Do you remember the decimation of the shrub population at St Andrew's Church outdoor space last year? After many months and continuous email correspondence between Kash and the project owner John, a date was pinned down for the return of GoodGymers.

When Annabel, Sevan and Kash arrived after a rollercoaster run (there were plenty of uphills and downhills on the route around North Ealing!), the stumps of shrubs were no more. In their place, the GoodGymers found a couple of raised beds with recently planted salad leaves: radish, spinach, radicchio, and rainbow chard.

John warmly welcomed the part of the GoodGym team that arrived ahead of time and gave them a quick tour of his new project: the Pocket Garden! Then he pointed them towards two tonne bags of gravel. The contents of the bags were to be distributed in front of St Andrew's - not to create a shingle beach (beachwear in the vicinity of the church? 🫣 no way!) - but to make paths around the raised beds.

Annabel and John were at the forefront of the transformation, shovelling the shingle into a wheelbarrow and buckets, and making a lot of racket. Claire who just made her way to the task, couldn't miss that noise. As the gravel transportation roles (carrying buckets and driving the wheelbarrow) were filled by Kash and Sevan, Claire joined Carol, one of the Pocket Garden designers, in raking the stones unloaded by the beds.

Halfway through the task, Sevan recalled he had an announcement to make. He declared 750 good deeds an officially recognised milestone in GoodGym Ealing and presented Kash with a new secret GoodGym prop. Forget milestone sashes! Such a commitment to doing good deserved a bright red milestone hi-viz 🦺 which Kash wore with pride despite it looked a bit too big on her.

Once the shovelling team had hit the bottom of each tonne bag, the bags were tipped over and the contents spilt on the ground, then raked. The whole job took John, Carol and the GoodGymers less than an hour.

"It would take us weeks to finish!" - Carol

You may think that fewer GoodGymers means less done. In tonight's case, it was quite the opposite! A smaller group worked in our favour as no one was getting in each other's way and we seemed to have just the right number of hands!

"Thanks again to you and your team for a brilliant stint of gravel spreading this evening. We are absolutely thrilled with the results." - John

Next week we are staying close to Ealing Broadway and running to the Transition Garden in Lammas Enclosure to continue the maintenance work there. Sign up now!

Did you know that Pitzhanger Manor in Walpole Park, along with the surrounding area, will soon be the filming location of the Antiques Roadshow? Because of that, the rangers and volunteers are carrying planting activities, turning the ordinary grass patches into elegant flowerbeds.

A small but effective team of GoodGymers had a go on the planting task one Saturday in April. Tonight, GoodGym was returning with some experience and twice as many people to try to finish off the planting. Was the work easier this time?

There are no great GoodGym adventures without challenges!

⏱️ We were tight on time! It was a group run, so we needed to adjust the timings to account for that (well done Ijo on keeping a steady pace! 🙌)!

🍕 We had a booking for a monthly pizza social! That meant time was even more precious! The planting team - including the newest addition to the team, Georgina, worked extra hard to complete the whole geranium patch - and we did it! We only managed to wrap up on time because we had Milly leading the group to the venue, and Steph staying to help with putting away the tools.

⛔ The code to the lockbox didn't work! Luckily, the ranger was on duty 🫡 and saved the day, answering the call. Otherwise, we might have gone straight home (or for the pizza 😋)!

🖍️ There were no markings on the ground this time! Luckily, Annabel kept her eyes wide open and figured out the exact planting location from the photos we had! Sevan's knowledge of the location from the previous task allowed us to start digging right away.

🌱 The soil was not prepared this time! We had to deal with removing a large patch of grass first. It was a blessing to have Claire on the team, with her gardening expertise and the brilliant idea to use forks, not just shovels, to quickly prepare the ground.

🧱 There were bricks in the soil! In some areas we used brute force, in others we worked around the bricks. The plants may not ended up evenly distributed, yet they made their way to the soil!

🍂 We had to do some mulching too! With a bigger team, not everyone could do the planting. Taskforce Mike, Milly and Steph knew the drill and volunteered right away to wheelbarrow the woodchip and distribute it gently between the existing plants.

Thank you, Amazing Team, for the incredible effort in such a short time! 🤩 You totally deserved the pizza prize after the task!

Next week we are finally back to St Andrew's Church to help create gravel paths in their Pocket Allotment. Sign up now!

A group of 10 GoodGymers, including first timer Kate, descended to Lammas Orchard tonight by piloting their intergalactic wheelbarrows through the atmosphere, steered by rakes and shovels. When they arrived, they found piles of small organic pieces (woodchip) and larger organic chunks (aka chopped logs) in the grounds. Looking at the different forms of matter and their tools, the group wondered if they could be used to improve the planet they'd landed on.

Moving into the garden, the group found that the paths were part woodchipped and a strange wooden log circle was placed in the middle of it. Out of the bushes emerged a being holding something called Strongbow. Much of what he said didn't make sense until their translators managed to interpret:

"Each of these logs was a person. This one here with a hole in it was John" - Strange being

Clearly this was a local burial ground and the beings were somehow transformed into inanimate objects. What a strange place this was. The group's thoughts went back to the pile of logs at the entrance and how those ex-beings must have been unceremoniously placed on top of each other. What about the chips of wood. Were they mini beings?! The GoodGymers decided that they all deserved better than laying around in mounds.

