For the second time today, Lutfir and Beth met at the Shepherds Bush Families Project headquarters. After a busy 4 hours of partying in the park, the staff returned with the van to unload the equipment that had been taken over earlier in the day. Once again, two trips were needed to bring everything back – but with so many hands onboard, we made light work of getting everything back inside. CEO Tina and project coordinator Beatrice thanked us for our help before we headed off to our third mission of the day (this time in Camden!)

Shepherds Bush Families Project required a little help from GoodGym today to load up the supplies for their annual Party in the Park event. Lutfir and Beth met them at their headquarters to assist with lifting tables, chairs, crates of food and fun activities into their van to be taken across to Ravenscourt Park. Thanks to a small army of staff and volunteers, the van was soon packed up to the rafters and on the way. There were still some more items to be taken across, so whilst we waited we spent the next 20 minutes chatting to Marsela about GoodGym, and also about the wonderful work that the Shepherds Bush Families Project do – if you’re interested to learn more, check them out here. Once the van returned we loaded the remaining chairs in and that was that; job done! Lutfir and Beth headed off to get some work done before meeting back here later on to help with unloading the van after the party.

When is Boxing Day before Christmas? When you’re helping the Shepherds Bush Families Project!

Our presents was requested to help Shah and the team with the job of moving over 130 cardboard boxes full of food donations from the storage room downstairs, to the hall upstairs. Four of Hammersmith and Fulham’s finest (Arba, Analiese, Chris and Lucy) stepped up to the task.

We set up a human-Christmas-paper-chain, each of us taking a section of the journey, including the steep stairways! The moving back and forwards and up and down certainly got our sweat on, and 45 minutes later (and over 4,000 steps each) the last box was stacked up. Certainly living up to our GOODGYM name!

The donations will be given to low income families in the area to make sure they all have food and some treats over the Christmas period.

Who needs a star on your tree when you can have these stars in your Bush!

This morning three runners met to help the Shepherds Bush Families Project with some lifting and shifting. Now that the festive break is sadly over they needed the decorations taking down (including getting a massive Christmas tree down the stairs and out of the building), heavy items of furniture moving around the hall and many boxes of donated clothes moving up a flight of stairs. We got a lot of hard work done in an hour and the team at the Project were very appreciative of our efforts.

It wasn’t the greatest of starts to the new year, as the original task of helping to move furniture and restoring the hall at the Shepherd’s Bush Families Project didn’t quite go to plan. However, the GoodGym perseverance always pulls through - we couldn’t go through all the effort to get a good deed in and then fall at the final hurdle - especially with the lure of the January Challenge!

Instead, six of us thought we would do good in a different way, after spotting Celebrations wrappers on the floor, we got litter picking instead.

Abi, in true GoodGym spirit, whipped out her gloves and a bin bag before we had even made it to The Green, and got stuck in straight away, collecting chocolate wrappers and bottle tops galore. Meanwhile Lucy created a unique rubbish bag-cum-gauntlet to keep everyone’s hands clean, Kate separated out the recycling and sourced bins, while Latoya and Eloise amassed the worlds biggest collection of bottle tops (mainly Guinness, for those interested).

Harriet joined Lucy later on and filled up a bag with plastic straws, caps and Festive paraphernalia - balloons, Prosecco corks and just about every Christmas chocolate wrapper imaginable (Celebrations, Roses, Heroes, Quality Street...)!

It might have been a bit of a rubbish task, but plenty of litter was bagged up and there were good deeds tallied up for the January challenge!

Toy meets toy

In the first of a double-deed Tuesday evening special, 7 GoodGym'ers met at the Shepherds Bush Families Project to lend a hand with 'Operation hall prep!'. The task was simple, help this wonderful organisation clear out their main hall of furniture and toys to make space for their TWO Christmas parties for the families they work with - they were expecting a massive 200 families to attend the parties, so space was needed to party!

Ode to toy

The team set to work carrying boxes of books, toys, furniture and more toys down the stairs and outside to a room where they were all being neatly stacked by Beatrice, one of the Shepherds Bush Families Project team.

After many energetic trips up and down the stairs the main hall quickly became clearer, while the room outside fuller and very like a real-life jenga puzzle!

Don't trust stairs...they're always up to something!

With some heavier and larger items needing to be transported down the stairs and into the room outside we decided to form a human chain ensuring we let the person next in line know how heavy the item was - some were heavier than they looked!

The chain had to be broken in order to get some trickier and bulkier some soft play steps down. After discussing whether we could just slide down on them we decided to go for the more cautious approach of carrying, as it isn't the season for broken bones!

As always, the task wasn't all work and no play, check out Lucy's 'Jack in a Box (Container)' impression:

A wing of beauty is a toy forever 🦋

Back inside the main hall we were given some beautifully crafted butterfly wings, which we of course took the opportunity to get a team photo with!

With the final few items of pushchairs, toys and boxes taken down and out of the hall, all that was left was one final push...of the children's playhouse back into position, which Clare and Lucy quickly did.

We didn't wing it...a TREE-ific job was done! 🎄

It was very much a case of 'many hands make light work' as the small but mighty magnificant seven had helped move all the furniture and toys that needed to be removed from the main hall into the downstairs room in just half an hour! The main hall was now ready to host the two Christmas parties. Top work team 💪. There was even time to admire their impressive Christmas tree and for some child's play on the rockers - yes, you guessed it, it was of course Lucy and Katie who were almost rocking around the Christmas tree!

We said our thankyous, goodbyes and Merry Christmas' to Shah and the team and all headed off towards the BetterGym for the final group run of 2019!