Wednesday 28th August
Report written by Anastasia Hancock (she/her)
From foodbanks to the riverside, schools to Chiswick House itself, we cover a variety of organisations for our tasks in Hounslow. One special one was our location last night. We were back for our regular visit to lend a hand to the sisters at the Comboni Centre.
The sisters here run a centre for spirituality where everybody is welcome. They have a huge garden which needs a lot of looking after, and as we were told last night, the youngest of them is in her 60s so some of the bigger jobs are tricky to do.
We were met by lovely Sister Expedita. As her name translates as speed or haste, it was very on brand for GoodGym! She took us round the area handing out jobs as we went.
Tish and Georgia got their hands on loppers and went straight to work on a big overhanging bush, while Paul and Chris were challenged with uprooting and moving various trees. Gus dispatched a huge root in record time but then had the job of sawing it up for the rest of the night. Meanwhile tree surgeons Luis and Emily had shot up a ladder outside, and Jon and Michelle got stuck in weeding and clearing flowerbeds. Will and Jonny were on weeding and clearing, and before long all the jobs were done and dusted!
We took a short run back to the green where we did three sets of three minutes working on three different muscle groups - glutes, abs and arms. With the backdrop of a beautiful sunset and the encouragement of Paul and Luis, we worked our way through them one by one, and finished off with stretches.
If you'd like to continue your week with some more GGing, then there are a number of missions happening, including helping set up an inclusive music event at Waterman's park on Saturday and Sunday.
The Centre is run by 2 Catholic nuns. A number and activities are held at the centre, including couples counselling, one on a one spiritual meetings, prayer meetings and various events.
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