Luan, Olalekan, Kirsty and Julie were back for another session reviving the outdoor space for the school pupils. Vikki had 2 jobs for us this week - creating a habitat hedge and constructing a gate. Ola took on the gate and persevered all session, showing great determination,overcoming incorrect instructions and a lack of pre-drilled holes to create a great looking finished product!

Luan teamed up wiith one of the school parents and did a great job of removing the ivy, while Kirsty demonstrated her fantastic new tools that Father Christmas had provided. She must have been on the 'very nice' list. The loppers were particularly great for chopping the branches for the habitat hedge and the hori hori (a cross between a trowel and a knife) was great for making holes for the support posts. A great job by the team as always.

Looking forward to meeting at the Phoenix Cultural Centre on Wednesday evening to paint the nesting boxes.

The weather was dry this morning for Woking junior parkrun, but hooo, how chilly!

Woking Goodgymers came in force to cheer the young runners who sped the two laps round the park. Adam (and his Mum), Alys, Anne, Luan, Nadia and Wayne met at the Bandstand before taking up various positions to marshal. All of us, with a varied degree of enthusiasm, took part in the warm-up. Adam was excused because if his broken foot though.

The first runner to cross the line did it in 7:29 and the 120th runner's time was 21:16. There were 24 PB and 9 ran the route for the first time.

Will we see you on Thursday evening at the Foodbank when we will do our monthly deep clean? In the meantime, happy running to you all.

"This Girl Can" #letsliftthecurfew 🏃🏼‍♀️

This evening Woking GG met at the leisure centre to do a community litter pick run and the highlight the "This Girl Can" campaign. The litter pick part of the task did not happen as Wayne could not find the litter pickers so it was a gentle run around the leisure centre 🏃🏼‍♀️.

Anne, Katie, Julie, Nadia, Luan, Caterina, met at the entrance to the leisure centre they were joined by our newest member Olalekan. After introductions we switched on our head torches and headed off.

It was great seeing Julie who has been very busy of late and also fantastic to see Caterina join us for an evening run 😀.

While we were running we got to know Olalekan who many years ago represented his country in a number of athletic events 🏃‍♂️ Olalekan has just moved to the area and is so far loving Goodgym.

Let’s Lift The Curfew launched in 2023 to showcase women’s stories and concerns around getting active outdoors in the darker months when the clocks go back, as well as calling on wider society to acknowledge their role in making getting active outdoors safer for women. 😀🏃🏼‍♀️

Wedding, Engagement & Birthday

This evening Woking GG team were out on the town 🍷 celebrating 3 milestones 😊.

Big shout out to Anne who had arrange this evening 🎉

1, Big congratulation to Alys & Dan who tied the knot few weeks ago 👰. It looked like an amazing day, was had had by all, and the photo's looked great. A honeymoon in Japan is on the horizon.

2, Also congratulations to Nadia & Andy who got engaged recently. The rock 💍 on Nadia finger was very impressive (Another GG Wedding to look forward to 💕.

3, It was also GG Woking's 9th Birthday. For 9 years Goodgym Woking have now been helping and supporting local organisations within the community. Over the last few years Woking GG has grown. We have new members like Luan, Caterina, & Andy as well as others join. We now have 4 run leaders with Nadia completing her run leader training this year. She now joins Wayne, Anne, Adam, & James.

Task force members have also increased with Kirsty joining the force along side Katie and others 👏. And we are also very lucky to have Rebecca who is on the board of trusties who keeps us in the loop with whats happening within HQ 😊.

Woking GG is thriving and going from strength to strength. A fantastic kind, caring group of people who enjoy doing good in the community and supporting each other.

Woking GG Is The Best 💕

This morning at GoodGym we decided to divide and conquer as there were a number of tasks to complete, and so I went with the Biodiversity task with WEAct Woking!

Meeting at the designated location after parking at St John’s Lye car park the guys and I got to work.

It has been said that the Laurel was planted around the Victorian age as it was then fashionable to cover the forest floor but was not indigenous. Removing it in modern day times enables more plant life to grow up through it! On some occasions WEAct has planted wild flowers over whatever has been removed.

The guys gave me a pair of lopers and some gloves and we worked to reduce a huge pile of Laurel that had already been cut. This was then put into a large stack to be removed later.

Leaving at break time the guys offered me some coffee and biscuits 🍪 but I only asked if they could take some photos for me for this report. They continued to work after I left, there is so much to remove that this task could have gone on all day 😂

Thanks guys see you next time!

Luan