How many GoodGymers do you need to fill two tonne bags with compost, move them, and stack them? Well, depends on how many you’ve got! Even as a small team, the GoodGymers can work magic. Ash, Harvey, Sevan, Steph, and Kash have proven that’s true on a cool Tuesday night, when they ran to Walpole Park to help the ranger and volunteer gardeners move the leftover compost from the community giveaway into the Walled Garden.

After picking up the tools and thoroughly checking that there was no one under the tarp covering the compost pile (it looked very convincing as a homeless person's refuge), the team stuck their shovels into the compost and started loading tonne bags, wheelbarrows, and a trolley. It took three trips to the Walled Garden to deliver nearly two tonnes of compost in bags and top up a raised bed, while carefully avoiding burying the strawberries in it. The team avoided the temptation to split up and do the job even quicker - it’s always better to stick together, as it's safer and more fun!

After a successful session, the GoodGymers locked up the bagged compost, the tools, and even the park, as it was past the time it should be closed for the night. Next week, we give dark parks a break and venture to Acton for a leafletting session to promote free health and fitness activities for women hosted at St Mary’s Church. Sign up now!

It felt like a full harvest festival at the South Ealing Food Cupboard this week. Stef, Beata, Martin and Iram were on hand to help unload the van and stack the shelves for what turned out to be a bumper haul.

Crates arrived stacked with fresh produce, including cabbages genuinely bigger than our heads, heaps of carrots, plenty of green cabbages and mountains of potatoes. Mixed in with the veg were some more unusual arrivals: caramel popcorn, fruit-cake slices and bottles of fruity sparkling water - an eclectic combination that kept things interesting. A large delivery of loose green grapes needed portioning, so Stef, Beata, and Iram jumped straight into action, filling reused shopping bags to create generous, ready-to-hand-out servings.

Just as the weather got a bit cooler after a mild Saturday, Gabi, Maria, and Simon were bright and early at Pitshanger Park to join Kash for a quick warm-up before volunteering at the junior parkrun.

This month's theme was an upper body workout - without any weights! Who needs gym equipment if you have your own bodyweight, bike racks, and café benches to hit all key muscle groups: chest, biceps, triceps, shoulders, traps, and delts?

After a brief warm-up to get the hearts pumping and the joints ready to move, the GoodGymers did a couple of circuits of six exercises:

• Incline wide grip push-ups
• Incline diamond push-ups
• Pike push-ups
• Bodyweight skull crushers
• Australian pull-ups
• Tricep dips

Finishing with a set of arm stretches, the team was ready to go, full of good energy to start the day!

Despite the days will inevitably get cooler, that won't stop us next month. Quite the opposite - we'll be back for a light cardio session in December to get everyone motivated to get active outdoors in good company! Sign up now!

Unlike the last few times, when I had visited my regular Friday customer, Mr G was in high spirits. Despite his ongoing personal and health issues, he had some positive news from his doctor, that made him feel a bit younger and more cheerful. Apart from enjoying his usual quick wit in action, I was happy to see hope in his eyes that evening. We had a good chat before I left for Sainsbury's.

There was nothing unusual on the shopping list, so I did my usual route through the aisles from memory. We had recently concluded with Mr G that I must have been the person who knew best where all his favourite products were located in his local supermarket - better than himself!

Mr G praised the choice of savoy cabbage I brought back with me, and then we chatted about his late beloved cat, whose pictures Mr G still kept on display. The conversation then steered into Mr G's days of being an artist and spending nearly all his spare time in the studio, producing incredible amounts of artwork. He showed me a couple of his large silk screen prints he had recently pulled out from his portfolio. I felt that was a very special experience to see his thought-provoking art, otherwise hidden from others' eyes - a privilege for a trusted GoodGymer!

After a upper body warm up session, 3 of the GoodGymers at Pitshanger Junior parkrun this morning arrived with fast beating hearts and warm fingers and toes. That was good as winter wasn't coming, it had already arrived overnight with the cold Pitshanger wind sweeping through the park.

To keep warm, Gaby ran to her marshal post, while Kash, Maria and Sevan had more easy going roles. Kash was tailwalking for the second parkrun in a row, Maria barcode scanned and Sevan was cheering runners over the line and trying to record their times correctly. That was challenging as waves of children finished in quick succession. The first finisher was rapid too as she entered the funnel in under 7 minutes!

At the back, there was a relay taking place. Not with the runners, but the boy's support crew. As Kash passed marshal posts on the the final lap, the would be 120th finisher upgraded his granny for his mum who'd been volunteering as marshal number 2. The team effort of granny, mum, Kash and later Gaby too helped him make it to the finish line and get to a nice round number of finishers.

The last community day of the year at Western Road Urban Garden brought four mighty GoodGymers for a proper strength workout: dismantling a pile of tree stumps and logs. The task was not only about the fitness pursuits - Janpal, the manager of Southal Community Alliance, laid out his vision of the transformation to come. Firstly, he wanted to create more space for food growing, and the timber mound stood in the way to a perfect location for new veg beds. Secondly, the gaps in the fence between the urban garden and the neighbour’s private property needed fixing, and a natural barrier made of logs seemed like a simple, proven solution. We had built timber walls at Western Road several times before and knew our craft, so we turned into nature’s best engineers once again.

I feel like a beaver doing this - Afshin.

The timber mound was defended by tall nettles. Sevan and Kash had run to the task in the typical GoodGym armor - shorts and t-shirts - which was not best suited for stinging opponents, but, luckily, Paul from Ealing Parks Foundation came to the rescue with a strimmer.

Having secured access to the materials, the GoodGymers made sure the foundations for the Fortress Western Road were strong. Afshin and Kash had to pull out a fence part and a derelict trolley from under ivy overgrowth. The first thing Janpal was going to repurpose, the second was only junk and a reminder of how full of rubbish Western Road had been back when we first started supporting the site.

Two very different approaches to construction dominated the scene this Saturday. The gap in the fence, filled by Ash and Sevan, was built with stumps and thin, long logs shooting to the sky like skyscrapers. It was bold, innovative, and unapologetically vertical. The other wall, erected by Afshin, Kash, and Janpal, was a tribute to stability and tradition, with its unruffled horizontal lines of perfectly slotted large, straight logs.

Just when the masterpieces of contemporary and classical art were finished, Western Road was treated to a visit from Mr Bhasin from Manor Way Allotments, and the volunteers were treated to a feast of veg and meat samosas, tea, coffee, coconut water, and a couple of trays of sweet, fresh fruit. The members of the community, who visited the garden, could help themselves to the last bits of this year's harvest: pumpkins from the polytunnel.

After the break, two GoodGym architecture schools joined forces for the last hour of log lifting, rolling, flipping, and hurling in an effort to clear the timber area entirely. This time, filling the fence gaps resembled a rogue speed-stacking the tree stumps and covering them with smaller twigs and sticks that had to be used up, too. Eventually, Fortress Western Road stood strong, protecting its newly acquired, valuable growing grounds. It will remain unconquered by anyone - maybe apart from the local fox!

We are pausing the Western Road sessions for a December break, but we will be back early in the new year, in January, February, and March. We’ve got the dates - save them now!