This year's GoodGym Ealing's Christmas party didn't encourage us to get more steps in - it was just opposite St Mary's Church, at the New Inn pub in South Ealing! Big thanks to Iram, who found and booked the venue! The room we had was nice and quiet - until we started popping the Christmas crackers!

The jokes from the crackers were a perfect, silly warm-up to the traditional GoodGym quiz, prepared by quiz masters Sevan and Iram. The prize? Chocolates - and, if you were vegan, chocolate bars. Yum!

Just as if there was not enough joy (there was!) during the quiz, Santa himself visited us. He was very secretive - we couldn't guess his identity or where he got his gifts from. From books and plush reindeer to best of the best shower kits, everyone received a little something to take back home.

What a fun and festive evening it's been!

Every community has its own traditions to celebrate festive times. GoodGym Ealing is no different. Our Christmas tradition since 2018 (with some breaks) has been kicking off the season by decorating the Christmas tree at St Mary’s in South Ealing to get the church ready for the Christmas services.

Eleven GoodGymers and one new GoodGymer-to-be were welcomed at the church by Wei Hei, Revd. Joy French and her husband, Clynt. It was a great opportunity to meet the vicar, who, although new to Ealing, showed a familiar warmth and - pun not intended - joy. We’ve been treated to some Christmas tunes, mulled wine, and minced pies, yum!

We had a Geordie Santa, The True Santa, and a bunch of helpful elves on our team. Not all the elves had expected to be following a Christmas dress code, but Thaiza got them covered! She brought all sorts of festive headwear, making everyone a bit more sparkly.

Some elves got busy decorating the tree, and others headed to the gallery for a work at height: a little bit of dusting. The good news was that our earlier session in September hadn’t left us with much dust to bust.

With Joy very pleased with the outcome of using our Christmastifying skills, the team headed to the New Inn across the road for more festivities: Christmas crackers, quiz time, and Secret Santa!

The rain held off in Ealing for the whole day, just until 18:45 when the Tuesday night group run started. Refreshed by a mild drizzle, a group of runners led by Sevan looped around Walpole Park to meet Kash - a single person in the walking "group" - at the tool store. Harvey, Steph and Sevan came to help pick up the tools, which Kash thought was awesome. It's nice to have mates who have your back around when you're aware of strangers hiding in the nearby bushes while you're busy unlocking padlocks!

With an ample supply of chopping and shovelling tools in two wheelbarrows, the quartet marched to Lammas Enclosure to meet Chris and Bryon at the Transition Orchard. With the task owner, Trevor, unable to make it to the session that night, Sevan explained two jobs that needed to be done.

First task, cutting back brambles in the small forest area destined to become a hedgehog habitat, was tackled by Bryon, Harvey, Steph and Kash, after agreeing that not everything that had thorns could be classified as a bramble and obliterated.

Chris and Sevan focused on another job: snipping brambles and mulching around fruit trees. First, of course, they had to identify the fruit trees. Bryon did well in that matter, spotting a tiny apple under one of the trees. But there were also tiny oak trees growing under the presumed apple tree. How did they get there? Maybe the apple was a foundling, too?

Thanks to teamwork, two work lights and head torches for everyone, the six GoodGymers achieved good results despite the darkness. Our unstoppable team keeps going all year round, no matter the season. Next week, we will run to help Hanwell School of Boxing, a charity that supports young people of varying ethnic backgrounds in participation in sports. Sign up now!

On Sunday, 26th October, the clocks went back. According to the This Girl Can campaign, that night marks the time when almost three-quarters of women in the UK change how and when they get active outside out of fear about their safety.

To raise awareness about that gender activity gap and urge communities to change behaviours towards women that make them feel unsafe outside in the winter months, Let's Lift the Curfew movement, together with GoodGym and England Athletics, hosted over 320 events across the UK. One of them happened in Ealing!

We were looking forward to our group run, excited to see a fifty-fifty split between boys and girls in our sign-ups. Ultimately, we ended up with twice as many men as women, which might have been a stark illustration of the This Girl Can research, highlighting the barriers to getting active that women may experience outdoors after dark.

Undeterred by fewer than expected women showing up, we ran to Acton, 3 km each way, to find other ways to encourage women to stay active and healthy. We had 450 leaflets from Action West London, inviting Acton women to participate in free, inclusive fitness programmes: from strength and mobility classes for women aged 50+ to courses about strengthening the pelvic floor.

To distribute the leaflets promoting the events, we set off for a 3 km walk through Horn Lane and the streets East of it, occasionally astonished by hop-on hop-off buses cruising through nighttime Acton and slightly disappointed by the poor numbers of Halloween decorations. We managed to drop all the flyers through the letterboxes and are hoping that the initiative will help more local women discover opportunities to stay active, healthy, and connected.

Next week, we will slightly shift the theme of our group run and visit the Lammas Orchard a.k.a The Garden of Eden, where we will be clearing the spaces around mature fruit trees and more recently planted saplings, then mulching around them. Sign up now to join us!

St Mary’s Church of South Ealing is well-known to GoodGymers, whether through the weekly food cupboard sessions on Mondays, the gardening tasks in the churchyard, or the annual Christmas tree decoration. Tonight's task was a unique one. The local community was preparing for the first service to mark the start of the ministry of their new vicar, Revd. Joy French. Renowned for their Christmas tidy-up expertise, our team was asked to clean the gallery and tackle cobwebs in the church.

A team of runners and a cyclist arrived at the church to meet the member of the community, Brian, who handed them the tools: a few brushes, a dustpan, and two very long brushes - the cobweb busters. Freya and Kash, excited about getting the extra range, grabbed the super brushes and stayed on the ground floor to clean under the gallery. Iram, Chris, and Sevan, armed with brushes, wipes, and a dustpan, headed upstairs to handle the dust in the gallery.

While dusting, the upstairs team learned that their favourite church tower, an attraction to visit after each Christmas clean-up, was no longer accessible due to safety concerns. Meanwhile, the cobweb vanquishers downstairs discovered a bust of a biblical prophet with two left hands! We completed the job in just an hour and are hoping now that the community will be proud of their dust-free church while welcoming Reverend Joy.

Next week, we are staying in Ealing Broadway for the Tuesday evening session and tackling thistles and brambles in Walpole Park - sign up now to join us!.

If you want to visit St Mary’s during the day, sign up for one (or more) of the weekly sessions at the church’s food cupboard here.