The sun was shining brightly on Swindon; a perfect night for a gardening task led by first time run leader Sandy Sam WEEDon! We also welcomed two newbies – Dominque and Beth and it was great to see Sarah back again after the excitement of our dome building task a few weeks ago. We were also pleased to see new members Rachel and Sarah wearing their new (aka not covered in paint splatters – that will change!) red tops with pride.

Word is clearly out that GoodGym is the place to be on a Tuesday night in Swindon!

Sam kicked off the night with a perfect ice-breaker for a hot evening – what’s your favourite cocktail or mocktail? This quickly revealed that we have a lot of gin fans at Swindon GoodGin – I mean GoodGym – and some like Jason who declared that a good pint of Black Sheep is a far better choice than a cocktail.

Neither shaken nor stirred, we then split up into our walking and running groups, with Emma the Trainer being walk leader for the first time and Charles back marking (not for the first time) . After the usual Strava palaver, we headed off through murder alley. This is becoming such a frequent route that we think it should have a GoodGym named segment and soon arrived at STEAM, the museum of the Great Western Railway housed in a beautiful Grade II listed building in the heart of the former Swindon railway works.

Ian explained our task for the night - weeding the traverser. Mike was thrilled to finally get his hands on these weeds, having noticed them growing rapidly on his daily walk and being sorely tempted to undertake some guerrilla gardening. We were warned to count everyone in and out so that we didn’t lose any of our more diminutive members – looking at you Carly, Gina and Tracey – in the vegetation. I can confirm that all GoodGym members were accounted for at the end of the night!

For those of you wondering, and we had our rail expert Kirsty on hand, a traverser is a moving platform for transferring a railway vehicle from one set of rails to another parallel set. For us...

it was a great opportunity to get stuck in to a chatty task, and encounter our old friend sticky willy!

Those who are botanically minded, will know that this is gallium Aparine – but the declaration from Emma and Kirsty that “I’ve got gallium Aparine all over me” is unlikely to result in the same level of sniggering as its common name!

Before long it looked like we’d given the place a good STEAM clean and there were no more leaves on the line. This was our second visit to the traverser – our first being in September last year when GoodGym Swindon was just weeks old. This led to some reminiscing about all the great group runs we have done in our first year and a challenge from Paul to name them all in order – definitely a party game for our birthday bash on 10 August! Under the supervision of binman Richard the Vicar, we quickly tidied up – and started a new sport of lobbing the binbag in the bin. It’s unlikely to feature in the 2020 Olympics, but if it does Andrew and others are contenders for the gold medal with some record breaking distances!

After a group photo – noting Jo’s demands for an Instagram friendly version as well as the traditional landscape – we departed on time and made our way back to the Oasis.

It was a raily good evening that extended into even more chatting over coffee or tepid water (not to be recommended ) with biscuits thanks to Sam, who has now set a new standard for run leaders in making sure we are well nourished!

Next week, we have a longer run to Age UK Wiltshire at Toothill Community Centre for a classic Swindon lift and shift (hump and dump) task. We now have 10 – yes TEN – trained run leaders at Swindon GoodGym and this means we will have Steadies and Speedies on our longer runs, so why not sign up and join us for a longer leg stretch at your pace? We also have two community missions coming up – Gardening with The Vicar at ChristChurch and helping at Wroughton Junior School's Fun Run. We’d love to see you at these events – and you’ll be one, two or even three steps closer to the much coveted black GoodGym top!