This was not your typical GoodGym session in Ealing: Wednesday evening tasks are a rarity for us, and we usually venture to Southall in daylight on a weekend! But not this time!

The session was organised at short notice last Saturday to finish off the concreting job from last weekend. But then came the plot twist: after over 50 dry days, the rain finally came, although not much of it. Seeing the forecast, Ash, our task owner, was worried that the concrete wouldn’t dry and set properly, so he decided to finish the task himself earlier in the week.

Little did he know that eight GoodGymers - a number surpassing even last Saturday's attendance - were already planning to turn up for the Wednesday session! And little did we know that Ash had already beaten us to it.

For such a big group, Ash had a plan B: bringing a couple of other projects to fruition.

🌱 Task 1

Not far from the newly concreted area, next to the two 1,000-litre water containers, Scott, Freya, Afshin, Alana and Janet got to work clearing the area. They removed logs and weeds, levelled the ground and, finally, covered it with woodchip - which turned out to be Janet’s favourite activity!

Once covered with a membrane and grid, the cleared area will become a seating space where people from the local community can come together. It will also leave room for a greenhouse.

It was the first ever GoodGym task for Alana and Janet, who decided to try GoodGym together. Welcome, both - hopefully we’ll see you again soon!

⚡ Task 2

You could simply call it digging a trench, but we have a better name for it! Electrifying Western Road!

Steph Ducat, Richard and Kash picked up their mattocks and got to work digging a trench for a pipe that will carry electric cables from the solar panel to the shed, passing through the polytunnel. It was hard graft! The team managed to reach an acceptable depth (although not the ideal 40cm) just as it started getting dark.

There wasn’t enough time to line the trench with terram and cover it with sand, so we had to leave the newly opened chasm secured for another day. Before leaving, we secured the area with a rope after discovering that children would be visiting Western Road the following day. Safety first!

We didn’t get around to naming our new canyon. Any ideas? Put them in the comments!

What's next?

If you fancy another Southall session, there’s one coming up next Thursday, when we’ll be spreading the word about a beginners’ running programme and helping people in Southall get active. And if you’re curious to see what’s next for Western Road, join us next month for a Saturday morning session!

Our mid-August Tuesday evening group run was the perfect time to let women of Acton know about the upcoming final term of the Movement on The Mount, starting in September. What is Movement on the Mount, you may ask? The project is all about helping local people get more active.

Action West London runs programmes for women who may face barriers such as low confidence, language difficulties, low income or caring responsibilities. The organisers want to encourage women under 16 and over 65 coming from varying backgrounds to try free classes, including street dance, bodyweight circuits, yoga, stretching and relaxation, and many more.

GoodGym Ealing supported the programme once again, with 7 GoodGymers distributing approximately 400 leaflets around the letterboxes in the neighbourhood.

Since the theme for today was movement, Harvey, Sevan, Steph Ducat and Kash ran to the task together, Giles - sporting his new GoodGym t-shirt - ran directly from home, Maria walked, and Scott cycled. But that's not all! We also stopped along the way to tackle exercise stations, including jump squats, squat holds, wall sits and incline push-ups - all making use of the urban environment around us! The flyering itself added around 3km of extra walking to everyone’s day.

Impact

Earlier in the year, we asked Action West London to share some statistics about the women who registered for Movement on the Mount after our leafletting tasks. Here is what we heard back:

• 22% of the people who signed up found out about the programme from the leaflet
• 37% of them didn't currently exercise
• 68% were non-white
• 31% were white British
• 22.4 % were in the 45-54 age group
• 15% were in the 55-64 age group

What's coming up next?

There are more opportunities to get active with GoodGym in the coming weeks!

Thursday 20th August Getting Hanwell School of Boxing into shape 💪 Help a sports charity with the tidy-up ahead of restarting classes in September

Saturday 22nd August Volunteering at Southall parkrun led by Steph; 🧭 Explorers wanted! 🥾 Clear a path for the rangers 🌿 Afternoon session at Grove Farm

Tuesday 25th August Wee Forest, Big Problems 🌳✂️ Keep a special community garden accessible to and usable by all, led by Sevan

Ms E's health had gotten worse since Kash and Sevan's last visit. That was worrying her and as she was proud of her garden, she was almost as concerned about the state of it. As with a lot of recent gardening missions, things had grown despite the lack of water recently and needed to be kept in check to not cause bigger problems later.

