🎂 Last night we celebrated a very special milestone – 10 years of GoodGym Hounslow. What better way to mark a decade of doing good and getting fit than with a festive task followed by a birthday party?

But first, a huge shout-out to Alanna, who clocked up her 100th good deed! An amazing achievement. Well done, Alanna, that's a really impressive amount of litter picking, tree planting, wall painting and squats!

Our task for the evening was at the beautiful Chiswick House and Gardens. Our job was to weave Christmas wreaths using wisteria gathered from the grounds. Everyone's creativity come out, and the results were beautiful. The profits from the wreath-making go straight back into supporting the charity, and we now have the skills to make our own wreaths for our front doors this year. Win - win!

Then it was time to swap the gloves for glasses and head off to celebrate. It was wonderful to see so many of you there, sharing stories, laughter and memories from the last ten years. Back in November 2016, GoodGym Hounslow became the 26th GoodGym area to launch. We gathered at the Town Hall to clear leaves on Turnham Green, but could not possibly know what lay ahead.

From those early days of one, two or three runners we have grown into something truly special. Today a core group turn up week after week to do some good and get active - and,of course there's always the pub afterwards!

Over the decade, you've clocked up an astonishing 7,000+ good deeds, helping charities, community groups and local projects right across the borough. The jobs have been wonderfully varied: but GoodGym has always been about much more than the nuts and bolts of it. It's about the friendships, the support and the community -we've celebrated the good times and supported each other through the harder ones.

And while we're sometimes accused of having an unusual enthusiasm for destruction, what we've been doing is building a wonderful community.

A huge thank you to all whether it's you've done one good deed or one thousand. No job is too muddy, too cold or too strange for you! Ten years, thousands of good deeds, countless friendships and innumerable Old Packhorse prawn crackers - here's to everyone who has been part of the journey. Happy 10th birthday, GoodGym Hounslow! ❤️

The details of tonight's top-secret mission for Hobbayne Charity must remain classified to anyone who wasn't there. However, the commander of our very special unit has agreed to answer a few frequently asked questions about a typical GoodGym operation.

How do you get a special forces crew through a small building hosting two council meetings with residents, without being noticed?

Smuggle them through a network of secret corridors.

How do you reduce your greenhouse gas emissions?

Get a couple of GoodGymers to carry away an electricity generator and a canister of diesel, and lend them to a local church.

How do you prepare a charity office for a makeover?

Recruit a team of safe crackers to move the safes out of the painters' way. Or, better, call in GoodGymers to relocate them while keeping all the valuables safely locked inside!

How do you deliver sacks of teddy bears to a social worker supporting children with special needs when you don't know the exact address?

Send in GoodGym Santa and his trusty helper. Santa always finds his way to those who deserve it!

How do you fit long MDF planks into a commercial waste bin?

Call in a GoodGym martial artist to karate-kick them into more manageable pieces.

If you'd like to witness GoodGym's undercover operations first-hand, obviously, we can't tell you where to go. Definitely not to the dark corners of Walpole Park on a Tuesday night (wink, wink).