16 came out to ride the end of storm Ciara and do some good stuff in Ealing!

Starting with a round up of this week's news:

• Oxford are going to be the host city for this years GoodGym Games, more details to come but read about last year here. We’ll be getting a team together to head there, can’t wait!

• Lots of community missions coming up (these are the sessions outside of our Tuesday night led group session). Come and join us for some extra good - see the listings here.

• The big 6 races have been announced! Every year the GoodGym community pick 6 races across the country and meet up at, race and have a good old knees up after. Check out the list here as well as all the info on joining the race team and let me know if you fancy getting a crew together to go to any.

So about last night

We started with a warm up and chat about the best things we’ve won. A few pub quiz crowns, the odd bottle of Champagne but the best has to be a two week trip to Australia. That’s pretty epic!

We also welcomed Alex to her first GoodGym session, big welcome!

We had three options tonight, jet lagged Jenni walked to the task, newly qualified run leader Chris led a slightly longer run and I led a shorter direct run. Once we’d all arrived it was down to business.

We were helping St. Mary’s church move lots of items down from the top pews to the ground floor as well as giving the neglected area a good clean. These pews had been serving as a temporary storage area for too long so everything was a little dusty and needed a generally good tidy up.

After another expert human chain to get everything downstairs it was hoovers, dusters and buckets of water at the ready for a good old fashioned clean up. Everyone got stuck in and left no pew untouched.

The highlight of the evening for many though was the excitement of being allowed to climb the church’s impressive tower. A narrow spiralling staircase (which seemed never ending) takes you all the way up to a platform on top of the tower where you’re treated to some awesome views. We’ve been promised we can come back in the summer to really appreciate them as today’s weather made it a bit of a windswept affair.

We finished we with a shorter run back and a quick tabata workout with a mix of balance, strength and coordination drills. Smashed it.

See you all next time!

On a frrreeeezzing night in Ealing, 17 runners came out to help support The Log Cabin Children's Charity.

"I've got four layers on" - Chris

Big welcome this week to Laurine who joined us at GoodGym for the first time. You know the drill, give her a cheer!

We started promptly with a good warm up including the ministry of silly walks and a good old laugh at just how uncoordinated we all are.

We also got to know each other better by chatting through our worst jobs around the home. Mostly everyone hated the washing up (specifically washing up cutlery). Niche answer this week goes to Lionel who hates putting the cap on the toothpaste, I'm actually with him there.

Tonight's task was all about helping with jobs around the playground and garden and in particular one big task was trimming back the tree (or what we thought was a tree) growing into the main shed. Turns out it was a big old chunk of ivy and Lionel and Chris wasted no time in getting that bad boy hacked sheared right back. The rest of the gang weeded, swept and raked all around the site, giving staff there more time to spend on other projects. Boom.

Team work at the end saw us human train all the cuttings, leaves and weeds down to the composting area leaving us just enough time for a quick fitness session to warm up again for the run back.

We all agreed the hardest part of tonight was getting out of the front door but we were all glad we did for those sweet running endorphins. Also we're all now pretty smug knowing we've done something good and done a bit of exercise with our mates.

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So here's the update on the January Challenge, we’ve really made some awesome progress this past week and are now sitting pretty on 109 good deeds! Check out the rankings here. We’re trying to beat our numbers from last year and everyone who takes part makes a huge difference so get involved as much as possible in the next week.

How can you make a difference?!

Sign up for another group run or community mission - there are LOADS all across London and you can join any other GoodGym area, just filter on the right hand side to see what's going on - check out all the listings here.

What a great way to end a whole year of pretty awesome people doing some pretty awesome stuff in Ealing!

We had a quiz all about running, GoodGym and stats (oh yes, love a stat) in which we revealed the following about GoodGym Ealing this year...

• We’ve done a grand total of 1092 good deeds (1110 now!)
• There have been 20 mission to help older people in their homes in Ealing, these make a huge difference!
• We’ve had 174 different people take part in GoodGym Ealing, that’s a lot of people power!
• We turned 3! GoodGym as a whole was 10 this year and Ealing joined the gang in 2016.

As well as stats we also shone a light on some of the amazing people that have taken part this year, there were even some special real life GoodGym badges awarded!

• GoodGym Supermum: First up was a huge congratulations to new mummy, Michelle! She kept GoodGyming well into her pregnancy and 6 weeks ago welcomed baby Henry into the world. We can’t wait to see him in his GoodGym baby grow!
• Best Newcomer: I mean everyone new that comes is brilliant, but Jay stood out this year! He started by joining us on a community mission back in September and has been to pretty much everything since. We’ve loved having him join the group!
• Backmarking Angel: She's always the first to nominate herself as back marker and always welcomes new runners and helps keep everyone safe and for that Alex is our backmarking angel.
• Welcome To The Gang: He takes new members under his wing and always makes everyone feel welcome, Shan wins our welcome to the gang badge.
• Leading The Way: One of the fastest of the group, Chris always happily leads the front of the runs and makes sure everyone knows the way!
• Selfie King: The name says it all! There are many things Harvey is great at, running a long way is another one of them but taking selfies is where he shines! Thank you for all the memories!
• Good Deed King: The most good deeds of any man in Ealing this year, Mike is good deed king of Ealing 2019!
• Good Deed Queen: She's done over 100 good deeds this year alone, Jenni is our queen of good deeds this year, what an amazing feat!

Everyone that takes part in GoodGym is amazing, whether you've done one good deed this year or 100. Thank you for coming along, getting involved and making a difference. You're what makes GoodGym!

Bring on 2020!

19 runners and walkers came out last night to join GoodGym Ealing’s last Tuesday session this year, and in fact this decade!

And what a year it’s been!

But before we could celebrate we had one last task to do. Tonight we were delivering Christmas cards to local residents on behalf of St Peter’s church to let them know all about the services happening there over the festive period.

We were delighted to be joined by Ellie who wanted to squeeze in her first GoodGym before saying goodbye to 2019, big welcome and hope to see you back in the new year!

It was great to see everyone arrive in their festive attire and glad everyone got the memo about Christmas hats being highly encouraged this week! After welcoming everyone and a run down of the news we wasted no time in deploying groups in all directions to get the job done super quick time and get to the pub for our celebratory Christmas party! Each group had a map and set of flats to target so it was a bit like GoodGym orienteering and like that everyone was off into the night walking and running in all directions! With such a good turn out last night, Jenni, Phill and I stayed close to the broadway to give Ealing town centre a festive blitz with the trusty litter pickers.

It wasn’t long before everyone was back and raring to get the party started. So with that we bid farewell to 2019, we’re coming for you 2020!

Group runs are over but you can still do some good stuff before the year is out! Also if you do a community mission between Thursday 19th of December and Sunday 5th January there's an awesome badge in it for you!

• Tomorrow, Thursday 19th December, we have a community mission to help The Grove Community with their winter wonderland. All the details and sign up are here.
• Jenni and Alex are leading a plog at 10am on Saturday morning from Horsenden Farm. If you’re keen to keep our waterways safe and tidy, would like a nice walk or jog with some awesome people and are free for an hour, then sign up here to join them!