It’s been 9 years since the 9th August 2016, when 21 GoodGymers set out from Ealing Broadway for Boston Manor Park for the very first GoodGym Ealing session: a park maintenance task combined with light fitness. I wasn’t there. And I never met any of those original Ealing GoodGymers, apart from two guests: Ivo, the founder, and Ed from GoodGym Central. If you look at our website, you cannot even tell anymore who led that session. But does it matter?

Since 2016, 918 GoodGymers in Ealing - that includes guests like John who visited us today - have done over 10200 good deeds! That’s quite a number, isn’t it? Many of those GoodGymers already moved on, left the borough, found other communities, or started families, but all of them contributed to making GoodGym Ealing a little bit better by at least one good deed!

And today, here we were, at Sandy Park in Hanwell, celebrating the 9 fantastic years of connecting with each other to help our community and isolated, older people within it. Some of the people celebrating today were new faces who joined this year. No matter how the group evolves, we are still the community connected by the same idea: doing good while getting fit. At the same time, for every one of us, GoodGym means something slightly different - and that’s ok - because we are all different. GoodGym is not a space where people should feel the need to fit in. GoodGym is here for us and should fit our lives and who we really are.

At last year's birthday party, I asked everyone to share what they think makes GoodGym Ealing great. The overwhelming majority said the people, the company, socialising. That’s why this year’s birthday was simple: a picnic in the park. We enjoyed the sun, the birthday cake baked by Nishy, the banana bread from Iram, who used the surplus fruit from Monday’s Food Cupboard task, the homemade pizza and cakes brought by Lena and Marta, the vegan sushi from John, pizzas and other snacks shared by Ash, Sevan, Steph Ducat, and Gaby. We enjoyed the relaxed afternoon, connecting with each other, and, most importantly, enjoyed being ourselves.

Happy birthday, GoodGym Ealing!

It was nice to have a later start than usual for a Saturday morning task and everyone was keen to earn their crust (and cake and strawberries) ahead of GoodGym Ealing's 9th birthday party in the afternoon. A wonderful 7 GoodGymers came to help Hanwell & Norwood Green Orchard Trail to water and trim one of the closest orchards to their base, The Piggeries.

Steph, Nishy and Gaby took charge of the giant bowser of water, feeding each of the trees in the orchard to keep them healthy and growing fruit through to the end of summer. The bowser was refilled over and over from the canal and in total, 300 litres of water found its way into the ground. With that done, they moved on to fruit removal instead of growing, clearing blackberry bearing brambles from the back fence.

On the edge of the orchard, Kash, Iram, Ash and Sevan were asked to cut back the large hedges bordering the canal towpath, with the warning that there may be some thick and spiky hawthorn branches lurking within. Ash and Iram grabbed shears, working quickly along the sides and top, inside and out, along with HANGOT's own members. Iram enjoyed testing her shear skills on someone else's hedge before trying to trim the one in her back garden. Sevan and Kash were lopping their way along at a slower pace, cutting one thick branch at a time and debating what height the hedge should be. As well as spiky branches, there were a surprising number of adrenaline loving snails who'd climbed high into the bushes and had their homes chopped away as part of the clean up.

Clive from HANGOT was amazed at what had been achieved with 13 volunteers over 90 minutes. The orchard was transformed, meaning that everyone could go and reward themselves for their hard work at the party in the park!

Lunch service of the ESK was red as 5 Goodgymers volunteering from 1pm to help serve guests. Freya went from the tea station to serving, Iram was on parcel duties and also then helped in the kitchen with the pot wash,both Jamie and Jamiewere serving food and Steph Ducat was in his usual spot ...the kitchen finishing the prep and serving food. On the menu today was lovely Moussaka : lamb or veggetable served with a side salad. Then strawberries with greek yoghurt, a little sprinkle of sugar and some honey.

Busy shift and all the food went to hungry guests who enjoyed the meals. Takeaway service was also a success at the end of the food serving period.

There was a wave of red t shirts in the serving/kitchen area as 2 more voluteeers arrived at 3pm to help cleaning. 7 Goodgymers in total on the day.

Each Monday morning, GoodGym lends a hand at the South Ealing Food Cupboard, helping the team of volunteers get surplus food sorted and ready to support the local community. This week, Martin and Iram were treated to a bumper haul and a cracking challenge.

Fresh from the farm came bunches of muddy spring onions, heaps of carrots and courgettes, juicy watermelons, herbs, lettuce, and strawberries - a proper summer spread. But the real surprise came in the form of eggs. So many eggs. We estimated around 750 in total, the first time in months the Food Cupboard had received any eggs.

The catch? Not a single one came pre-packaged. So we got eggstra creative. With only a handful of cartons available, we portioned them into dozens, half dozens, or packs of four using anything we could find, including repurposed nectarine punnets and the original egg packaging which we carefully cut down to size. It was part jigsaw, part balancing act, and fully a test of our steady hands. There may have been a few casualties along the way!

It was a cracking session (pun intended) and a great example of teamwork, resourcefulness, and keeping good food out of the bin and into the hands of those who need it most.

Another month and more litter picked by the Goodgymers locally : Trash talk leads to a dirty reputation in a litter-free zone and Crime never pays, but littering might cost you a clean slate.