Ovada are a non-profit gallery space with limited funding and a small staff team. Car park hire is a key source of income that enables them to run events, exhibitions of socially engaged work, and an education programme where they offer a number of subsidised and bursary places.

With only a small staff team it is hard to keep on top of maintenance, so they called in our GoodGym flash mob to get their car park area ship shape. Car park hire is a valuable source of income, so getting it tidied up is important to the gallery.

Bundled up against the spring showers we shovelled mud, raked leaves, shifted rubbish out for collection, weeded, pulled up nettles (achieving the first nettle sting of the year) and litter picked. Found tools (the magic stick) proved nearly as effective as proper tools and fitted with the mucking out vibe of the task. In little over an hour we filled 2 large builders' sacks with detritus (and could have filled several more), got an excellent upper-body workout, and we got a mini tour of the gallery space afterwards.

Ovada's website is here.

Good work everyone!
Welcome to GoodGym Charlie.

Our February food bank flash mob tackled the cleaning of the Eastern and Northern sides of the hall. As always, lots of crates full of stock needed to be unstacked and moved elsewhere in the space so that the floors and walls could be unveiled for cleaning. Duly relocated, the areas were swept and mopped, then the fun of trying to restack piles of crates in the same configuration as they came out began. Thanks to 'before' photos we were largely successful this time! The Northern end of the hall proved to be the grottiest spot, with lots of dust, spilt items and general muck to clean up.

While the majority of the GoodGymers toiled away on the moving-cleaning-restacking in the main hall, a breakaway crew sorted fresh produce in the kitchen, swept and cleaned the floors and walls, took out food waste, cleaned the fridges, and left the whole place gleaming.

Last but definitely not least, Anja and Steve cleaned dozens of food crates and stacked them back in the regular piles for reuse.

The amount 19 GoodGymers can achieve in an hour is truly impressive!