Before being able to get tools from the shed, Kash and Sevan had to deal with a drunken tool container that had toppled over and blocked their path. One of its supports had buckled and even once it was emptied, it was still leaning forward dangerously. Propping it up didn't work, then Kash had the smart idea of spinning it around. As the ground underneath wasn't level, the leaning ground one way and the leaning storage the other way equalled out and at least for a while, the storage will stay standing.

With that sorted, it was on to trimming back the plants. The three challenges were to stop any invaders from neighbours' gardens, keep the path along the centre clear of branches and cut everything down to head height. On both sides, creepers were sneaking in so Kash and Sevan did a neat job of trimming along the fence line. Ms E's own plants had some sharper edges and points, making bagging them into thin black sacks a fun task.

Roses were lopped and hydrangeas were chopped and eventually the pair managed to complete the highest priority tasks, leaving some smaller bits to be tidied up for next time.

Miss S from Chiswick had broken her back during the pandemic, which affected her life in many ways. Not only could she no longer hike or play tennis. Bending her back became out of the question, unless she was ready to spend 30 minutes trying to get back to standing upright. This lack of mobility had led Miss S to accumulate piles of magazines, mail, leaflets or even food packaging on the floor in her living room. With time, islets of papers became islands, islands became continents, and, eventually, a supercontinent of clutter swallowed all the floor space in between.

One Sunday morning, Sevan and Kash, the movers and shakers of decluttering, visited Miss S to introduce some continental drift into the lady's living room. The ultimate goal was to regain access to the back garden to have it cleared, with green waste removed through the house.

In 90 minutes allocated to the task, the GoodGymers separated the tectonic plates of clutter into:

• General waste - those seamlessly drifted into the black bin
• Recyclables - as above, but with a blue wheelie bin as the destination
• Paperwork - a bag of unopened mail formed a dreadful island that Miss S will have to go through at some point
• Unopened bottles of Sanpellegrino water - they formed a delightful peninsula full of alpine mineral springs
• Unopened orange juice bottles at varying stages of decay - deported in a bag to a quarantine island, to be disposed of later
• Cash in coins and notes - where else could those have landed if not on a small treasure island?
• Books - primarily about bridge, but not exclusively, formed a volcanic island with two peaks towering over other land that emerged in the process
• Useful stuff - kitchen gloves, bin bags, a towel, a bottle of wine and other things that may come in handy in the future formed their own continent in an unassuming M&S tote bag

One bag of forgotten baby Jersey potatoes deserves a special mention for literally turning into liquid, producing terrifying sulfur compounds that could be smelled without even opening the bag! That volcanic island drifted straight into the outside bin before a potential eruption of dreadful consequences.

Eventually, a sea of clear floor formed in the middle of the living room. It seemed as if a meteor impact had formed a crater as impressive as the Gulf of Mexico, pushing the remaining unsorted clutter towards the walls. Was Sevan's and Kash's help like a meteor that came to Miss S's life from outer space? We are not sure - but there certainly has been a big impact!

Today was thankfully cooler than our last visit to Acton Junior parkrun. Either due to that or more of the runners not being away on their summer holidays, there were a few more finishers today and by the next time we're here, schools will be back and they should return to the normal numbers of children 🤞.

For today's run, Maria took centre stage, leading the warm up session again. Steph, Kash and Sevan marshalled around the course, Chris took on the role of timekeeper and Maria completed the circle of parkrun, being at the start and the end, by scanning barcodes too.

Sevan paired up with a new-to-Acton marshal at the roundabout and showed them how and when the children would appear at their marshal point. He also tried to explain the complicated course layout, which is still indescribable. Is it like a snail? 🐌 Some of the new children didn't get it either, needing the marshals to point them in the right direction to get them to the finish. They'll have learned from the guidance and will know what to do next time.

Kash and Steph Ducat were up early to meet at Ealing Broadway Station for a short and chatty run to Acton Junior Parkrun. After a warm up, the two runners went through the quite streets of Ealing towards to park. We said we will take it easy...but did we?!Both feeling comfy and chatting away, we then noticed that we were on a good pace....yes zooming through the streets! In no time we were in the park for some stretching before we tackled our roles at Acton Junior Parkrun. So nearly 3.5km in just over 18 minutes. Flash ⚡⚡⚡