This mission was in-tents!

Good afternoon goodgymmers! Yesterday 5 goodgymmers and one coerced colleague wandered over to Woolwich, to help the lovely people of GCDA blow off the dust and test the gazebos that would be required for the their market next week.

It was lovely to see everyone physically and get together for a task. We were greeted by the lovely team from GCDA and we got to work. The task involved pulling some fairly heavy gazebos out the door, shaking them open and getting the GCDA team to check for missing parts and then close them up again. Sounds simple right? WRONG!

The first gazebo that we took out and undid was like watching the live action version of a bunch of well intending Wreck-it Ralph's in red t-shirts. Fortunately Simon (GDCA member) stepped in and came up with a system and on the second attempt we bore more of a resemblance to Fix-it Fred's - or in the case of Marta, a Captain America impersonation. I think she was trying to reenact the scene from The Winter Soldier, whilst she successfully prevented two unsecured gazebos from blowing off in the wind. I've added a picture for comparison, let me know what you think. Nice work Marta, and excellent guns!

Speaking of Fix-it Fred's, Pieter had roped in a colleague to join in the festivities - an awesome Venezuelan ringer named Javier (AKA Felix El Reparador Jr.. (the Latin American version of Fix-it Fred)). One of the tasks we had to do was to check the screws in the gazebo, and Javier ran back to his house to get his toolbox. He also ran around manically screwing in all the loose screws and wouldn't let anyone else do it. It wasn't that he was controlling, but possibly didn't trust us after how we set up the first gazebo. Thanks for all the help Javier, you were magnificent and hope to see you at another GoodGym event soon!

Being runners we fancy ourselves on our lithe and toned physiques, however we soon realised there is one part of us that's incredibly flabby - our hands. The gazebos had some deadly locking mechanisms which cause a bunch of us getting our fingers caught and developing quality blood blisters. Javier was the only one who avoided this fate, until I "accidentally" jammed one of his fingers in a gazebo. This may have been on purpose - I am very competitive and didn't want him winning MVP.

After 3 hours of pretty intense (on in-tents - geddit!!?!) work we were done. We decided to grab a quick lunch before heading home. Upon thinking that Javier could not get any more awesome, it turns out he had a dog!! He went home to get her, and introduced her, and his lovely wife to us, and this was the perfect end to a really great mission - watching the most enthusiastic dog run around, whilst eating sausage rolls and madeleines in the sunshine!

Thank you to Pieter for setting this up, and it was so lovely to do a community mission in Greenwich after what feels like a million years!