Elisabeth, a resident of the Mill Hill Park Conservation Area and Acton's litterpicking champion, was delighted to hear that five GoodGymers are coming to her neighbourhood to help Acton Litter Collective keep the local streets tidy. Having so many extra hands, she decided to expand the usual litter battlefield to the roads on the other side of the High Street, towards Churchfield Road: Burlington Gardens, Birkbeck, Alfred and Grove Roads. How did it go?

On the way to their destination, Lauren, Louis, Sevan, Steph and Kash were distracted by the sight of a messy area around a bin on Church Road - surely the site of a recent crows' feast! Steph and Kash swarmed around that spectacle of untidiness and tackled the problem. Louis and Sevan dealt with the chunkiest pieces of litter in the nearby Pocket Garden while Lauren scouted Oldham Terrace on the way to Uxbridge Road and collected pretty horrid litter without blinking!

After a walk through High Street, interrupted by spotting plastic bottles or chocolate wrappers that were just too apparent to leave behind, the team eventually reached Grove Road. They cleared the street in less than ten minutes and noticed that it was time to come back and return the litter-picking equipment to Elisabeth. Or maybe not? Lauren and Louis, inspired by Elisabeth's initiative, were interested in getting their own kit to clear their neighbourhood further West in the borough. The leader of Acton Litter Collective was delighted to hear that and offered them litter pickers and hoops for their own clean-up endeavours.

The history of today's task dates back to the 1st of September this year when Kash and Sevan met John from Greenford Park Residents Association at Brentford Festival. John introduced them to his organisation and mentioned their hall that could use a facelift.

On a Sunday morning, a decent-sized group of GoodGymers: Kash, Lauren, Louis, Sevan and Steph, met the GPRA team: Emma, John and Winston at the community hall. Emma told us about the history of the association, which was founded in 1919 and later acquired the space to build the hall in the 1950s. The place was also home to the London Bike Hub and concealed numerous bicycles in either one or multiple pieces.

The GPRA building looked quite unassuming, hidden away from the main road and obscured by an overgrown hedge. According to John, many residents didn't even realise the hall's existence. It was time to change that and make the centre stand out! Forget spring clean-up - GoodGym does the clean-ups all year round!

The 90-minute task included feats of strength, skill and persistence:

• rehoming a large filing cabinet
• smuggling garden waste up the road in a recycling bin
• scavenging old wood to collect material for a bonfire
• a radical haircut given to a hedge to reveal the entrance to the hall
• a serious tidy-up of a rainwater drainage system
• carrying heavy iron fence parts uphill by a team of three
• carrying heavy iron fence parts uphill by a team of one - guess who!

By the end of the session, the GoodGymers made a visible impact - a bit more than just being in the way of today's guests to the morning event at the hall! The front of the GPRA Hall looked much tidier than before, and numerous heavy items no longer needed inside the centre disappeared. John alluded to the future sessions for GPRA closer to Christmas time to make the hall entrance more extravagant - watch this space!