A long with a bunch of other Goodgymers I volunteered at the Crisis at Christmas take down. Helen

Lots of goodgymers pitching in to help dismantle the Crisis at Christmas warehouse this weekend.

We had Peter and Aidan taking picnic tables down to pieces and packing into containers, the ambition was to get them into just 3 containers... they did it in 2, EEEE-ZEH!... Kitchen areas cleared and cardboard sorted into the recycling (that bit's very important).

Hilary,Helen , Chris and Tina(we salute you) were tearing up miles and miles of carpet tiles.

Graham, Rosa,Siobhan,Nickand John were on printers in the morning - testing them for toner... making sure they were toned up like the goodgymers!

Brad, Tori,Jade Kelsey, Kevin, Sharonand Paul were working on sorting out the remaining donations, including a footy umbrella

Break for lunch, bake off between Hilary (brownies) and Rosa (cookies) because both are approaching milestone numbers of tasks - whoop whoop!

After lunch there was a hilarious amount of flooring to be taken up in the warehouse, I'm no expert but I'd estimate at least 100,000 square metres. Team printers and team carpet tiles joined forces to tackle it and Paula entered the fray bringing Spanish flair to the exercise. All had to be stacked in a very particular way, time consuming, but got there in the end. And the reward was neatly folding enormous carpets.

All then had to be shrink wrapped...An exercise which has psychologically scarred a teenage Graham. This time Graham came out on top. Take that shrink wrap!

How's that for a slice of fried gold. See you all next time!

What a turnout. What a safe, productive, industrious, dedicated, companionable turnout.

A big sized team headed to the huge warehouse in Poplar today to be allocated many types of stocktacking tasks by project co-ordinator Richard:

Writes Becky

“A great crew of people dropping in and out today! Our task was sorting and organising with abandon.

Richard presented us with multiple crates of miscellaneous donations for logging, passing on/reusing… There was sports equipment aplenty (in the morning I think a lot of hard work was undertaken separating basketballs from footballs…), as well as bundles of craft items and lots of stationary.

Crate by crate we unpacked and reassembled in more crates: yep, crates of paints, crates of pencils... You get the picture. And we found all sorts of interesting goodies - a spikey pink ball and the coup de grace: an elf on the shelf.”

Nick​ agrees:

“Yep, another fun filled, busy day down at the warehouse where Richard had us stocktaking a wide array of donations (yoga mats, balls – lots, in all sizes - books by the hundreds; wool, embroidery items and knitting needles; games and jigsaws…), caging items up and, where necessary, wrapping in industrial cling film to prevent them escaping.

Provided you came wearing sufficient layers, to take account of the somewhat chilly conditions inside the warehouse today, it was another enjoyable (and, we hope, productive) day in deepest Poplar.”

What a team. A big, big thank you to everyone who took part in this fabulous Community Mission, and especially to Becky and Nick for writing the report and taking pics, and to Charlotte and Jacqui for their pics too.

And a huge warm welcome to Edmund and Kezia who both enjoyed their first GG session today. Come back soon!

Crisis Community Missions return next week: there are drop-in sessions on both Thursday and Friday, 21/1 and 22/2, if you fancy getting involved.

As per title and main picture... guess who's legs those are!

Besides sorting out some wall issues by those mystery legs, there were lots of jobs that were tackled by this marvelous team:

• cleaning huge fridges
• labeling & boxing up mice & keyboards
• marking out parking spaces
• setting up sanitation stations
• counting everything in hall 3
• more counting in hall 3 (loads to count!)
• labeling the halls
• fixing & decorating walls
• assisting electricians
• putting tables together
• tea/coffee break
• helping to put up (Christmas?) lights
• swapping broken printer
• finishing reception area flooring
• tidying up outside of reception area

Apologies if I left any off, there was so much going on, near impossible to track everything & everyone!

A few names to highight:

We had one person come down for the first time! Welcome to the Goodgym family Dami! Newhams Helen can be looking forward to her black t-shirt after completing her 50th task! That banana cake looked delicious and was well earned. And Natalie will be floating home carried by her newly acquired wings - 100 tasks for this Greenwich regular.

Thanks to Nick & Sharon for taking pictures and big thank you from Richard and the Crisis team for all the work done!

There are a couple of sessions up for next week, shifting from evenings to day time on Wednesday & Thursday. Like the Saturdays, these are logged as 10-4, but you can come later and/or finish earlier - very much flexible volunteering! So if you need an excuse to escape the house for a little while, why not pop round and help out for a while?