All hands were on deck for this morning’s mission. We had an hour to lay out the whole food bank, including:

• Setting up the waiting area (tables and chairs)

• Laying all food and products out on tables

• Organising all boxes ready to restock if needed.

Three newbie goodgymmers (inc myself) nailed the task in half hour! There was a real team effort here between us and the food bank team, and we were pleasantly surprised by the offer of panettone at the end.

Mission: Accomplished

A productive power hour indeed as I joined the team at St Simon's Church in Shepherd's Bush to help set up their foodbank. The time flew by as I put up tables, moved and unpacked crates and sorted items before finally marking up a whiteboard with information on today's product availability.

Another wonderful session with Age UK celebrating their wonderful volunteers and nice to see so many new faces to Goodgym as well!

After welcoming the volunteers and helping to serve up the delectable food we were treated to listening to some wonderful tunes and boogieing along with the others!

We also helped with the cleardown, with some relaxing folk tunes and good conversation had in the kitchen!

Thanks to all and congrats to everyone on their first attendance!

3 goodgymers made their way to the church to find customers outside more or less arguing who was 1st in the line. We did try to calm them down and we did say that the Foodbank was no yet open as too early. They all went back in line. First goodgym session for Serene found Goodgym when looking for local community missions. Welcome to Goodgym. Task was the usual of putting out the large tables, smaller ones with chairs and taking out the boxes from the storage room until the van arrived. Once the van arrived both Jonathan and Steph Ducattrollied the crates from the van into the church. We were not trollied 🤣. Serene was in the meantime helping out with sorting some of the pastries into smaller bags.

Steph and Ariane enjoyed a bit of winter sun as we headed back to lovely Mrs N's for another round of garden clearance! You can finally see the lovely design of the rockery and walkway now the nettles and grass have been banished.

Mrs N unfortunately had a driver hit her garden wall and speed away some time ago, so the priority for the day was to get the weeds around the fallen brick work clear so hopefully some repair works can be booked in. Some very satisfying root pulling and tree pruning later, and the area is looking very smart.

Our energy levels were kept topped up by Mrs N very kindly bringing us each a banana "for the potassium", before we finished with a bit of creative rake usage to clear the grass out of the paving slabs.

We were delighted to make an extra new friend that day: its now tradition that Steph and Ariane will find a frog hidden away on every mission 🐸💚

Mrs N was very gateful and said she thinks it will help her relationship with her neighbors. Hopefully we'll be back early next year to make a start in the back garden!

Steph Ducat) and Harvey headed off to Earls Court on London derby matchday. No, not for Chelsea/Arsenal, but for a spot of leaf clearing and weeding. Our host showed us into her garden and supplied the appropriate bagging. Four hands and four work gloves made light work of this mission, up and down, side to side, in a well kept spot. Before long the garden was once again spic and span (our photos show before and after).

Reunited with our host, this very generous woman insisted she give us £30 for our trouble. When we insisted in return that we are volunteers and she should donate the cash, she insisted back! After a few more ‘insistances’ on both sides, she pushed the cash at Harvey and hurriedly shut her door! Even the best signing our team could muster through the glass door would not change her mind.

Our intrepid duo had no option but to head back round to the main building entrance and ask for help! Luckily, a member of staff was on hand and our boys gained access back to the building in order to feed the funds back through our host’s letterbox. Phew, awkward moment dodged!