The GPRA Hall, which, a month ago, hosted a sustainable Baby & Kids tabletop sale (prepped with GoodGym's involvement), was ready for another makeover on Friday evening. The occasion was the Residents' Christmas Party the following day, and the hall needed a proper dose of sparkles, baubles, lights and balloons.

When Maria and Steph Ducat arrived early, they were immediately put to work at height by one of the organisers, who spotted the potential of the tall and fit duo to do the challenging job of decorating strings hanging from the ceiling. And she was right! By taking turns on climbing and holding the step ladder, Maria and Steph showed no fear and plenty of creative flair, putting up balloons and baubles up high.

Meanwhile, Sevan and Kash arrived at a perfect time to decorate the Christmas tree. The seemingly easy job of putting lights on the tree turned out to be a story with a twist! Two GoodGymers were spinning the tree clockwise to speed up the process until they came across a significant tangle in the wire and nearly relived their mission of disarming Ms H's fairy lights system. Just when they were close to untangling the knot, Sevan noticed that the cable had been torn and no longer connected to the plug! In a fortunate turn of events, one of the GPRA volunteers happened to be an electrician, who, after fetching the right tools for the job, safely fixed the problem.

With the energy supply problem solved, baubles hung on the Christmas tree and balloons on the ceiling, the GPRA Hall turned into a truly festive venue! The next stop of the GoodGym Ealing journey through the festive season is our annual church decoration at St Mary's, this time with the new vicar. Don't miss it and sign up for the 9th December evening task!

When the world was still waiting for the Black Friday sales at the end of November, Greenford Park Residents Association came up with their own version of the Christmas shopping season kick-off: earlier and more sustainable! The Baby & Kids Table Top Sale, organised by a group of local volunteers, is a response to the shopping madness and gives the residents a chance to buy and sell preloved children's items. Ealing GoodGymers couldn't say no to supporting such a great event!

The Table Top Sale prep night happened to be on Halloween, so Sevan and Kash ran 5km to Greenford, dodging herds of scares and spooks in the dark on the way. Dressed as a pair of GoodGymers, they brought some tricks with them to the GPRA Hall. Steph Ducat was already there, unfolding the tables for tomorrow's stall holders. The trick was to make the tables stand safely, which involved fixing or replacing the clips securing the legs. Brains and muscles were equally in use to complete this task.

Next up, the trio cut out the stallholders' names and labelled their tables, then strategically placed QR codes for donations to the GPRA Hall. After making labels for pastry items on sale and putting up boards with GPRA Hall history, it was time for the last two tasks.

When the task owner, Emma, asked for a volunteer with a creative flair to design a price list of muffins, cakes, cookies and pastries, Steph and Sevan declared their allegedly ugly handwriting. They have been transferred to the kitchen, where they have shown talent for making reusable dishes shiny and sparkly at the sink. In the meantime, Kash awakened her inner Michelangelo to develop the commissioned price list with four coloured pens, with her favourite red running out of steam.

With their various talents and tricks, the GoodGymers earned not only Emma's and other GPRA members' respect, but also real treats: chocolate muffins - yum!

That was not the end of GoodGym's collaboration with the GPRA Hall this year. Even more fun is coming next month! Sign up now to get involved in decorating the GPRA Hall for Christmas. We are hoping to see you there!

It was our fifth session for Greenford Park Residents Association Community Hall and the fourth one that included transporting bikes. Will those bicycles eventually go away?

We started the journey of transforming the hall's backyard in December last year. Back then, we could not even take a good "before" photo of the space as dozens of bicycles blocked us from entering the area.

It was incredible to see the final step of clearing the bike graveyard today and completing the painting (at least the first coat!) of the second wooden bench that had been buried under the heaps of bikes.

The bicycles belonged to London Bike Hub, a great initiative aiming to restore as many bicycles as possible for the community. They used to store the pre-loved rides and bike parts at the back of GPRA Hall. Now was the time for the association to reclaim the space and start using it for tea parties and outdoor events. Ash, Christos, Sevan, Steph and Kash were there to make that happen. Under the watchful eye of task owner John, they followed his vision of a bike-free space with two renovated orange benches ready to welcome visitors.

After 90 minutes of dismantling two large bike racks, using creative ways to get the wheeled and wheel-less cycles up the hill to their new home, sweeping paving slabs and painting a bench with old, orange-tinted wood protector, the promised land of tea parties has emerged. It was astonishing to see such a clear, spacious yard, especially in comparison to what we had first encountered in December!

We cannot wait to hear from John again about the community activities planned in the garden... or another job to fix the paving slabs - we are not too fussy!

Seven Ealing GoodGymers ditched the Sunday morning lie-in routine to assemble in front of Greenford Park Community Hall for another session to improve the centre's back garden. The backyard used to be a storage space for the London Bike Hub, and when GoodGym visited for the first time, it was full of bicycles in various states: from fine rides needing just a bit of maintenance to wretched-looking frames that hadn't seen their wheels for ages. Over the past few sessions, GoodGymers greatly reduced the number of bicycles in the space, but bike-shifting was still on today's task agenda!

