0 Month Streak
0 Month Streak
1 Month Streak
Ealing
๐St. Mary's Church W5 5RH
Help make surplus food available to anyone and everyone from the local area
Mon 11th Nov at 10:30am
Help make surplus food available to anyone and everyone from the local area
Read moreFri 25th Oct at 3:00pm
Ealing Report written by Ealing runner
Extra help was needed today at Northfields Allotments to continue setting up for the sold-out Halloween family event on Saturday! This was just the task for four GoodGymers on Friday afternoon, with Clare, Christos, Roberta and Kash joining to continue decorating and preparing the site for the event.
The invaluable guidance provided by Clare to help our decorating talents shine through for this Halloween event โ โMore is more!!โ
And with that, the group were focused on decorating the inside of the food and drinks marquee whilst the rain was falling hard. Christos and Kash started out carefully tying up the Halloween-themed โTrick or Treat!โ bunting to the inside of the marquee. But with more complex decorations, a simple tie was no longer an option. What to do now?
No issue at all when there is Gaffa tape on hand, quickly becoming the tool of choice to hold up all the decorations! Roberta ensured the eerie bat had a prime place looking down on us, and with balloons being blown up, this completed the Spooky-themed decorations in the marquee.
Still time for one last taskโฆ to set up half of the more than 100 pumpkins - that had been so impressively carved by the previous daysโ GoodGymers - along the Pumpkin trail! The team made quick work spreading out the pumpkins across the trail in both directions, whilst admiring the ghostly, chilling, plots across the Allotments.
The task was finished up with a well-deserved tea and Jaffa cake, amongst the spooky decor!
Fri 25th Oct at 1:00pm
Ealing Report written by StephDucat
The clock was ticking : both the kitchen and dining team were ready to rock and roll. We don't chicken out when it is busy. Guests started rolling in to sit down and enjoy a chinese soup(vegetables) with some hot drinks, then came the much appreciated chinese BBQ chicken served with rice and stir fried cabbage...customers really enjoyed and gave 10/10 for the chicken. Then swiss roll with custard was served and an option of home made cinnamon rolls. Busy but steady service. We also had some vegetarian chicken casserole for those who wanted something else.
Fri 25th Oct at 11:00am
Ealing Report written by StephDucat
Friday Hub and the Goodgymteers joined forces for the early shift at the Crypt. 5 regulars present today helping in different areas from unloading the deliveries, serving tea and biscuits, sorting the clothes, preparing grocery bags, preparing the service/dining area and cooking lovely food in the kitchen. Busy first shift but all ready for the customers to come in and have food and other items/activities at the Crypt.
Thu 24th Oct at 2:00pm
The first Halloween-themed session of this season had a staggering turnout of six GoodGymers at Northfield Allotments! Was it the sunshine throughout the day, the lovely dog Rocket, Clare's marketing strategy for the Allotment tasks or everyone's craving for carving? We don't know!
The Pumpkin Trail organisers and the GoodGymers had 109 pumpkins ahead of them to carve - it was quite an intimidating number! Luckily, Rocket the dog put everyone at ease with his serene demeanour. For the moral support he provided, Rocket rightfully scored plenty of ear scratches and even a few treats from Michelle!
Michelle, the most seasoned GoodGymer at the session, showed everyone what efficiency is, without skimping on quality (everyone seeing Michelle perfecting her bats can attest to that). She probably carved most of the GoodGym pumpkins although she claimed she had never done that before. Well, some of us remembered that last year, she was able to even carve a pumpkin face with a hammer if needed. What a legend!
Apart from Clare, who had a go at the pumpkin craft the year before, each GoodGymer was a pumpkin-carving virgin about to turn into an artist. While others built confidence wielding the knives, Clare got into the business of gutting the pumpkins with a knife and an ice cream scoop - someone had to do it together with Martin (the allotment holder interested exclusively in pumpkin gutting rather than decorating them) to supply craftspeople with carving material. Clare reignited her artsy side at the end by carving her last pumpkin with an amazing flame pattern.
Roberta showed us the precision of a dental surgeon with her elaborate pumpkin teeth patterns. Her creativity, combined with some inspiration from the internet, produced pumpkins with precise cat and bat designs.
Alaa, being into arts and crafts, put a lot of meticulous knife work into her creations, unleashing her talent to come up with probably the most intricate pumpkin faces we have seen today. The number of pointy teeth in her last pumpkin would put a great white shark to shame!
Kash appreciated the sheets with pumpkin face templates at the tables, but eventually decided not to follow the rules and created her own avant-garde styles from creepy pumpkins with stitches in place of eyes to twisted half moons and stars.
Diana, who was about to find out today that deep inside she was a hidden GoodGymer, already must have known she had an inner artist. Her pumpkins went beyond the ragged mouths and ghoulish eyes. Diana's creations were full of subtle beauty, with their gorgeous smiles and hearts in place of their eyes - just as they came from a place where Halloween meet Valentines.
Welcome to your first GoodGym Diana!
By 6 pm all the pumpkins were dunked in bleach for protection from rotting and hidden under tarpaulin. We all keep our fingers crossed they will not suffer any attention from the foxes and slugs before Saturday! The allotment team was astonished at how quickly everyone managed to finish the job as a team.
"We would not have done it so quickly without GoodGym! We'd be carving them for three days!" - Christina.
The pumpkin carving is done, but there are still tasks at the allotments ahead of the big event - come along on Friday and Saturday for more fun decorating the site!
Thu 24th Oct at 10:20pm
Oh wow you finished them and the carving standard went up massively!! ๐คฉ
Thu 24th Oct at 10:33pm
And, that pun ๐๐ป๐๐ป
Thu 24th Oct at 11:50pm
I asked Sevan to give me a pun ๐ He should get a good deed for those puns ๐
Fri 25th Oct at 4:54am
My favourite is the 12th pic. Michelle holding the pumpkin which is not so impressed
Fri 25th Oct at 8:55am
Nice !!!!
Fri 25th Oct at 10:22am
Oh my God this looks like so much fun! I love it!
Fri 25th Oct at 3:00pm
Helping the local community enjoy the event
Read moreThu 24th Oct at 2:00pm
Unleash your hidden art skills to make the family-friendly community event unforgettable
Read moreTue 22nd Oct at 6:30pm
The fifth chapter of GoodGym x Ealing Repair Cafe collab brought three new apprentices of upcycling to Acton: Roberta, Nishy and a guest from Tower Hamlets: Sian. While Sevan, Steph and Kash - not newbies to the sewing workshops - felt comfortable with their speedy 4.5km run from Ealing Broadway, it was Claire who was the most comfortable with the sewing machine. Like a boss - that's how Claire looked in front of the apparatus which others approached with caution, suspicious about whether it can sew their fingers to the fabric. Spoiler alert: no one left the workshop with holes in their fingers.
Mary from Ealing Repair Cafe gave us a choice of two tasks:
1) make draught excluders from old jeans to give them out to residents at the Reduce & Recycle Hub 2) make drawstring bags from old, colourful running t-shirts for the South Ealing Community Food Cupboard)
It was a night full of discoveries!
The enjoyable evening session with Mary and Lone resulted in six finished drawstring bags for the Food Cupboard and two draught excluders (that's a pair of jeans legs!) for the Reduce & Recycle Hub at Acton Market.
We will team up once more with Ealing Repair Cafe this year before December, so watch this space for more workshops! Next week we are back in Acton to distribute leaflets for next month's Reduce & Recycle Hub - sign up to join us!
Fri 25th Oct at 1:00pm
Help run drop-in service on a Friday where homeless can get free clothes and wellbeing services
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