It's hard to believe we are already three weeks into January and the next Reduce and Recycle Hub is approaching soon - on the first day of February. For GoodGym Ealing, that means lending organisers a hand and exploring the residential streets of Acton while dropping leaflets promoting the hub into letterboxes.

Tonight's route included Acton's street art trail - with the obligatory photo at the shark mural at the corner of Stuart and Newburg Roads. We could not miss the beautiful mural of the lady wearing a kimono on Myrtle Road. The same street hid a surprise: in the Poet’s Corner Community Garden, we found not only cherry blossoms painted on a house wall but also a real blossoming cherry tree in front of the wall. Check the photos if you don't believe! Is the Spring around the corner?

To distribute 400 flyers, we had a strong team of eight GoodGymers - with a special guest among the Ealing folk: Jack from the Central Team. Welcome to your first Ealing group run, Jack - hopefully, the first of many to come! Jack joined Kash's 4-people squad with Steph and Chris, while Sevan led Christos, Mohamed and Liuba through the parallel streets to meet with the first group where the roads joined.

The success of the one-hour-long task had a tradeoff: freezing hands. Before heading back to Ealing Broadway, the whole team fulfilled the tradition of Acton group runs and stopped to warm their hands with a cup of chai. Afterwards, Liuba, Steph, Chris, Sevan, Jack and Kash ran back to Ealing and Christos and Mohamed made their way home on their own.

Next week we are running to a different part of the borough: Blondin Park in Northfields to mulch the trees we are yet to plant later this week. Sign up now for next Tuesday's task!

GoodGym Ealing's traditional Xmas get together was in a new location for 2024, The Grove, where we had a cosy corner set aside for us. We also had crackers, of course, where we found jokes, paper hats and lots of wooden spoons. Were the spoons a booby prize or useful cutlery? Well, opinions varied.

After a very energetic task at St Mary's church decorating their Xmas tree and preparing the first floor for their bumper Christmas congregation, it was time to treat ourselves to some food and drink. It was the most recent of many good deeds that GoodGym Ealing have completed in 2024, so we felt like we'd all earned it while we reflected on 2024. There was also the traditional GoodGym quiz to get people to recall useful/useless facts from the past year, which was a bit more challenging than usual this time.

Steph mysteriously vanished when Santa appeared. Maybe he suffers from clausophobia? In any case, Santa was kind enough to run our Secret Santa gift exchange to give wonderful £5-or-under gifts like a dog quiz, a box of Lindor chocolates or a mo-tea-vational mug.

We all had a great evening and went home full of festive cheer or festive beer, or both.

A church clean-up task at St Mary's is to GoodGymers what Home Alone or Die Hard are to families watching TV - a Christmas classic! Only a brief run away from Ealing Broadway, St Mary's awaited our sweeping and decorating skills. Although we knew that GoodGym's good friend, Vicar Steve, wouldn't be at the church anymore with his indispensible words of encouragement, the new task owner, Brian, gave us an equally magical treatment.

Tonight's church clean-up and Christmas tree decoration session had a fantastic turnout of 13 GoodGymers, including three (yes, that's right!) new joiners. Makkiya, Raphael and Sudha brought us a lot of enthusiasm and good energy, and we are hoping to see them again soon at another task.

The team split into the dust busters who worked upstairs and the Christmas tree beauty specialists at the altar. If decorating the tree somehow didn't provide enough merriness for everyone, then Claire's Jingle Bells played on the piano did!

Having received praise from Brian on their work, the team headed to the Grove for more festivities to come: the Christmas crackers, buffet, quiz and Secret Santa!

Next Tuesday, we are staying close to Ealing Broadway and helping the ranger transport a pile of woodchip outside Walpole Park into the walled garden - sign up now!

In 2024 Library of Things celebrates 10 years of making borrowing useful household items available for everyone in the area. It's cheaper than buying, convenient and kinder for the planet.

This year, Ealing Broadway became yet another of the 19 locations. Shortly after the launch of the new spot, Ealing folk has been renting on average 30 library items per week: drills, sewing machines, saws, hedge trimmers, and audience favourites: the steam cleaner and pressure washer!

Could this get any better? Of course! More people could learn about this fantastic initiative. Kyra from the Library of Things met five GoodGymers at the Ealing Broadway shopping centre, which transformed over the weekend into a Christmas market. The temperatures dropped so much this week that no one doubted we entered the winter season. Kyra was very pleased to see that our team braved the cold to support the Library of Things in spreading the word about the new location.

Supplied with stacks of leaflets, walkers Chris, Kash and Sevan, runner Mohamed and cyclist Gus teamed up with Kyra for a walking task on the streets towards Ealing Common. Keeping hands warm while trying to separate the individual leaflets was a challenge. Luckily, no fingers were frostbitten or dog-bitten during the flyer delivery. By the end of the session, only a thin stack of leaflets remained, which GoodGymers promised to deliver with a bunch of extra flyers to other towns in the borough at the nearest occasion.

We are hoping that Ealing residents will forget Black Friday and swap the shopping craze for more sustainable renting things binge!

GoodGymers were up early to help at Acton Junior parkrun this morning. Joanna brought her favourite prop, a giant foam hand to high five the runners and wanted a volunteer to wield it. As Sevan was marshalling, he put his hand up and took it to his marshal post.

🎵 On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man
In a yellow high vis with a blue right hand

Chikako was the VI Guide for the day and was being cheered by the marshals, while Chris, Sevan and Joanna were doing the cheering to get the runners excited on this chilly morning.

🎵 They're cheering his name through this disappearing land
But hidden in his coat is a blue right hand

In the funnel, Alan was timekeeping, with Michelle handing out finish tokens and Kash barcode scanning.

🎵 A shadow is cast wherever he stands
Stacks of finish tokens in his blue right hand

Everyone was excited by a possible course record by a visiting runner who ran a speedy 6:33 😲