Two of our gang, Kate and Harvey ran/walked to the task tonight, bumping into another GoodGymer, Caz, on her way for some light refreshments on a warm evening - luck her! Milly and Mike took a long way round to the entrance, after ending up the wrong side of the fence (there's a message in there!). After collecting tools from Linda at Hanwell School of Boxing, the four set about clearing and weeding. Four?! That should have been five! But where was Chris?! With tales of poorly performing maps, Chris found us at last and joined in.

We toiled and cleared, weeded and pulled up ivy, making the driveway up to the club look so much more presentable. After finishing up, a treat lay in store for us - Linda from the club put the kettle on and rustled up five mugs of steaming hot chocolate. Whilst we sipped, we learned about the history of Hanwell School og Boxing, the reason for its strange opening times, and some of the amazing achievements of the young people who learned the fine art of pugilism there. It's a fantastic community resource and it now has an impressive walkway up to the club.

Ealing Repair Cafe encourages people to take positive steps to help the environment by recycling old clothes rather than discarding them. The founder of the organisation, Mary, runs sessions to teach people techniques like sewing, patching and darning to give fabrics a second life. Tonight, Mary hosted a special workshop for GoodGymers - a thank you for our support in promoting the Reduce and Recycle Hub where Ealing Repair Cafe have its stall.

The objective tonight was to make bunting out of salvaged denim and other pieces of material that Ealing Repair Cafe could later donate to various community groups to use at festivals. The secondary task was a real treat: create a GoodGym flag out of scraps!

Excited about making the GoodGym banner, team Hammersmith & Fulham: Analiese and Divya, together with Kash made a start at cutting out the templates for the sign.

Christos, Mike, Milly and Sevan opted for the bunting task and set off to attach the triangle pieces of material onto a tape with pins. Mary gave Sevan and Christos a refresher on operating a sewing machine - something they did last time in school! Milly, an upcycling enthusiast herself, didn't need additional special instructions on how to sew and also had a go on the machine. The device kept playing up. Just imagine Milly's expression when she discovered the bobbin had come off while she was sewing the bunting together. Despite the technical obstacles, several strings of bunting have been created!

In the meantime, Team Flag cut out the letters from red fabric and played with composing them into words. Mdog, dog gym, mood? Eventually, the GoodGym logo emerged - but improved! - with the ABBA-style sparkly symbols at the top! The team then pinned the logo onto the purple background material chosen by Mike. That's when we run out of time for tonight.

If you fancy helping Mary from the Ealing Repair Cafe get more people interested in repairing or recycling their clothes, come down to Acton this Thursday and spread the word about the Reduce and Recycle Hub.

Next week, we are changing our trade again - from tailors to boxers! Don't miss the group run where we will be Knocking out the mess at Hanwell School of Boxing charity!