A Good Friday visit to Mr G saw me picking up a bumper shopping haul including a new (to me) item on his list: walnut halves. I couldn't find his requested brand but grabbed a couple of bags of an alternative...and hopefully walnuts are walnuts...

The trio Libi, Melissa and Steph Ducat stayed to clean the kitchen and service area. They were joined by Katarina and Jp shortly joined by Rainu - wow 6 Goodgymers on the cleaning shift. The cleaning was done in a blink of an eye - super heroes!!The whole area was spotless and Arul was impressed with the smell that came out of Jp bucket when cleaning the floor - secret cleaning recipe?

Happy Easter All.

Lunch time and it was time to rock and roll in the kitchen and service area. Melissa and Steph Ducat were in the kitchen to serve food and they were joined byLibi who decided to stay and help. The trio platted the dishes before they were handed to the service crew where Jacquie was handing over the food to hungry customers. As good Friday, it was a fishy day : Salmon with lemon served with potatoes and green beans or stuffed peppers with the veggies on the side.Then came cake with hand made cream.Something fishy in the air but the customers loved it. The team served food and started cleaning pots and pans to avoid stating behind with all dirty pots. Some take away dishes were provided once everyone had been feed.

All customers and volunteers received Easter eggs - Happy Easter all.

Not your normal Friday at the ESK Hub : Good Friday indeed. Means a Frdiay with a twist. No grocery bags, no clothing section, no showers but instead you still had the bingo, the tea and coffee service and a choir session to celebrate Easter. A first at ESK for both Libi who was on tea and coffee duties and Melissa who was in the kitchen with the usual suspect Steph Ducat. Jacquie was back from Australia and ended also between the kitchen and service area. In the kitchen something fishy was going on...prep for the lunch service!!After 12:15 you could hear some singing from the choir and the customers joining in. Lunch time was approaching and the kitchen and service crew were getting in place.

If you live in the Ealing Borough, you might have heard about one day in May when the whole town of Hanwell turns into a massive gig space with pubs, community hubs and green spaces hosting performances of young talent and more established artists. Yes, I’m talking about the Hanwell Hootie, the largest free one-day festival in London, celebrating Hanwell’s legendary link to Jim Marshall, the inventor of the amplifier. GoodGym Ealing is proud to support this fully volunteer-led event year after year.

This Tuesday night, Conor, Sevan and Kash ran 3.7 km to the Stables in Brent Lodge Park in Hanwell for the first Hootie task of 2026. Maria cycled to the session from Chiswick, and Harvey walked to meet the group at the task location. June and Andrea, the volunteers and planners behind the Hootie, were already there, waiting to share with GoodGymers their discovery.

The lack of electricity to light up the indoor of the Stables wasn’t a surprise, but a large pile of tyres stacked inside was! The unexpected stack was obstructing the way to pull out and clean the festival furniture, so the whole team had to think fast on their feet and redirect their energy to removing the obstacle: carrying, rolling, or flipping the tyres to the backyard.

With less time left to deal with the festival sofas and chairs in need of tidying, June and Andrea decided that the best use of the time would be unrolling and cleaning the Hootie banners - some of them really huge! When Maria and Conor unfolded the largest of the banners, it turned out that what was printed on it had no relevance to this year’s Hootie: Marshall’s diamond jubilee. The team uncovered a few more out-of-date posters, which June classified as legacy and recommended putting aside. A big win was discovering the Hootie on the Meadow banner as the 2026 festival was making a comeback to that large outdoor venue after a couple of year’s absence.

After an hour at the Stables, two tasks had been completed, and the runners were ready to set off for the run back to Ealing Broadway, just as the night settled over Ealing. Luckily, we’ve booked a follow-up session with Andrea in advance, so next week we’ll come back to Hanwell to deal with the dusty Hootie furniture. Sign up now!

For Ealing GoodGymers' second session at Care4Calais this month, there were more newly arrived donations from other charities and storage units to sort through. There were new requests too from beneficiaries and some admin work to complete.

Kash prepared packs for new requests that had come in. Finding everything that was needed mostly went smoothly, except an unusual request for orthopedic shoes that couldn't be sourced in the stock room. When the pre-prepared medium clothing packs for men ran out, small packs were substituted in their place with the hope that recipients would be on the slimmer side. Kash finished the session with record keeping, noting down which requests had been fulfilled for beneficiaries.

In another room, Penny, Maria and Sevan were working through the incoming donations. Most of the clothing was for women and children, including a bag full of tiny, cute baby clothes. There was a lot of variety in the other boxes too, with some upmarket women's clothing, children's football boots that went straight back out to a recipient and some unusual olive coloured cloth. It took a while to figure out what the olive material should be used for. Was it an enormous comedy bow tie? Was it a blanket? Maria eventually got the gold star by figuring out that they were trousers that tied together at each hip ⭐.

With the new clothes sorted, it was time to move them into the stock room. Here, the team found a problem as there were more women's clothes coming in than were being given out. Netball and basketball skills came in useful as clothes were shot towards the sky, landing on top of tall piles of stock (there was a sense of déjà vu with this). Where no more clothes could fit on or above the shelves, there were overflow bags dotted around the room, which also filled up. Thankfully, the men's and children's clothes didn't have the same problem.

The next trip to Care4Calais is on the 12th of April, where Sevan offered to help task owner Tamzin clear out some of the excess stock.