MarketW3 at Acton Market is a space for traders, freelancers, local businesses, community events, music, fashion and international food reflecting the energy and diversity of Acton. It is funded by the local charity Action West London’s (AWL) for whom we run regular community missions to spread the word about their Reduce and Recycle Hub.

Reduce and Recycle Hub takes place first Saturday of each month and features activities like clothes recycling with TRAID, lessons on how to fix your clothes by Ealing Repair Café and a Book Swap with Churchfield Community Association. The hub exists to encourage residents to use their items for longer, reuse them for different purposes, recycle them properly, and ultimately reduce waste.

This time GoodGym Ealing, for the first time, claimed the invite they received a long time ago from Action West London members Zahra and Mary. Three GoodGymers, Sevan, Madhan and Kash, sported their red t-shirts today to match the GoodGym flag presented at the MarketW3 stall kindly provided by AWL. While Kash was meeting some new and some familiar faces (such as Juliet from Friends of Friars Gardens, a task owner of an event in September), Madhan and Sevan were trying to capture the attention of passers-by. They reported the highest success rate with young female residents.

The GoodGymers handed over promotional postcards to potential new volunteers. They also talked to possible new beneficiaries, explaining the referral process for older people who need help with physical tasks. The GoodGym team learned about what they could improve when they decided to join the hub next time. The only thing that was and will be out of their control is the weather!

Can you volunteer the rain away? - Zahra
I'm afraid not! We just brave it. - Kash

Following a popular painting task for Open Ealing organised by Madhan, a few of the paint-splattered GoodGymers were to reconvene in Acton after the lunch break.

Sevan and Kash arrived ahead of time at the Acton Central station, after a run from Ealing. If the white paint was not enough, the exercise guaranteed their t-shirts were going to land in the laundry basket tonight! 😅

Kash brought with her a bunch of leaflets from Action West London, a charity behind Reduce and Recycle Hub for whom GoodGym Ealing distribute leaflets regularly.

Oh, by the way, we are going to help them out at our last group run in August - you can sign up here!

Anyway, today we were to spread the word about AWL's Community Day hosted on Thursday 24th August in Acton to showcase the charity's work and their partnerships such as the Reduce and Recycle Hub and Repair Cafe.

Sevan and Kash were shortly joined by Madhan. The trio was now waiting for the grand entrance of the fourth amigo who regularly cycles to help with the flyering in Acton: Divya of GG Hammersmith & Fulham.

And then he appeared! 🆒

Divya, in contrast to the rest of us sporting white-spotted outfits, took time to shower and change, and now looked like a supermodel in his grey shirt and shades 😎. We could even forgive him for not flashing the GoodGym red. He was the man who flaunted the confidence that we will deliver all the leaflets within an hour.

We didn't waste time and headed North into Goldsmith Road, then took the first left into Shakespeare's Road. On the first possible occasion, we diverted right from that street as we knew its West part as the No junk mail cluster.

We diligently walked up Cumberland Park until it curved West and blended into Acacia Road.

The mission was going pretty steady until we reached Horn Lane which was a busy road. We walked South towards the Acton Market and ducked into the dead-end side streets on our left.

In one of those backstreets, Sevan was queried about the bike repairs at AWL's Community Day. When he delivered his pitch, everyone was smitten like after listening to a groundbreaking TED talk!

Madhan, inspired by Sevan, decided to develop his own breathtaking speech, practising on a most demanding of all audiences, cats!

Not every single cat seemed convinced about the Community Day but we hope the Action West London crew will see them around next Thursday! 🤞

Eventually, Madhan found a passerby to whom he could pitch about not only the event we were promoting but also GoodGym! By the end of the chat, he found out that his conversation partner was a pro leafletter who did what we were doing today for money! 💵 It looked like we were his competitors, and yes, a bunch of damn good competitors! When we approached the end of Horn Lane, behind Morrisons, we had no flyers left and we have done it in less than an hour!