Another Tuesday, another wonderful evening of doing good and getting fit! This week, we returned to the Care4Calais' East London storage facility, continuing our mission to transform a mountain of generous donations into neatly sorted boxes of clothing, ready to reach those who need them most.

Thanks to our collective efforts over the past few sessions, we’ve made some serious headway—what once resembled a fabric avalanche is now an increasingly organised space. This week saw more great sartorial discoveries, with some standout pieces that would make even the most seasoned thrifters jealous!

Of course, no GoodGym session would be complete without our Random Weekly Question. Courtesy of Graham, we asked: What’s your favourite game? The responses were as varied as ever, ranging from the classic (tennis, football) to the less conventional (Sushi Go, Ticket to Tobago, Frogger and the intense long-term activity of trying to complete the parkrun app).

A huge well done to everyone who came along and put in the hard work. See you next time for more running and doing good - I think we've got a task lined up at Chandos Rd, details to emerge in due course...

Well done everybody for this week’s task helping care4calais organising their donations.

Four of us met at the start point, with two joining us at the task.

Great fashion find this week was a pair of half leopard print jeans. Why would anyone give them up?! (Kitten/pirate tshirt is still there in case anyone’s wondering).

Two volunteer police officers amongst us making sure we felt super safe, with some discussion of getting the tasers they’re now entitled to.

Favourite national days was the thought provoking random weekly question this week, prompted some discussion of whether pancake day counts, world book day was a contender and no trousers on the tube got honourable mention. It was actually national homemade soup day on Tuesday… so.. y’know….wow.

Hackney adventure playground next Tue evening, so if you’re up for some adventure…

Last night, the GoodGym Newham team gathered to support Care4Calais in sorting clothing donations for people seeking asylum across East London. It was a great session filled with teamwork and care, and we made a real dent in the pile of bags that we were tasked with sorting out.

A special mention to Gina, who joined us for her first-ever GoodGym session! It was fantastic to have you on board, we hope you enjoyed it too - and you'll be able to make use of future sessions to help with your training for Hackney Half!

Also big thanks to Adam for getting us in...

Well done everyone! We should be back there in the next few weeks, but in the meantime we've got some litter picking lined up for next week with the Friends of Chandos Road Gardens - sign up here.

Welcome back and thank you to the team who turned out for our first session of 2025. And what a great one to start with - sorting donations for Care4Calais at their East London storage facility.

We were met by one of their long term volunteers, Andy, who explained what needed to be done - essentially weed out any donations not worth keeping, and then sort the clothes into piles of similar items (childrens, mens, womens etc) - and that we could approach it in any way we liked... This brought back memories of similar "sorting" activities from our lockdown-era sessions for Crisis at Christmas and we were only to happy to put our experience into practice. We made a good dent into the big donations pile, leaving behind what we hope is a more usefully organised pile that can be distributed on to people seeking asylum across East London.

We'll be back there again in a couple of weeks (and potentially beyond if they still need our help...) - as the pictures show, it's dark, so please remember head torches if you've got them! We've also got some other great tasks lined up for January - Hackney Marsh Adventure Playground next week (soon to be listed) but also a long awaited return to the Up Garden on Saturday to do some painting - sign up here.

GoodGym joined other local volunteers to help Care4Calais sort through a massive pile of clothing donations destined for refugees who are in need of a few new stiches.

The enthusiastic team gathered in a disused gym, where a mountain of donations were piled up in one room. One by one we took them through to a large studio where we sorted through the contents, separating the desirable clothes into men's, women's, children's and discarding items nobody would want. Swimming goggles and a few fancy dress head-pieces provided some laughter.

There was plenty of chatter throughout, and we stopped for a tea break, with biscuits and ORANGE MATCHMAKERS (is it the 70's??), provided by the lovely Julita who was in charge of the whole operation.