Xmas day and a few Goodgymers from different areas joined other park runners on a very cold and windy morning in Gunnersbury Park. Nearly 900 runners/walkers took part on a very special Park run : Xmas day parkrun. Different outfits were seen and seems that Santa has twins, triplets or quadruplets and he was all over the park. Obviously we could see snowmen, elves and other festive characters running around. Some runners also volunteered at the end as bar code scanners : Harvey, Tom and Maria. Chikako was guide running with her daughter. At least the outfits and hats kept all of us warm. Merry Xmas to everyone. After parkrun some Goodgymers walked to St Mary's Road in Ealing to enjoy free coffee, pastries and savoury snacks at Pulp X Paperback : donations from customers when getting a hot drink and tasty freshly baked pastries. Donations going to Prostate Cancer UK and Ealing Churches Winter Night Shelter.
Good to see people coming out on Xmas day to run. walk, volunteer and be social.

A perfect Christmas Eve task cannot get better than what five eager GoodGymers did at a secret location in Ealing this year! Wrapping presents, peeling veggies for a Christmas meal, and prepping non-alcoholic Grinch mojito - all of that for the next day’s Christmas Dinner for young care leavers, who would otherwise be alone this season.

Most of the GoodGymers were on the kitchen duty: Harvey and Maria got stuck into spud-bashing, exchanging insights about parkrun and festivals. Seema peeled so many carrots that she would remember them until Christmas 2026. Kash, after wiping hundreds of plates, was removing the outer leaves of Brussels sprouts and carving the sign of the cross at their base. Why? Apparently, it makes them cook faster!

Meanwhile, Sevan creatively packed presents for care leavers, then left with the organiser, Pam, for a quest to deliver delicious coffee for all the volunteers.

For many young care leavers, Christmas can be a reminder of what they don’t have. That’s why it felt so rewarding to help a small team of volunteers create a day that makes those vulnerable young people feel not alone and that they have a community around them. We hope this year’s Ealing Christmas Dinner event will be delightful!

Ah, the dark Walpole Park in winter, a fleet of wheelbarrows, and the usual suspects with head torches, shovels, spades and rakes. Sounds familiar? Another trip to the Walled Garden, a path surface that needed refreshing and the scent of... woodchip? Or maybe something else?

Tonight's task was the second part of the 2025 edition of replacing woodchip on the Walled Garden path, so we've been doing a fair amount of digging, wheelbarrow runs, shovelling, and raking. Certainly not weeding, which in turn was the speciality of other visitors to the park garden - a different kind of weeding.

When walking with wheelbarrows past Rickyard, each time we heard party tunes. Did the Christmas miracle come early, transforming Walpole Park into a nightclub? Everyone seemed to be having fun - and so did we! With a small, but powerful team of four: Harvey, Steph, Sevan and Kash, we've finished off the job in no time! Now we're getting ready for the start of 2026, kicking off the group runs with another session at Walpole Park - sign up now!