Did you know that Jim Marshall, a guitar amp innovator, dubbed "the Father of Loud", worked in Hanwell? Marshall passed away in 2012, but his legacy of loud lives through a non-profit, free one-day festival: the Hanwell Hootie. On Saturday, live music was heard all across the town, from a local park, through a "busking boat", numerous pubs, a church and even a library. Loud in a library? Liberating, isn't it?

The Hanwell Community Library was the first place where six GoodGymers convened the next day after the festival to help with the teardown. Divya, who cycled to the task, beat everyone else to it. Anuj ran from the North-West and the rest of the runners from the East (think Acton junior parkrun).

One GoodGymer was coming from further East than that! John, a guest from Camden, ran from his area to us and, when reaching the library, he totalled nearly 20 km, thanks to a spontaneous decision to do an extra community mission in Ealing! Both John and Steph are training for next week's Hackney Half, so getting to the tasks on foot is a nice motivation booster for them.

Having quickly taken down the hessian that Sevan and Kash had put over the books on Friday, the group walked to Sandy Park where the task owner, June, awaited with a multitude of activities:

• Taking down four tents
• Cutting cable ties using various tools
• Loading vans with boxes and folded gazebos
• Riding at the back of the van
• Organising the reusable Hootie-themed pint cups into boxes
• Pondering whether the soggy, beer-scented cardboard is recyclable
• Playing a game with the cups that Steph can explain better

The Hootie team supplied us with water and fruit to keep our energy levels up to a good standard in the direct sun and after all the running. June thanked us for our contribution to the Hootie and invited us to a post-Hootie catch-up for volunteers later. The GoodGymers headed towards the Clocktower in Hanwell for some coffee and food, after which some of us were ready for either more tasks, running, cycling or an afternoon nap.

That's where the GoodGym at Hootie 2024 story ends. Hanwell will remain a quiet town until next year. But who knows!

Kash and Sevan ran to Hanwell Community Library, one of the locations for this year's Hanwell Hootie, to help set the scene. They didn't know how to turn a library into a concert venue. All they'd been told was that it involved hessian.

When they arrived, they found the crew and volunteers already hard at work. The stage was being set up and the bookshelves were being covered in lengths of hessian to stop beery hands from reaching for the latest Richard Osman.

There wasn't too much left to do. They helped cover 2 long stretches of shelves with hessian by using some giant clips, then covered a library computer with a "Live Life Oud" sign, pointing out that someone had dropped an L. Surely in a library, that must be some sort of crime.

The St.Mellitus church turned into a concert when I was reaching the entrance. Milly sneaked me in via the backdoor. I joined Steph who after running 50k this morning, decided to do 3 GoodGym tasks back to back. That's some hardcore dedication.

Steph was running the Tuck shop with Mary, a William Hobbayne member. Mary was taking the payments, and Steph was serving them the drinks and snacks.

I joined Steph and we were regularly snacking the leftover snacks( Crackers and blue cheese) while serving the drinks/snacks to the younglings/parents who filled the church hall.

Milly on the other hand was serving drinks to the VIP's who were performing tonight. And the band members were ripping the drums and guitar out.

Drinks were the best seller of the day, we ran out of water and soft drinks by the time we closed the tuck shop. Only 8 cans of Diet Coke were left.

And there was a huge queue outside the toilets which happens to be the case throughout the night.

Once we ran out of bottled water, we were serving tap water for some time. Milly and I were running back and forth between the sink and the counter.

It’s rock and roll time and the goodgymers went to support the Hanwell Hootie Music Festival and the Basement Door Youth Charity at the final of the West London Battle of the Bands on 23rd March. Winners will perform at the Hootie on the 11th May.

Emily looking after the VIP section/bar/bands and coordinating in the background with June. Steph Ducat setup the tuck shop and manned it with Mary. Steph helped out with preparing some canapés at the same time. As the battle of the bands started and went on with some mosh pit there was another battle going on at the tuck shop. Who would win the battle and be the best seller? The water bottles, pop drinks , crisps or the chocolate bars. Dr Pepper, diet coke, Fanta or sprite? As teenagers of course it was Dr Pepper who took the lead.

Three goodgymmers helped the hootie set up for the battle of the bands event

We moved chairs

We emptied cars

We set up the tuck shop

We set up the VIP area

Good luck to all the bands!

GoodGym Ealing was ready to come back to Hanwell to help the Hanwell Hootie team sort and organise their storage locker again. We had 10 people which is a good attendance in 2023, we had a special guest, Jenni, and... we had a little challenge.

Our lovely task owner, June, told us in the morning she could no longer attend the session and direct us tonight. However, she did her best to provide us detailed instructions and promised she will give us temporary access codes to the site. Everything started looking a bit shaky when we arrived at the storage place.

How did we get on?