The first task after Christmas was surprisingly popular among Ealing GoodGymers. Was the Magnificent Seven, who showed up on Saturday morning, already bored with the "take-it-easy" approach to the festive end of December? The seemingly quiet air was growing tense with a silent "bring it on!" cry. A small crowd gathered near Walpole Park's cafe. Were they thirsty for a cup of coffee or for a challenge? Maybe both!

A suitable challenge awaited outside the walled garden gate: the remainder of a woodchip pile that the GoodGymers had attacked last week. All the Rickyard tool storage could offer the eager team was five wheelbarrows, four shovels and a few buckets. Oh, and - of course - the usual puzzle of opening the Fort Knox of gardening tools!

When Diana and Kash worked together to break the tool store security, Sevan spotted a new face to GoodGym Ealing. Roxy chose a perfect task for joining our crew for her first GoodGym session: a prominent location, a good crowd and a classic winter task: shovelling woodchip! Welcome to GoodGym, Roxy!

I attended my first volunteering session today, met some lovely people and we worked so well as a team to smash through the community mission! Can't wait to do more - Roxy

After picking up the tools, the team of four met the rest of the Magnificent Seven at the walled garden gate: Lena, Marta and Mohamed, who was bringing a wealth of experience from last week's session. Would the skilled shovellers, a larger team, more time for the task and Kash's constant promises of coffee make the woodchip pile disappear this time?

The eager shovels plunged into the heap, the woodchip flew into the sky, and the clangour of speeding metal wheelbarrows filled the air. The GoodGymers were on it, determined to finish off the job. There's a wealth of woodchip waiting in Ealing to be moved this winter, and the gang wouldn't have left the Walpole Park pile for yet another session! In about 40 minutes the woodchip heap was gone, and another compost bin was filled to the brim. All that was left was clearing the wheelbarrows (and shoes!) off woodchips.

With spare time earned thanks to teamwork, the gang headed for a coffee as the reward for helping the Walpole Park Ranger today.

Next Saturday morning we are heading to Horsenden Farm for the volunteering day, followed by a pizza lunch at the farm's bakery - sign up now!

With several of the regular volunteers having already headed off for Christmas, the team at South Ealing Community Food Cupboard were extra grateful to have four GoodGymers helping out today.

The delivery van turned up on time which meant that Lena, Martin, Mohamed and Alan quickly got to work unloading and unpacking.

Lots of fresh vegetables this week and although Brussels sprouts were notably absent, there were plenty of carrots - including some of the thickest ones we'd ever seen and some of the strangest shapes. Perfect for the finishing touches to a snowman, if Santa can get the weather sorted.

The set up shift was complete and now it was over to the opening of the Christmas Craft Fair for The William Hobbayne Charity.

Goodgym’s are well into their second decade of doing good, we have a bit to go to catch up with The William Hobbayne Charity - Doing good helping residents of Hanwell since 1484!

The doors opened and the empty halls around the Craft stalls soon began to fill up.

The amazing Choir trio got everyone in the festive mood. The rendition of “Walking in the air..” made me want to watch the snowman (I will have to wait till Christmas Day).

An amazing atmosphere from locals residents who turned out to support their local charity.

Goodgym was in charge of the refreshment stall and we were on hand to ensure their was Mince Pies, Hot Chocolates, and Mulled wine for for all (with a little bit of necessary quality control sampling)

A joyous afternoon that put everyone in the festive spirit….

Cristes mæsse

The noun Christmas, deriving from the Old English Cristes mæsse (the mass or festival of Christ), took hold only in the early twelfth century.

A unit of five elite elves entered the William Hobbayne Centre at 1 pm on Sunday to transform the community space into an indoor Christmas market venue for artisans from Hanwell and Ealing. The first stage of operations was all about unpacking goodies from cars, moving chairs and generally relocating various items: from mulled wine bottles to beer bottles. And let's not forget about the hot chocolate! The upcoming festive crafts fair was going to be properly merry!

The team was blocked from setting up the tables for the stall holders until 2 pm because of a taekwondo class in the main hall. Instead, they helped with the set-up in the backroom, where one of our GoodGymers, Milly, today visited the Hobbayne Centre as one of the local craftspeople. Lena has shown unwavering patience, untangling a cable of Christmas lights and then braving the weather to embellish a rail outside the centre despite gusts of wind and rain. Her festive decoration must have grabbed the public's attention as later the event had a good, steady stream of visitors.

Five minutes to 2 pm the event organiser, Siena, gathered the crew and briefed them about the plan of action. The elves were to take over the taekwondo training space, move the chairs out, bring the tables in and unfold them as soon as possible so that the local crafters could start preparing their stalls.

With the main hall maneuvres completed quickly, the elves moved to the kitchen and started getting tipsy (I mean busy!) preparing the beverages. Steph Ducat and Paul heated the mulled wine and did careful quality checks that revealed that the drink was warming and excellent in taste. Nishy and Lena took on a more advanced task of preparing hot chocolate in a Heinz-branded soup warmer. The team trusted Nishy's (who is a talented baker) skills to figure out the proportions of milk and chocolate powder. The process required a lot of stirring, which Lena, again, did with compelling persistence. Kash came in at the end to give the concoction a more energetic stir. The chocolate drink turned out smooth and tasty, but it had nothing to do with "hot". June, the task owner, suggested heating it up in a saucepan and then pouring the batch back into the soup warmer to keep it at the right temperature. The trick worked like magic and concluded the preparations, shortly before the arrival of the firsts visitors. Check out what happened next!