TRAID are an awesome charity that help prevent clothes from being thrown away, and turn them into funds and resources to help reduce the environmental and social impacts of our clothes. There are TRAID stores all over London, and GoodGym are pivotal in helping out with their quarterly store restocks. You could say this was a well traid and tested mission!

Four valiant GoodGymmers came to Westminster to lend eight hands at the Westbourne Grove TRAID, and we got on to the task straight away. Part one of this mission was to clear all the clothes from the racks and move them into big blue sacks. An easy enough job if you do it right! Through experience, each TRAID store has their own unique method of clearing the gear. Hammersmith TRAID like it off the hangers, and piled into boxes. The Shepherd’s Bush store prefer on the hangers but folded into metal cages. Well, the Westbourne Grove team showed us their favoured technique: four hangers of clothes, wrapped up around the hanger and then into a big blue bag. Like I said, easy. The GoodGymmers set to it, following the Westbourne Grove guidelines: filling up sacks and throwing them onto the pile ready to make friends at a new store.

In possibly record time, the racks were bare and had been replaced with a ginormous pile of blue bags to the front of the store. Part one completed, it was time to move into part two. This bit involved the most efficient human chain I have ever been a part of. GoodGym and store employees alike lined up from the basement, up the stairs and to a pile for the menswear (already bagged up) to be started. In almost clockwork fashion, the bags were passed along from Amy to Lucy to Emily and finally Danny who started the second sack mountain. The bags were practically jumping between us, and it wasn’t long before there were just a final few items needing moving back upstairs (a few headless mannequins, some interesting heeled converse and a ‘BBQ style ampersand’).

Mission complete, and it was hardly even 6:30! The store employees were super impressed with our efficiency. GoodGym never goes out of style!