Sunny Sunday morning and 2 runners Kash and Steph Ducat made their way through Acton to meet Elisabeth for some friendly litter picking. Both runners checked the area during the run so they knew where to concentrate their efforts. They covered roughly 4km picking rubbish and found their usual cans, water bottles, paper, crisp bags etc but today was a sticky situation due to the summer and found a lot of lollipop and ice cream sticks. After and hour of litter licking it was time to go and enjoy a refreshment at the Mint Cafe. Steph's drink looked more like an ice cream :-)

Sunny morning, quiet streets.
Is it time for litter picks?
3k run for Sev and Kash,
6k for Steph to find some trash.
Acton Gardens needs a hand,
So we joined the residents' band.
Aga and the volunteers
Could have burst into tears,
Seeing a fly-tipping deed,
But she chose to take the lead,
Show GoodGymers all that mess,
They will sort it with no stress!
Collab time with LAGER Can?
With a team much more gets done!
Smiling faces, lots of fun,
Exercise for everyone!
If you had quite shortish legs,
You could have done 3k steps*!
After an hour with the litter,
Coffee made our morning sweeter.

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* Disclaimer: You could do 3k steps if you were Kash 😉 Steph and Sevan with their long legs did 2.5k steps - but every GoodGymer did 2 km of walking on the litter pick alone. What a great, active start to the day!

The late October Sunday morning felt nice and dry compared to Saturday's soggy night. The clocks' change caught both Kash and the task owner, Elisabeth off guard, yet they showed up at the right time for the litterpick at Acton Gardens. So did Bet.

It was Bet's first session with the Acton Litter Collective. She found out that one of the LAGER Can volunteers helping keep Acton Gardens clean lived at the same street as her. It's a small world!

There were two choices of litterpicking locations for the GoodGymers today. Bet opted out for the little park she was fond of, the one behind Sainsbury's, Kash chose the East side of Bollo Bridge Road where she found a wealth of cans and bottles hiding in the bushes. Elisabeth gave the volunteers transparent bags for the recycling, so they could separate them from the general waste.

Nearly halfway through the task, the heavens opened and a downpour started. It was quite intense and some of the GoodGymers sought shelter under the trees to wait till the worst of the rain clouds would pass. The rain didn't stop the determined litter warriors though and Acton Gardens emerged from the rain much more free of soggy litter.

Guess who's back, back again
GoodGym's back, tell a friend
Guess who's back, guess who's back,
Guess who's back. Guess who's back?

It's been a while since GoodGym Ealing visited Acton on a weekend morning to support Elisabeth and Acton Litter Collective. We had noticed that Elisabeth's movement was getting a lot of new followers and we felt that our help was needed somewhere else on Saturday mornings. It was great to find out that Acton Litter Collective launched a 10 am weekly litterpick on Sunday to tackle the Acton Gardens area. That session didn't collide with the Saturday parkrun some of the GoodGymers are passionate about. And it started and ended next to a cafe!

The Mint Cafe was our starting point. Both Steph Ducat and Sevan ran past the A-board with the venue's name without noticing they arrived at the location. Kash wasn't speeding as much and she took the right (actually, left!) turn into a yard where she could see Elisabeth and Rohan.

It was the first session for Rohan of GoodGym Hammersmith & Fulham and we are glad to welcome him to GoodGym Ealing.

Spoiler alert: Rohan's second GoodGym experience was also in Ealing

Hopefully, our new recruit enjoyed the crowd and the task and will be coming for more soon!

Let's go back to Sunday morning. Elisabeth brought us litterpickers, blue bags and transparent recycling bags. Sevan, who already had a chat with Rohan while Kash gathered instructions from the ask owner, decided to be the one to go on a lonely route around Sainsbury's. Steph, Rohan and Kash chose the group tour around Bollo Brook Park and West Park, on the way back clearing the Wildflower Trail area, managed by Cultivate London.

By the way, the next task at Cultivate London is a group run to Acton on the 24th of October and you can sign up for it here!

It struck us that we were the only ones joining Elisabeth on Sunday morning to clean the Acton Garden streets. Maybe the area still needed some GoodGym help after all? Later we found out there were more members of the Acton Litter Collective helping out this morning but they did not join the group. We only met Roland in a LAGER Can vest when we were dropping our four bags of general rubbish and half of a recycling bag in front of Sainsbury's. He didn't have time to join us for a coffee but Elisabeth was keen on getting a latte as that was the usual treat after a litterpick. She wanted to buy all of us coffee but we were quicker. Anyway, the reward is already in doing good itself!

We are back in Acton next Sunday for Acton junior parkrun in the morning and the mini-meadow cut back in the afternoon.