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 The team uncovered a few more out-of-date posters, which June classified as legacy and recommended putting aside.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.

On a Sunday afternoon Sevan and Kash visited Mr G for a tech support quadrathlon, featuring:

• printing important documents from a Samsung tablet
• setting up alarm clock on a mobile device
• helping with WhatsApp data download settings
• showing Mr G how to create photo albums on his temperamental iPad.

While Mr G managed to resolve some of his problems (queued emails) on his own, before the GoodGym mission this week, he still had plenty of queries. He shared how overwhelming the technology has been, and how he's been minimising the number of notifications and disruptions caused by his multiple devices. On occasions, Mr G had been solving such problems by using different, but similar devices to the troublesome ones, just stripped down of some features or not using his login details. The latest cure for his smartphone going walkabouts was an old-school Nokia with its own SIM card. It looks like switching to old, simpler phones for certain purposes is not just a trend seen in the younger generations these days!

Did you know that the first pillar postbox in mainland Britain was erected in Carlisle? Or that the first pop band to feature on Channel 5 was the Spice Girls? Neither did we. We learned some pub quiz-style trivia from the "backstage" of one of the favourite community events in Hanwell: the Quiz Night at the William Hobbayne Centre!

Halfway through the quiz, we were summoned to the kitchen for serving. We rolled up our sleeves and started dishing out compostable plates with butter chicken and veggie chilli for the guests, who praised the meals cooked by chefs Sue, Mandie and Sue. The dinner for roughly 90 guests meant 7 kilos of onions to peel, and not a single tear shed by the relentless Hobbayne team!

After the dinner, came the time for the traditional raffle, in which GoodGymer Maria won a set of lotions and creams. Maria decided to donate her prize to another volunteer and walk home with the takeaway chilli with rice and naan in her hands. Meanwhile, the rest of GoodGymers ate their own portions in the centre, to restore energy before the final task: the clean-up.

After a long day and a succesful Quiz night, the Goodgym crew were in full speed to clear and clean the Hobbayne centre once the hall was emptied. Rubbish cleared from the tables, tables folded, chairs packed and pots all cleaned to eventually calll it a night. Sevan was quite creative when we found some small pots of sauce left but no more lids or containers left to close : runner glove was used(see picture). we all left with some curry and rice take aways. The Grime Reapers disappeared in the streets of Hanwell to go and find their beds.

Kash and Sevan ventured to one of the outermost parts of Ealing borough to help Ms S with some important tasks in her home. Ms S was less steady on her feet than she used to be after a cancer diagnosis and couldn't bend over, so an unstable toilet seat and badly fitted carpet were small problems for others and big for Ms S.

The downstairs WC was the first task location and it was only big enough for 1 GoodGymer to fit into, so Kash and Sevan took turns between the toilet pan inside and the instructions outside. The old seat used to skate off the pan according to Ms S, flinging users into the wall. The new one was universal fit, so it took the pair some trial and error to get it in the right position. Once it was in place, Ms S could see that it was much better than the old one without needing to put it through a test drive.

Before starting on the carpet, Ms S showed Kash and Sevan her own DIY build. An impressive wooden cat house that sat in the back garden. Ms S had a love of cats, owning, adopting and fostering them. They spoke about rats and hedgehogs too, with Ms S sharing that there was a baby hedgehog living in her garden in a big pile of grass cuttings.

Hedgehog mating was something that Ms S had seen in her garden too and they were noisy, she said. She'd decided not to film it as it would be rude for the hedgehogs.

"David Attenborough films animals doing things like that and he gets paid for it." - Sevan
"That's true. I could've started my own Only Fans account, if I was into that."
"People do strange things online." - Ms S

Very true.

Moving on from strange activities online, it was time to stick down the loose carpet upstairs. The carpet gripper strips weren't holding anything in place, so the carpets stretched and moved like a furry wave. Ms S had bought double sided carpet tape which was very sticky, making it challenging to cut with scissors. Kash and Sevan managed to keep themselves from getting stuck together (mostly), putting down two layers of tape to keep everything securely fixed. It was hard to test how good the solution was and they'll only know for sure next time the hoover comes out.