The group split into two, with one part focused on honouring those big beings who'd been woodened. They set out to create a memorial circle like the one that honoured John's memory. The wooden beings were carefully transported to the newly created shrine.

The second group focused on what they thought must be the little beings. Their destination was less orderly. They meandered through the garden like a river, curving and threading themselves between the trees. The path was never taking the direct route from point to point. How curious.

After an hour, the mothership called. It was time to report back on what the GoodGymers had found on the planet. They grouped in the wooden circle they'd created and waited to be sucked back into orbit where they'd tell stories of the unusual culture that they had encountered and update their guide to the galaxy to include this planet, Earth.

It took us a weekend task and a group run to rip the paving slabs off the surface of Jerome Allotments, a place sentenced to become yet another bunch of tower blocks in Acton. GoodGymers are the virtuosos of destruction, aren't they? What about construction? We had proven to Romina from Cultivate London that we can build stuff too, so she trusted that we can lay the slabs we had salvaged in a different location. How did it go?

Today's team had a nice balance of runners and cyclists. Annabel and guests from our neighbouring GoodGyms, Divya and Michelle, came to the task on their bikes, while runners Christos, Kash and Sevan enjoyed looping on a path around Ealing Common before making it to Popesfield Allotments.

The evening was bright, and Romina was enthusiastic about seeing the GoodGym engineering in action. The objective was to lay one row of paving slabs under the gate to Cultivate's plant nursery at the allotment. Sounds easy?

Here's the GoodGym Ealing slab-laying technique:

1. Measure the width of the gate
   
2. Measure the slabs (60x60 cm and 60x90 cm options)
   
3. Start digging the ground under the gate
   
4. Conclude that 6 people digging is too many
   
5. Let two team members fill bags with gravel for later
   
6. Keep digging
   
7. Measure the hole for the slabs
   
8. Make the hole wider
   
9. Throw some gravel into the hole
   
10. Level it
    
11. Throw some sand into the hole
    
12. Level it
    
13. Try out a slab and conclude it's not level
    
14. (ok, this one is important: if you are going to do it right, don't miss this - even if you feel you messed up the previous steps, just do this one) Get Michelle to do the Irish stepdance on the sand
15. Try out the slab again and marvel at the precision
    
16. Repeat steps 9-16 for other slabs

In a perfect world, the process would end there. But we don't live there. We live in a fun world! And there is always more fun to break the routine.

1. Switch on the floodlight
   
2. Let Romina notice that the slabs had been laid the other way around
   
3. Flip the slabs

In those 20 easy steps, we laid a row of slabs - and the most of them were even even! Romina appreciated our work ethic and drive to get the job done.

Thanks a lot for your help guys, you work always very hard and do always your best, we are lucky to have you working with us 🤗 - Romina

Next week we will be turning into interior (or shall I say - exterior?) designers to furnish the Transition Garden in Lammas Enclosure. Come and join us!

Walpole Park on Tuesday nights can get surprisingly busy. Tonight, the enthusiasts of a stroll in the park after dark were startled by the sight of bikes approaching them - only to find out that the cyclists were actually runners with powerful head torches!

One group of GoodGymers ran two loops around the park while the second, smaller one, decided on a slower, single round. Everyone eventually met near the Rickyard, where Ranger Jon had left a few shovels for the volunteers. He also gave them a task in the walled garden.

The walled garden was originally an ornamental kitchen garden to the 18th century Pitzhanger Manor House, the home of architect Sir John Soane. The practice of growing food and flowers in that part of Walpole Park continues today, and the GoodGymers were about to become a part of that tradition.

A newly built raised bed was waiting to be filled with compost delivered last week in four massive bags spread around the bed. Jon carefully positioned the bags for GoodGymers to make their work the most efficient. Did they stand up to the task?

The team picked up a range of tools they thought were worth trying in a small space they had. Annabel, who just came back to running and GoodGymming, following a recovery, picked up a good, old shovel. So did Miriam and Steph. Sevan opted for the fourth, last shovel. His movements had far more impetus, so he practically had a bag for himself as no one would dare come closer to his deadly, sweeping shovel. Helene was left with a spade which she used to fill a big bucket. Chris and Kash found using smaller buckets the most effective for their bag which was further down from the bed. When the two compost bags which were closest to the bed were empty, the third bag was moved nearer to the destination. Steph and Kash attacked the furthest source of compost with shovels and a wheelbarrow.

The GoodGymers had so much fun that they were surprised to see how quickly they filled the raised bed to the required level. They packed up the three now empty bags and tools to return them to the storage at the Rickyard. Hopefully, Ranger Jon will be happy to see the compost getting comfy in its new bed tomorrow!

Our next task for Ealing Parks is next week - at Elthorne Park. Sign up now!