What a great way to end a whole year of pretty awesome people doing some pretty awesome stuff in Ealing!

We had a quiz all about running, GoodGym and stats (oh yes, love a stat) in which we revealed the following about GoodGym Ealing this year...

• We’ve done a grand total of 1092 good deeds (1110 now!)
• There have been 20 mission to help older people in their homes in Ealing, these make a huge difference!
• We’ve had 174 different people take part in GoodGym Ealing, that’s a lot of people power!
• We turned 3! GoodGym as a whole was 10 this year and Ealing joined the gang in 2016.

As well as stats we also shone a light on some of the amazing people that have taken part this year, there were even some special real life GoodGym badges awarded!

• GoodGym Supermum: First up was a huge congratulations to new mummy, Michelle! She kept GoodGyming well into her pregnancy and 6 weeks ago welcomed baby Henry into the world. We can’t wait to see him in his GoodGym baby grow!
• Best Newcomer: I mean everyone new that comes is brilliant, but Jay stood out this year! He started by joining us on a community mission back in September and has been to pretty much everything since. We’ve loved having him join the group!
• Backmarking Angel: She's always the first to nominate herself as back marker and always welcomes new runners and helps keep everyone safe and for that Alex is our backmarking angel.
• Welcome To The Gang: He takes new members under his wing and always makes everyone feel welcome, Shan wins our welcome to the gang badge.
• Leading The Way: One of the fastest of the group, Chris always happily leads the front of the runs and makes sure everyone knows the way!
• Selfie King: The name says it all! There are many things Harvey is great at, running a long way is another one of them but taking selfies is where he shines! Thank you for all the memories!
• Good Deed King: The most good deeds of any man in Ealing this year, Mike is good deed king of Ealing 2019!
• Good Deed Queen: She's done over 100 good deeds this year alone, Jenni is our queen of good deeds this year, what an amazing feat!

Everyone that takes part in GoodGym is amazing, whether you've done one good deed this year or 100. Thank you for coming along, getting involved and making a difference. You're what makes GoodGym!

Bring on 2020!

19 runners and walkers came out last night to join GoodGym Ealing’s last Tuesday session this year, and in fact this decade!

And what a year it’s been!

But before we could celebrate we had one last task to do. Tonight we were delivering Christmas cards to local residents on behalf of St Peter’s church to let them know all about the services happening there over the festive period.

We were delighted to be joined by Ellie who wanted to squeeze in her first GoodGym before saying goodbye to 2019, big welcome and hope to see you back in the new year!

It was great to see everyone arrive in their festive attire and glad everyone got the memo about Christmas hats being highly encouraged this week! After welcoming everyone and a run down of the news we wasted no time in deploying groups in all directions to get the job done super quick time and get to the pub for our celebratory Christmas party! Each group had a map and set of flats to target so it was a bit like GoodGym orienteering and like that everyone was off into the night walking and running in all directions! With such a good turn out last night, Jenni, Phill and I stayed close to the broadway to give Ealing town centre a festive blitz with the trusty litter pickers.

It wasn’t long before everyone was back and raring to get the party started. So with that we bid farewell to 2019, we’re coming for you 2020!

Group runs are over but you can still do some good stuff before the year is out! Also if you do a community mission between Thursday 19th of December and Sunday 5th January there's an awesome badge in it for you!

• Tomorrow, Thursday 19th December, we have a community mission to help The Grove Community with their winter wonderland. All the details and sign up are here.
• Jenni and Alex are leading a plog at 10am on Saturday morning from Horsenden Farm. If you’re keen to keep our waterways safe and tidy, would like a nice walk or jog with some awesome people and are free for an hour, then sign up here to join them!

Can you be-leaf that we were on sweeping patrol two weeks in a row?!

This week we had 14 GoodGymers come out to support The William Hobbayne Centre with their leaf and litter problem and the before and after was pretty special! The William Hobbayne Charity are massive supporters of GoodGym, they link us with loads of community projects every year, provide us with tons of great tasks and even gave us a wonderful grant last year providing us with the funds to buy litter pickers and gloves so we can make even more impact where we live. To summarise, they are a pretty amazing charity (and the oldest in the UK!). So when we heard they needed a hand tidying up the outside of the centre we didn't hesitate to get stuck in!

Big news!

Last night we had a very special celebration as Chris did his 100th good deed! That's over 100 hours worth of sweeping, weeding, lifting, sorting and shifting, awesome stuff!

More big news

• Community mission on Saturday to support City Harvest with surplus food donations. Save food from landfill and help get it to people who need it by signing up today!
• Ealing Christmas party happening after our last group run on Tuesday 17th December - Good food, good company and celebrating GoodGym-ing, let us know if you can make it here.
• There's also the all areas big Christmas party THIS FRIDAY - pop along and celebrate with GoodGymers from all around.

The low down

So after a warm up and a chat about our favourite weird food combinations (you lot are very strange, ryvita sandwiches?!) we headed out on a 2 mile run towards the centre. Expertly back marked by Alex we all arrived safely and wasted no time in getting started. Gloves donned, brushes in hand and teams primed ready to scoop operation litter and leaves was a go.

The courtyard behind the centre is a little bit of a wind trap so lots gets blown into the outdoor space they have but after we were finished you wouldn't have recognised it from when we arrived. Excellent work guys!

We finished in no time at all and that meant more time to get our hearts racing and legs burning with some fitness drills. It was all a bit hectic but we worked in pairs to mix wall sits with plyometric drills and everyone was warmed up and out out breathe by the end, mission accomplished!

A jog back motivated by the call of the pub and our monthly social made the 2 mile return leg fly by and before we knew it we were lovely and warm with a glass of wine in hand. Our most sophisticated social yet I would say!

The next two weeks are festive themed tasks, get ready to go full Christmas! Hope to see you there.

Thirteen brilliant people joined me for my first session looking after GG Ealing. We ran almost 4km and helped out at Hestia.

So, for the first of two weeks I headed in to the dark depths (only dark because it is Winter) of West London to lead the Ealing GoodGym group. I was met by everyone who were ready and waiting to go. Big thanks to Chris who had the keys ready for people to store their things and to access the gloves we needed for tonight’s task.

Thankfully the rain had cleared from earlier in the day so we were able to do the intro and warm up outside. The main news this week is the GG-wide Christmas party in Barnet – you can find all the details and sign up here. We also welcome Mark for his GoodGym run and Sarah for her second ever GoodGym run and first time in Ealing!

Chris was in charge of being the frontrunner and leading the way, Harvey mid-marked and I was at the back. We would our way up the hill for the short run to Hestia. Once there we said hello to Sandra and she outlined the tasks:

• A clear up in the garden collecting leave and any litter that we could find
• A clear up of leaves in the front garden and drive
• A cupboard sort and the moving of a bunch of lever-arch files from the downstairs office to the cupboard all the way upstairs

We split the group to each task and everyone went about their way. Before we knew it all was done and it was time to say our goodbyes. We posed for a group photo and then headed off for some more running.

Chris again led the way and we took a longer route home with a hill rep thrown in for good measure too. Before we knew it we were back at base and we stretched before heading home.

A job well done everyone, see you next week!