Tea shift and prep shift saw the usual suspects Jacquie and Steph Ducat. Jacquie was serving hot drinks and cereals while Steph Ducat was up to some fishy stuff in the upstairs kitchen. Both were in full swing.

Fishy Friday : there was something fishy today at ESK. The team prepared a gorgeous fish pie including some without prawns. there was also the vegetarian option - mo fish in the butter bean and mushroom pie. Dessert was Swiss roll with ice cream. Jacquie was in her familiar spot serving food while Steph Ducat was still in the kitchen serving plates with Marge and Andrew. We welcomed 2 new joiners Shenelle and Annmarie who were serving jot drinks and cleaning pots, pans, plates etc. Welcome to Goodgym!!! The customets really enjoyed the fish pie today.

Three Goodgmyers were out and about early on Friday morning to set up and prep at ESK. Welcome Ben to Goodgym Ealing on his 1st task. Ben was with James prepping in the grocery section. Anna was helping Doreen with sandwiches in the dining area. Steph Ducat was in the kitchen upstairs cooking food with Mary, Marge and Andrew.

The details of tonight's top-secret mission for Hobbayne Charity must remain classified to anyone who wasn't there. However, the commander of our very special unit has agreed to answer a few frequently asked questions about a typical GoodGym operation.

How do you get a special forces crew through a small building hosting two council meetings with residents, without being noticed?

Smuggle them through a network of secret corridors.

How do you reduce your greenhouse gas emissions?

Get a couple of GoodGymers to carry away an electricity generator and a canister of diesel, and lend them to a local church.

How do you prepare a charity office for a makeover?

Recruit a team of safe crackers to move the safes out of the painters' way. Or, better, call in GoodGymers to relocate them while keeping all the valuables safely locked inside!

How do you deliver sacks of teddy bears to a social worker supporting children with special needs when you don't know the exact address?

Send in GoodGym Santa and his trusty helper. Santa always finds his way to those who deserve it!

How do you fit long MDF planks into a commercial waste bin?

Call in a GoodGym martial artist to karate-kick them into more manageable pieces.

If you'd like to witness GoodGym's undercover operations first-hand, obviously, we can't tell you where to go. Definitely not to the dark corners of Walpole Park on a Tuesday night (wink, wink).

As usual, the GoodGym Red T-Shirt Team volunteered at Acton Junior Parkrun, helping to make the event a success. We were fortunate to enjoy a lovely, crisp Sunday morning, with the beautiful autumn colours beginning to appear on the trees around the park.

Our team was wonderfully diverse, with Michelle and Alan joining from Hounslow, and Sevan, Kash and Maria from Ealing.We were also joined by John, who ran 11 km from Camden to Acton Junior Parkrun just to help us volunteer, showing remarkable dedication and commitment to supporting the local community. It was great to have volunteers from different areas working together to support the event.

We welcomed 61 young runners on the day and, as always, it was wonderful to see so many children taking part and enjoying themselves.

One memorable moment involved a determined 3½-year-old runner who was unfortunately disqualified as the minimum age for participation is four years old. Despite that, the young runner certainly made an impression, even leaving Michelle waiting for a high five at the finish!

There were also a few challenges at the finish area. Some children missed the clearly signposted finish funnel, either running past it or not wanting to separate from their parents. Among the final finishers were a young brother and sister whose enthusiasm never faded. Their mother described them perfectly, saying:

"They were like dragons flying."

Comments like these remind us how much joy and confidence junior parkrun brings to children and their families.

I am always happy to see the positive impact we have at Acton Junior Parkrun. The volunteer team consistently shows how much they appreciate our support, and that appreciation is one of the reasons we are always delighted to return and help whenever we can.

After a couple of months off, GoodGym Ealing returned to Care4Calais to find a huge stack of new donations to be sorted. It's like they'd been kept waiting and adding up for the next GoodGym session.

First though, all of the children's clothes had been through the wash, so they were recategorised and bagged first to clear space. Then it was onto the new donations, most of which were supposed to be women's clothes. As always, the expectation of what was in the bag and reality didn't always match, so the team needed to figure out what was what.

"This is XL, but I can't decide if it's men's or women's." - JP
"Does it have the bum design for women?" - Task Owner Tamzin

If there wasn't a clear women's or men's size on the labels, the arm lengths or the bums were a good steer on which gender the clothes were meant for. Even then, it wasn't totally clear in some cases. Cue some puzzled looks over these and also what did or didn't qualify for the winter coat category.

As well as the expected dresses, vests and cardigans, the team found:

• Men's and children's clothes, of course
• Donations in unusual sizes from a film set
• Toys, which turned into a distraction for the big kids
• An ashtray (clean, thankfully)
• Bucket hats
• Lots of items that went onto the "to wash" pile

After almost 2 hours of solid sorting, it was time to find space for the clothes. The store room was thankfully not bursting at the seams like during the last Care4Calais session, so putting away was fairly straightforward with everyone chipping in.

The next Care4Calais session is in 2 weeks and you can sign up here to help the charity, its clients and also critique other people's fashion choices.