Its 1pm and the volunteers were clucking their heels together for the Fry-Day Hub. Best of cluck to the team as busy service ahead. Working around the cluck 🐔. 2 chicketeers Steph Ducat and Divya were joined by Nishy who stayed on to help. They did not chicken out. Nishy was serving in the dining area, while Divya was in the kitchen helping with the pot wash, sorting plates and then handing out plates to the front of house. Steph was plating with Mary. Menu today was chicken with a vegetable sauce and rice plus a side carrot salad. Veggie curry as an option. Dessert was a chocolate brownie with custard. Guests also had some freshly made samosas from a local business : veggie, chicken and lamb. Take away meals were handed out at the end by the team then the cleaning started.

Friday ESK Hub and it starts with the setup and the tea service. Steph Ducat is in early as usual and helped cut up meat and the dancing chicken for the grocery bags that will be collected from those who have cooking facilities. Tea for 2 or 2 for tea? Steph set up the Tea station and Goodgymer then was on tea service with Anita and Siobhan...became very chat-Tea between the 3 of them and the guests who started flowing in for some biscuits and hot beverages. They got the par- Tea started !!!Steph went then to his usual stuff in the kitchen and became Bugs Bunny as grating carrots 🐰🐇. The kitchen crew was all ready for the next shift that starts at 1 pm : dining service. Mains and desserts were being prepared for hungry people.

In the background of the Church crypt, you could still hear the Choir singing to the crowd. Tea service over which means its nearly time to open the dining area to serve hungry guests, who were up for a treat. Whilst the service was starting, a lot was in full swing : footcare, showers, food parcels handed out, Easter egss given out and the english lessons just finished. 3 Goodgymers stayed to plate, serve food, serve drinks(hot beverage or juices), give parcels, hand Easter eggs and also tidy up the tables as guests were going in and out of the dining area. Both Kash and Roberta stayed and ended up serving in the dining area while Steph Ducat was in the kitchen plating food that was cook earlier in the day. On the menu which the guest loved : - Salmon with a bed of tomato salsa, crushed potatoes and peas on the side - Pasta with pesto for the veggie option - Apple crumble with custard When the volunteers went for their lunch break, they also were delighted with the lovely dishes prepared by the kitchen team.

Fishing you all a Happy Easter

Good Friday and the Ealing Soup Kitchen Friday Hub still operating even if it is a bank holiday. Something special today as Easter week end so special treat for the customers. 4 Goodgymers made their way to the crypt to start the 1st shift : Steph was in early as usual but we all noticed this smell when entering ....something smelling fishy 🐟 very fishy 🐟🐠🐡🐟🦀🦞. Unusual smell for the kitchen, but then it is good Friday, so fish on the menu. Steph Ducat the kitchen, Kash in the dining area, Nishy and Roberta at tea station and grocery section. Busy morning as we had some entertainment/singing from Me time pop choir. Nishy ended up helping Arul with the grocery bags with Kash and Roberta.

Tonight's group run in Elthorne Park was optimistically promoted as "not only burdock". 8 Goodgymers arrived at the tool container to learn of their evening challenge. The first was making sense of the aerial map they'd been provided with yellow and red areas. These identified 2 areas for tasks with a choice of either:

• Digging out burdock; or
• Removing last year's plants

With most of the group - understandably - hating burdock after previous tasks, they chose the more vague task to clear up the dead plants instead. Only Sevan and Madhan were brave or foolish enough to go burdock bashing. Before the burdock group set off, Kash asked if anyone knew what burdock looked like. Sevan confidently raised his hand, having been here a few times before.

As the burdock team headed down the Red Path on their task map, Team Dead Plant tried to find the old plants without any luck. Meanwhile Sevan and Madhan were doing some sleuthing of the own and playing "spot the burdock" without much success. Eventually they whipped out their phones and called the great book of knowledge in the sky, which confirmed that one of the plants they saw was a variety of burdock. Greater Common Burdock to be exact. Once they'd figured this, Madhan and Sevan got their spades out and started filling their tonne bags with the stuff.

Soon, Kash and Nishy defected to Team Burdock, bringing their shovels with them. Kash was surprised to find out about this new kind of burdock too, so Madhan had to assure her that Google knew better than them. Kash took one of the dead stalks back to Team Dead Plant where they had the same discussion. "That's not burdock!", "no really, it is".

Once Team Dead Plant were convinced about the burdock, Claire, Emily, Mike and Chris saw that they were surrounded by the stuff and it was more easily accessible than where Team Burdock were working. The two teams combined forces, grabbed some more shovels and filled 2 tonne bags by the end of the task.