some added running drills....bit of 'me to you' core work with cones as a bonus...and everyone was happy!

Hat-trick?

Next week's task is to help the Jubilee River Riverside Centre with a spruce up. It's a short 4km total distance (2km there and 2km back) with a 30-40 minute task in between...would be great to see the 2nd timers make it a hat-trick and even better to see any new runners/do gooders come join us. The run is listed under 'upcoming runs', please feel free to sign up.

Dont forget we are on instagram, facebook and twitter..... all under GoodGym Slough so please tweet, like and follow us

Hope to see you all next week Manjit

A launch with a bang....29 runners smashed it tonight on the first ever GoodGym Group Run in Slough Town

After the welcome speeches and cheers (thank you Councillor Pantelic for opening our 1st Group Run), we headed out of our base location to do a warm up and ice breaker...28 people had to get to 'knowing me knowing you ahah'

I know you

After a warm up game of getting to know you (we exchanged names and our favourite places to go on holiday)...we headed out on a steady 2km run to the stream at Templewood to give this little hidden gem a strim, trim, pick and prune to allow the vegetation to flourish again. We were met by our first task owner Claire from www.wwt.org.uk (Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust), who are doing an amazing job in transforming the Salt Hill Stream and surrounding areas. She gave us a brief on what we could do to help this community area and divided us into 3 teams:

• The Waders
• The Pickers
• The Wheelbarrowers

Each team were tasked to complete their given duties within a challenging 30 minutes. Special shout out to Ricky and his wheelbarrowing buddies for showing true grit and determination of the Slough citizens by wanting to finish laying the wood chips along the path (even when everyone else was lining up for the group photo)

Freedom

We bashed those brambles (Sut Yee in particular looked very fetching in her waders), freed the vegetation, cleared the site of 10 bags of rubbish/debris (and a loo seat!) and covered the path with wood chips...phew! A lot was achieved tonight.

We faired Claire a cheerio and see you later and headed back to base in two groups

Steady vs Speedy

Our return run was a battle of speeds.. we divided into 2 groups...Mo's Speedies and Manjit's Steadies..Just for being speedy, Mo's team had a 2 minute penalty wait as Manjit's steadies headed back to base... suffice to say its steady all the way in Slough.. Great effort by everyone!

Great to see so many people join us this evening.... some of us were established runners, others were first timers...whatever your reason to run, it was fab having you there tonight on our launch event...you all ROCK!

Keep in touch?

We have many means of keeping in touch, so please take a look and join in on our journey to help the communities of Slough

• GoodGym Slough website
• Goodgym Slough Instagram
• Goodgym Slough facebook
• Goodgym Slough twitter

We will be running and doing good every Monday from now on, so please come back and spread the word...together we can achieve so much...Next week we are running a 2km route (one way) to help The Parvaaz Project on Northampton Avenue to have a garden make over