Saturday looked to be the best of the long weekend days weather-wise and the 5 GGers gathering at ETNA (the East Twickenham Neighbourhood Association) for the second leaflet drop of the week were rewarded with warm sunshine.

Our task was to finish off distributing a stack of leaflets advertising the Volunteer Fair at the RHACC on Wednesday 21st May, added to which were a stack of cards promoting ETNA’s 40th Anniversary event on Sunday 18th May.

We welcomed back Maz who joined for his first GG task on Monday and bizarrely wanted to do more leafleting. Our route took us around the streets behind ETNA before cross Richmond Road and finishing up on the streets off Crown Road, where we rewarded ourselves with a coffee after dropping the last leaflets.

Details of the CVS volunteer fair at RHACC can be found here: https://www.rhacc.ac.uk/events/volunteerfair And ETNA’s 40th Anniversary event is on their page here: https://etnacentre.org/etna-events/

Delightful to see a newbie in the group return for a second time and others new to the building ETNA who all got a first hand look and good impression of this very active and welcoming community hub. We gathered in the dining and kitchen space where the flyers we were about to deliver in the area promoted their two day a week (Monday and Friday 3:30pm-5:30pm ) offering for people of all ages to come and hang out with free light refreshments too. It wasn't long before the place started buzzing with parents and children activity.

We had our own light refreshment of drizzle fall on us as we made our way through the residential streets of St. Margarets and turned around before getting out of range, excited by the many duplex residences especially when both doors were welcoming to flyers! Now if we can only find out how not to chafe our hands on those hard to slide through flaps, we'd be twickled pink (or less pink as the case may be).

Always a pleasure to help out the East Twickeham Neighbourhood Assocation or ETNA as we know it and hope they get a lot of people in the surroundings to come check out and use their space and be welcomed by some friendly volunteers.

Five hearty GoodGymer’s turned up and were delighted to experience the Warm Hub space first hand while waiting for all to arrive. This experience gave motivation to head out in the wind and rain (it wasn’t so bad! 😊 ) after divvying the flyers and deciding which areas we would each take. Chris went close (Westmoreland Close; Sussex Close; Downes Close; Cumberland Close) to his hood and went through his batch in good time! Lucy and Monika were exceptional in their coverage: Fairlawns and most of Cambridge Park up until the Cambridge Park Court (flats 31-36 and then ran out). Not Vivienne Close or anything past 34 Cambridge Park Court. Cathy and Sam using trademan’s entrance (with permission) managed individual flat posting in housing blocks around The Baron’s area, Kelvin Drive and covered both sides of St. Margaret’s Road admiring festive entrance way decorations – a door able!

Only a small batch of the 1,000 printed flyers were returned and a good job done by all for a very worthy community initiative. Looking forward to a return to the Hub for a rematch of Connect Four.

A short and sweet group run this evening - we met at Tap Tavern in Richmond for a 3km jog to ETNA, one of our regular spots. Once there we were given the simple task of spreading wood chip around the new flower beds to get them ready for spring.

Mission accomplished a few of us ran back to Richmond and headed home.

2 Goodgymers, in the shape of Adam and Sal, showed up at the beautifully landscaped ETNA to collect a bunch of leaflets to distribute in the local community of east Twickenham. They decided to divide and conquer and so headed in opposite directions to cover maximum ground! After an hour of posting leaflets through neighbourhood doors, and with darkness setting in, they called it a night and headed home. With more leaflets to be distributed, I’m sure they’ll be back soon to finish what they started.

We got to ETNA individually in our various different ways and got straight to work putting a new lick of paint on an old bench and the buggie parking shed that we first painted over a year ago! We also swept up the leaves and cleared the over growing garden. We celebrated JP getting his 100 deeds T-shirt too.