On Thursday evening, the Ealing GoodGym team supported Hanwell Boxing School, a registered charity and amateur boxing club that provides affordable boxing training, fitness coaching, and structured youth development programmes for people from all backgrounds.

The group, consisting of Sevan, Giles, Kash, and Maria, met at Ealing Broadway Station, where we were delighted to welcome a new member to the team, Bilal, who arrived well prepared for the task, complete with his gloves.

Before heading to the task, the group completed a short warm-up led by Kash and set off on a run of just over 3 km. Kash split the group into two teams so everyone could run or run/walk at a comfortable pace. Sevan, acting as backmarker, ran/walked with Bilal and Giles, while Maria and Kash ran ahead to the task location to meet Scott, who cycled there, and the task owner, Linda.

Linda was very pleased to see the GoodGym team and explained the evening's task. The boxing school was preparing to welcome new members and launch new activities, so the outdoor space needed some attention. Our job was to clear leaves from the pathways and remove overgrown vine plants and ivy to make the area cleaner, safer, and more welcoming.

Linda provided all the necessary equipment, including brushes, large plastic buckets, and digging shovels. Initially, Scott, Kash, and Maria began sweeping leaves from the entrance area. When the rest of the team, Sevan, Giles, and Bilal, arrived, we divided into two groups.

One team focused on removing ivy from the corners of the site and gathering leaves with shovels into piles. The leaves were then transferred into large buckets and carried to a designated grass area for disposal, following Linda's instructions. The second team concentrated on sweeping leaves from across the pathways into central piles, making collection easier and more efficient.

As time passed, Kash began to wonder whether we would manage to complete all the work before the end of the session. However, the GoodGym team never lets its leader down. Everyone increased their efforts, worked together efficiently, and successfully completed the task on time.

The transformation was impressive. The pathways looked much cleaner, tidier, and more inviting, and Linda was delighted with the results. Seeing the positive impact of our work made all the effort worthwhile.

At the end of the session, the team made their separate journeys home. Kash, Sevan, and Giles ran back to Ealing Broadway, Scott collected his bike, Bilal headed for the bus, and Maria walked home after another rewarding GoodGym mission.

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

It's been over 50 consecutive days - and counting - without any rain in some parts of London, and Western Road Urban Garden in Southall required a constant effort from Janpal and volunteers to help the site keep up with the ongoing heat. The exotic vegetables inside the polytunnel were doing well, and the veg plot we had cleared, woodchipped and partially planted only a month ago started already producing crops such as aubergines and tomatoes! None of that came without a price. Manual watering of veg beds took a lot of time and energy and wouldn't be sustainable in the long term. That's something the architect of Western Road community garden Ash wanted to address for a while.

In February this year, we had taken first steps towards executing Ash's vision of installing two 1000-litre rainwater containers. The mud wasn't going to serve as a reliable base for a tonne of water in a single container, so after digging out the soil, we'd been looking forward to pouring the concrete into the square spaces for a few months. Today was the day to make Ash's vision reality!

Seven GoodGymers came to support Western Road on a Saturday morning in August:

• Walkers: Angela
• Runners: Sevan and Kash
• Cyclists: Scott, Amy and Steph
• Cyclists/parkrunners: Richard

The Plant Squad

Angela, Amy and Janpal had plenty of tasks to do: from weeding the bed alongside the polytunnel, to harvesting and watering the new veg plot. In the polytunnel, they discovered a watermelon that looked pretty good on the outside, but a closer look revealed a small hole and the fact that the fruit was half eaten inside! Judging by the size of the hole, it looked like a rat, rather than Mr Fox, was the prime suspect this time. To save the other juicy crops, Janpal ordered the harvesting of the green tomatoes before the rat laid its eyes on them. Amy found some very long chili peppers, and everyone had a chance to see ripe snake gourds.

Janpal's top tip for cooking a snake gourd:

"Make sure to take the skin off and discard the seeds. We haven't done it last time, and that was the most bitter thing I've ever had!"

The Concrete Cowboys

The group keen to learn concreting skills joined Ash and started with combining the mixture for a base for the water container:

• 4 parts shingle
• 2 parts coarse sand
• 1 part cement
• plasticiser.

While Steph, Richard and Sevan mixed the concrete in a tray to wheelbarrow it to the destination hole surrounded by a wooden frame, Scott, Kash and Ash cleared the weeds inside and around the frame, assisted with pouring the mix, then levelled and tamped the concrete.

The team used up all the resources allocated for one of the bases, then threw in some rubble to bulk up the base, but there wasn't enough material to finish off that stage of the project. Despite great teamwork and solid progress, we'll need to come back to finish off the job when more materials are available. Join us next Wednesday!

Last Saturday, before the 10th anniversary celebration of GoodGym Ealing, our gang joined the Hanwell and Norwood Green Orchard Trail (HANGOT) to cut back orchard hedges and water young trees at the Elthorne Triangle Orchard.

But what about the older trees? How were they going to survive the extreme drought that has been affecting London since the end of June, especially with Hilary and Clive from HANGOT away for a week in August?

The GoodGymmers offered to take care of the mature trees in the Elthorne Triangle orchard, and, thanks to Ranger Jon, they were given access to 10 five-litre water containers. According to Hilary, that was just the right amount of water to keep the trees going that week.

What better excuse to perform the farmer’s walk routine than carrying containers to water fruit trees in a public orchard! And that’s exactly what the GoodGymmers did, hauling and tipping the containers around the orchard. It was the hottest day of the week, with temperatures reaching 37°C, but with five pairs of hands on the job, the task was short and easy, taking less than 20 minutes. In fact, a significant percentage of that time was spent simply opening the storage space where the containers lived!

The GoodGymmers decided to add a bonus task: weighted step-ups on the steps leading from the canal to Elthorne Park. Since the ranger had provided a bucket, funnel and rope, they also decided to fill the empty water containers with water from the canal, ready for the next time the trees needed watering.

The five GoodGymmers also used the session as an excuse for some extra light exercise on that very hot day. Scott cycled, Richard, Sevan and Steph Ducat ran, and Kash walked. It was a great way to get out of the house or work and into the outdoors, making the most of the golden hour before sunset.