GoodGymers Sevan, Kash and Mira ran to the sessions while the others walked. Did I just mention Mira? She's our newest addition to the team, with a knack for DIY! Our sessions never require experience in any particular area, but we wouldn't say no to bringing practical skills - especially since today's task called for painting.

While Diana, Gaby and Mohamed followed John, the task owner from GPRA, to carry, drive, drag or wheelbarrow old bikes to store them at John's allotment space, the remaining GoodGymers stayed with GPRA members Emma and Heather to further clear the backyard and make enough room to paint old wooden benches. Not seeing the bike squad returning for a while, Sevan set off for a rescue mission.

Mira, Michelle and Kash swept and packed the dried garden waste that had not fit in the green bin last month. One of the benches was now within reach! With no paper nor time to do sanding, Michelle diligently wiped the wood with a cloth and was excited to paint a bench for the first time! Mira gave Michelle some pro tips before both dipped the brushes in the bucket of paint, which, despite all the stirring, felt quite gooey.

When the bike shifters team, eventually joined by Sevan and later Kash, returned from their expedition to the allotment, Mira and Michelle said they must have put about ten coats of paint. Although the paint available to the GoodGymers was quite old, the bench received a much fresher look and more protection from the elements. The yard looked tidier with fewer bikes and without plies of leaves and ivy.

We will be back soon at the GPRA Community Hall to continue with the transformation. Check out how the back garden looked when we started work on that side of the hall and see the difference our sessions made!

Ealing was lucky this weekend to enjoy the blue sky and soak under the shy sunshine of early Spring. After a busy Saturday, Sunday brought our GoodGymers another outdoor task, so great weather was appreciated by everyone. Continuing yesterday's trend, we had another visitor from GoodGym Hounslow: Kymm. Ealing was represented by the usual suspects: Sevan, Steph Ducat and Kash.

John and Heather from GPRA welcomed us with tea and led us to the area at the back, which - even after our last task in December - still looked more like a bike graveyard than a garden. John wanted to challenge the status quo and proposed a plan of action to further clear the space off bikes. The spare wheels were to be slotted in between the old fence and the sturdy fence erected by the council. The interesting fact about the fence predating the council one was that the holes in it were taking almost as much space as the remaining wire!

While Steph and Sevan were assembling bike wheels into an art installation, Kymm spotted something blinking under the leaves on the paving.

- Is this a firefly?
- Do we have fireflies in London?
- I don't know!

The flashing object turned out to be a bike light - not as much a surprise as a firefly would have been!

The bikes occupying the space were not the only things the garden would have been better without. The GoodGymers scooped the copious amounts of leaves, creatively using a bin cover as a dustpan. When the green wheelie bin was full to the brim, the teammates took turns to jump or dance on the top to compress the contents*.

Despite all the efforts put into the wild hopping, the wheelie bin was not bottomless, so Heather went to fetch her green bin along with the cutting tools for GoodGymers to deal with the spiky branches found between the bikes. New equipment inspired our team to cut down the ivy, which in counter-offense threw some pollen into our eyes!

We finished when Heather's wheelie bin was full and all the bikes were stacked on one side. The next step might be disassembling one of the bike racks or maybe painting the garden benches. Watch this space for another session at the GPRA Hall!

* No wheelie bins were injured during this GoodGym session

The very first community mission of December promised Ealing GoodGymers a shower of activities full of Christmas spirit. Everyone was looking forward to festive tasks such as giving the GPRA Hall a fresh layer of paint and upcycling old bikes into decorative reindeer. In practice, the season brought us a different kind of shower, and we started the session by hiding from the rain in the community centre.

John welcomed us with tea and coffee and proposed an alternative task, supporting the neighbouring London Bike Hub, a not-for-profit workshop with a vision of embedding cycling into the community, a place where people can donate old bicycles, buy a refurbished bike, learn maintenance skills and attend classes on how to ride safely. Together with John and Winston from the Bike Hub, our GoodGymers were about to declutter the space behind the GPRA Hall and help transport the donated bikes to store safely in John's backyard.

Mohamed, Sevan, Kash and two GoodGymers who had joined us before at Pear Tree Park (including a new joiner, Maria) formed a human chain in a narrow space next to the hall - luckily, covered from the rain! We started moving the cycles from the backyard to the space in the front of the community centre: from surprisingly heavy kiddies rides, through ultra-light road bicycles, to large Dutch bikes.

When the shower turned into a lighter drizzle, it was time to transport the bikes up the road towards John's place to store them. The larger cycles that didn't have flat tyres (but still had wheels!) could be wheeled along the road. Mohamed even gave a try riding one of them, pulling the second one by his side. One of the GoodGymers stayed by the hall and played Tetris, putting the bicycles on a trailer for Winston to haul uphill. We did as much as we could to quickly clear the space in front of the community centre as guests who rented the hall for their events started arriving.

We didn't get to build any steampunk-looking reindeer today, but the results of the clear-out were very satisfying. When it was time to leave, some bikes were still in the GPRA Hall's front garden. Winston was confident he would sort them out, and John thought that if some kid's bicycles disappeared, the new owner would do them a favour as too many children's bikes were donated to store and distribute them.

We are already looking forward to visiting the GPRA and London Bike Hub in the New Year!