Sunday 11th May
Report written by Kash
Once upon a time, Los Mariachis from GoodGym travelled through the Ealing Borough and arrived in the town of Hanwell, hoping to find work at music festivals. Have they found any jobs? If you visited Sandy Park in the morning after Hanwell Hootie, you could find six red t-shirts lounging on sofas, getting a lift in vans, and all that accompanied by the whiff of a brewery! What sort of a gym is that? A gym unlike any other!
It was the first GoodGym gig for Roberta, who hadn't known what to expect. The first words Roberta said on arrival were:
How can I help?
And she got stuck in right away!
The regular GoodGymers expected to pack things away and dismantle the festival tents - basically: what they had done on Friday, but in reverse. That wasn't the plan though. Task owner June told our team that the priority was moving the Hootie furniture back to the Stables in Brent Lodge Park. We have done it in two van trips, loading and unloading sofas, armchairs, mirrors, bins, banners and a stand looking like a chromium-plated sombrero, perfect for such a Mariachi as Harvey. Some of us were so desperados to complete the task for our Hootie amigos, that we made an exception and got a lift to the Stables for the sake of time. Runners Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash didn't miss a chance to race the van back to Sandy Park though!
There was one more journey that the Hootie volunteer manager Rose had for us: a trip to the Viaduct pub. That was the task from which some of us emerged with the beer scent. Did we go there for a few pints? Much more than a few! We packed into a van and unpacked crates, boxes and bags of reusable festival pint glasses - hundreds of them! This time everyone walked between locations, much to Michelle's linking as she is very keen on walking to the tasks.
Steph and Harvey took on a bonus quest, also related to popping into a pub: this time The Green. They were tasked with carrying two giant letters "H" there, ahead of a thank you event for the amazing Hootie volunteers crew. Who else if not GoodGym can do a fun pub crawl with no drinking involved?
The Hootie is run entirely by volunteers, is non profit and funded by the goodwill of sponsors like Marshall and donations from people like your good selves.
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