Elephants are known for their size, but tonight a small but mighty quartet of GoodGymmers were helping in the shadows of Twickenham stadium at at the Purple Elephant Project, charity that helps support with children’s mental health

Jane from the Purple Elephant Project a few jobs that needed doing outside in the garden area. The dark and cold January night didn’t put Harvey, Liz and Nina off piling and bagging up leaves that had fallen down and were carpeting the ground. As they say, rake it til ya make it!

Lucy had a hole different job, which was securing the fabric privacy screens along the edge of the fencing. The winter weather had caused it to come loose, and it was flapping around in the wind. Cable ties at the ready, the sheets were secured in the no time. And eyelet you in on a secret - a grommet press was used to help make holes to attach the zip ties to!

Jobs completed, Jane thanked up for our help on a chilly evening, and we made like a tree to leave.

There's no denying that last night was a bit of a damp squib - but in true GG Hounslow style we made the most of the rainy evening. We grabbed every piece of waterproof clothing we could find (including Gus' fetching plastic trousers), headed out into the drizzle and met with Jo from Wild Chiswick to spread the word about hedgehog habitats.

The last time we delivered leaflets in a different area of Chiswick to let people know what they can do in their gardens to protect the hedgehogs, the charity received three enquiries before the evening was out - so the task has a proven track record of effectiveness. We tried to bear this in mind as we did the rounds of the sodden culs-de-sac!

There have been growing numbers of hedgehogs spotted in the area but it's crucial we do everything we can to help them thrive. They are in decline in Britain and are now listed as vulnerable on Britain's red list of mammals, with numbers falling by up to 30% in urban areas and 50% in rural areas. Wild Chiswick want to let people know what they can do and have volunteers who travel round the area to create hedgehog runs through peoples' gardens so they can find the food sources they need.

After 40 minutes of damp delivering we decided to call it a night and made a run for hot tea, warm pubs and to see if the local water supply had been switched back on - fingers crossed!

Next week the weather is meant to be quite chilly so thankfully we have an indoor task at Chiswick Methodist Church - see you there for a rare toasty task!

Following on from the great work done by the team in Saturday's Community Mission, four of us headed to INS in Twickenham to finish up the painting of the stairwell, cutting in and rolling where the tape had been carefully laid on Saturday.

It's a busy centre with a lot of use and a coat of paint goes a long way to freshen things up from scuffs and bumps! A satisfying job for a wet Monday night.

We are officially over half way through January, and that means officially half way through the GoodGym January Challenge.

Adam, JP, Lucy, Maena, and Monika were in Twickenham to quite literally rack up the good deeds on Saturday morning. We met with lovely Sarah from INS who had a few tasks to keep us busy. Between us, and some help from Sarah and her husband, we helped to erect a large metal chair hanging rang. Luckily we had the agility, balance, strength and coordination (plus enough pairs of hands) to make easy work of the construction. Adam was left on screw tightening duty whilst the rest of us got on with next job, which was some woodwork painting.

Over the past few months, GoodGym Richmond have made several visits to INS to help repaint various rooms, hallways, toilet radiators and everything inbetween. Just before Christmas we helped to put a fresh coat on the walls lining the stairway (who doesn’t love a new coat for the winter?!), so our plan was continue on from that, by giving the woodwork around the stairway a fresh lick. Not all heroes wear capes, some in fact have masking tape; as Maena and JP helped prep the surfaces and tape up around the edges. The rest of us got the brushes out and got to work on the edges and skirting boards, the stair rails and panelling. A very therapeutic task later, and we had completed all the bits we needed to, and JP had taped up ready for Monday, when we return to INS to continue our painting party.

There paint nobody who loves us better than a task owner who knows we get the job done, and with that we left the paint to dry until we head back on Monday evening for more good deeds and good fun!

We were ready for our close up last night in Hounslow as our task plastic picking by the river was to be covered by a photographer from Associated Press. It was with the flash of the camera that we left Chiswick Town Hall after warm ups to head to Kew Bridge.

Once there we met up with Dan from Active 360, who handed out litter pickers and plastic tubs. Luckily for us the tide was out, but unluckily it revealed masses of plastic bottles, cans, microplastics and wrappers that had been washed up onto shore.

We ventured down as far as we could go collecting everything we could see and chatting with local people who were interested to see what we were up to. We even spoke to one older lady who was stopped from studying geology at school because of her gender, but went on to do an archeology course in later life. She was very keen to see what treasures we might find! Unfortunately I don't think the British museum would be particularly interested int he discovery we made under the bridge last night....

The trugs were being filled quickly and our trainers getting muddier (see Breda's muddy badge of honour in the photos - hope you managed to get them clean!) as we picked and sorted. Before long it was time to bag up and count up how much we had saved from polluting our waterways. Dan worked out we got more than 6 kilos of waste, which is pretty good going in the time we had. Every little helps when it saves plastic getting into our water systems and aquatic life.

We made use of a nice well lit tunnel to do our fitness session, inadvertently creating an unofficial guard of honour for everybody that passed through - I think they appreciated the cheers! We knocked out various different lunges, jumps and leaps, which certainly worked up a sweat.

We saw off the evening with stretches, and for some, a warm up (and clean off, hopefully!) at the pub for food. There are a few fun missions coming up such as this one to drop off old trainers in Osterley and bashing and weaving on Chiswick eyot. Next week we're off to help Wild Chiswick in the allotments - see you there!