Last night we had 15 wonderful souls out to help Ealing Transition keep on top of the brambles, hedges and general overgrowth in the community orchard.

Big welcome to Sophie who came along for her first ever GoodGym session, she rocked it!

We kicked off the night with a little warm up and introductions where we all went around and said the best thing that came out of lockdown for us. After quite a negative period where we're all grateful to be coming out of the other side it was great to hear some of the positives people have managed to take from the situation! Some got fitter, some gained pets and some learnt new skills, all awesome stuff!

We then took off on our group run around the parks before the task, big up to Shan and Harvey for their excellent back marking skills!

After grabbing tools we made our way down to the garden itself where super taskowner Trevor was ready and waiting for us to get stuck in. He explained how the garden is used for community learning, as an outdoor classroom and forest school. Such a cool and important space!

We were all about bramble control tonight and freeing the trees that were being smoothered in overgrowth. We also kept our taller members on hedge mangement, reaching up to snip them back into shape.

We had a few (okay more than a few!) nettles and prickly plants to deal with but the team smashed it and made a huge dent in the workload in the orchard!

All that was left was to sweep up, return the tools and head to the pub.

What an excellent evening!

Last night saw the return of group runs and 12 lovely GoodGymers came out for the occasion!

On what was one of the hottest days of the year we were certainly feeling the heat but nothing was going to stop us meeting for a run to do good after over a year of not being able to run together!

Our original task for the evening was to dig over a patch of land in the William Hobbayne Half Acre Wood but with sky high temperatures and no rain the ground was far too hard for that! So plan b was tackling the overgrown brambles on the pathways instead.

Huge well done to everyone for braving the heat and getting stuck in, we’ll be back in the wood in a couple of weeks when hopefully the weather will have broken and the rain will make the ground dig-able!

St Mary's Church has long been a GoodGym Ealing regular task - we've done lots of work inside the church and in the gardens over the years.

This evening's task for our Mötley Crüe was pulling out nettles at the back of the church garden and removing some of the ivy at the front. With no time to MUSE on the task, the two teams were able to make a great difference to both spaces in the hour we had!

During all of the clearing work, we discovered some gravestones (Rolling Stones??) which had long been hidden showing just how long the church has been a part of Ealing's community, but not quite from (Queens of) the stone age!

Steve was very grateful and no doubt we will be back again to do some more over the summer!

On a beautiful summers evening 14 eager GoodGym runners cane out to help care for the land at the William Hobbaybe Half Acre Wood.

A huge welcome to Jahnae who joined for her first GoodGym session - a excellent addition to the team!

Our main task for the evening was to uncover all the small trees that were being smothered by lots of overgrowth thanks to the glorious weather we've had the last few weeks. With lots of shearing, raking and snipping we were soon uncovering lots of trees and a great sense of satisfaction was radiating throughout the group!

'We love GoodGym!' said a passerby, out on their evening stroll!

The award for best outfit of the night definitely went to Shan who was rocking a t-shirt tucked into jeans look last seen in the 80s. He was definitely winning at not getting stinging nettles on the legs though!

After an hour of hard work (shearing lots of brambles really is a great workout, not to mention tension release!) we downed tools and said goodbye. But we'll be back! Keep an eye on the listings as we're planning another community mission here that will have a yoga gong bath at the end in July!