GoodGym Ealing may not visit St Andrew's Church in North Ealing frequently, but everyone looks forward to another session there - maybe because the tasks are so unique? The task owner, John, always has a new interesting project for us. This time, he offered us a mixture of new (a DIY task) and familiar (hedge trimming). John knew well that our team could be very effective when it comes to cutting shrubs (maybe even too effective!), so he entrusted us with shaping the hedge at the side of the church. A job that required even more trust in GoodGym was renovating a memorial bench of Roy James Matthews - an artist who used to run art classes for the local community at St Andrew's centre. John consulted the late artist's family before proceeding with the task, so we were committed to doing all the sanding in painting to a high standard.

Steph Ducat and Christos employed a variety of scissor-like tools, including long-handled edging shears, to suppress the unruly expansion of the hedge. The boisterous plant responded by releasing sap, covering Steph's t-shirt, face and shades with sticky spots.

Are you sure you have not chosen the painting task, Steph?

Despite St Andrew's being a United Reformed Church, Christos got to practice Zen meditation by raking the gravel. Getting the leaves out from between the stones required a great deal of patience!

On the other side of the church and the community centre, Claire, Freya and Sevan engaged in an artistic activity: bench renovation - from sanding, through blowing the dust away, to applying varnish. The challenging aspect was painting the hard-to-access surfaces with big paint brushes. One of Roy James' students, who was visiting the community space, came to the rescue! He went back home and brought us what you can easily find in an artist's house: a smaller paintbrush. That made our job a breeze.

Madhan and Kash got to rotate between the two tasks and apply their versatile skills in the arts of both creation and decimation. John was delighted with the results of GoodGym's intervention and, as usual, grateful for our support.

Since the days got longer, the Ealing team was increasingly keen on the fitness element of GoodGym. On the way to the session, our running crew opted for a 2.5 km of hill running. Returning to Ealing Broadway, we took the shortest route down but finished with an 8-minute full-body interval workout.

Next Tuesday, we are visiting a different part of the borough to help Hanwell School of Boxing with the maintenance of their outdoor space. Sign up and join us!

GoodGym Ealing and Hanwell Hootie go together like salt and pepper. Each year, the famous free music festival run by local people, attracts thousands of music lovers who swarm in Hanwell to hear emerging young bands - and our team is around to support that brilliant volunteer-led initiative! No wonder why the numbers picked up at tonight's group run to the Brent Lodge Park's Stables to help the Hootie organisers: June and Andrea.

Since the Hootie was in less than three weeks, it was about time to start organising the equipment stored at the Stables: mostly furniture and banners. But here is a twist:the storage space was struck by an unexpected leak, resulting in damp floor in one of the rooms! The solution: all the things had to be brought into the yard, where Andrea would triage them and decide which items were going back inside and which the Stables needed to part with. It was a perfect challenge for 8 GoodGymers with an hour to spare!

The runners Mohamed, Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash were glad to see regulars Claire and Madhan again after a short break and welcome a pair of new starters: Erin and Nick. The two could not have chosen a better group run task: local to them, contributing to a beloved Hanwell event, and challenging and fun at the same time!

While part of the team set off to move the furniture in varying states outside, others got rock-and-rolling (mostly rolling) festival banners. On such a great spring evening, we thought that even sofas, armchairs, tables and giant "H" letters deserved a dose of fresh air. Particularly sickly furniture pieces: legless, ripped and mouldy, were going to stay outdoors even longer than us. Spoiler alert: they were not coming back. We split the rest of the items into a YES pile (this year's stuff) and a NO pile (another time stuff). The YES things needed to be kept together and placed in an easily accessible (and most dry) part of the Stables ahead of the festival. We didn't discriminate against the NO objects - they were going back inside too, and for all items, we steered away from putting them in the previously flooded sections.

Our amazing team, thanks to determination, teamwork, muscle- and brainpower (and June's clear direction), achieved the goal in about 65 minutes - and even squeezed in a team photoshoot!

Our tonight's efforts will certainly make the Hootie prep smoother! If you want to join the next task to help the festival, see us in two weeks at the same location - sign up for the session now!