After task owner Tamzin's husband drove away their car at the start of today's task, it changed the list of today's jobs for the team. There were still a few new requests to prepare and most of the time would be on sorting new donations.

The incoming donations were supposed to all be women's size 10s and 12s. As well as separating the donations by size and type (top under or outer layers, plus bottoms), the team debated if some of the donations were for men or women and why men's and women's clothes had buttons on opposite sides. Apparently it was because rich women had servants to dress them, so the buttons were switched to suit the servant's dominant hand when they were face on with the buttons.

As well as sizing and categorising, the team also had to inspect the donations for damaged, dirty or inappropriate finds. They found all 3, plus men's and children's clothes in the bags, which kept them busy sorting for most of the session. The unexpected items included a leopard skin negligée and a pair of fishnets, a child's doctor's play coat and a polo shirt labelled "Jack Ryan stand in". Only the polo shirt was a necessary donation and only if they found a suitable law enforcement officer to wear it. Stranger things have happened...

Kash went to prepare the newly received requests before everyone wrapped up for a well deserved lunch.

It was task owner Tamzin's first day at home after a long holiday and it was straight back to Care4Calais work as she arrived with a car full of clothes. Team GoodGym caught up on the holiday highlights over a coffee before the first job of unloading the car and getting to work.

Kash & Steph started fulfiling requests that had come in while Tamzin had been away. They had the most difficulty finding winter coats and shoes of the right size. Most of the requests were completed, however there for 2 for women with large feet. Size 9 or 10s! According to Laycy this wasn't unusual for supermodels, but the Care4Calais stock room wasn't prepared for such sophisticated or legendary clientelle.

Nearby, Laycy and Sevan were busy building standard packs of medium clothes for men. The new boxes of stock were filled with jogging bottoms, sweatshirts and t-shirts. Their production line put together 28 packs, some with a rather Xmas-y red & green feel. They moved onto box crushing and recycling duties and eventually helped Kash and Steph complete their requests.

The team completed everything they could with the available clothes. Any requests that are still missing items could still be around when GoodGym returns next week to help Care4Calais again.

A lighter than usual task at Care4Calais today. Task owner Tamzin gave everyone an early finish as it was Xmas and also for good behaviour through the year. There was still plenty of work to do though and packages to prepare for recipients who are experiencing their first UK winter.

The legend that is Santa had delivered a big batch of padded jackets to Care4Calais. Just what was needed to keep everyone warm during the current spell of cold weather. Steph, Maria, Kash and Sevan opened half finished packages and squeezed jackets into each one. Lesser known fantasy figures then came to help the GoodGymers as Shoe Fairies delivered boxes of trainers, which is exactly what the next batch of requests needed.

Other legendary occurrences during the task included Kash exclaiming that she'd "never been so tall" as she carried a box on her head which hit the ceiling. Later, Tamzin told Steph and Sevan to "finish him off". A reference to fixing a poorly picked package for a child still needing a school bag, not a command to take them out!

Normal service will be resumed in January when we'll be back helping Care4Calais. Depending on your definition of "normal", that could be just as fantastical and amusing as today's session.

Kash & Sevan were part of a smaller team at Care4Calais today and were looking forward to a nice, warm, indoor session on a day where the weather was forecast to get wetter and wetter. With that in mind, task owner Tamzin surprised them with a pair of prams in the garden that needed to be washed down and directed Kash outside, to the hose pipe.

Last time Kash washed down prams and wheelchairs, she was given waterproof overtrousers and Crocs to stop her clothes from getting wet. The overtrousers were long gone to someone in need, so instead Tamzin rummaged around her clothing stock and found some very small biker's leathers. They should be waterproof and windproof, right? Wrong! After hosing down 2 prams, Kash was wet, but at least the prams were now clean.

Elsewhere, Sevan was working with a Care4Calais volunteer to prepare clothing packs for recipients, with most of the requests being for jackets. Understandable given the changing of the seasons. Tamzin was ready for this as the stock room now resembled an assault course. There were bags of winter coats in various sizes piled up in bags on the floor, ready to be picked and packed. Some had to be re-sized, with Kash trying each one on before putting it in the XS, S or M group.

Once all of the requests were fulfilled, the GoodGymers moved to other side of the stock funnel. Sorting donations to fill up the boxes to pick future requests from. Some sizes of clothing were running low, while others were overflowing. Tamzin recommended the netball technique for the latter, launching items onto the top of the pile ⛹️. As always, the new donations were "varied", with some stand out items being one person's collection of jumpsuits, 2 pairs of colourful Nike shoes that had been returned and a pair of quite extreme harem trousers. They were so extreme, that Sevan initially held them upside down and spent a minute wondering why there was no hole for someone's head to go through 🤦.

With requests caught up and new donations mostly sorted, Kash and Sevan left things in a good state, ready for the next set of volunteers to pick up.

At our regular visit to Care4Calais this afternoon, Richard came to his first GoodGym task. He was looking to try different volunteering opportunities, which is one of the benefits of GoodGym, variety! Welcome Richard and we look forward to seeing you at future sessions 🎉👏.

There was lots of donation sorting to do today, which Richard powered through with Kash and Sevan. Initially, the trio were sorting and sizing women's clothes until the balance in the bags swung more towards men's donations. Kash then joined Tamzin in preparing custom packs for recipients while Richard and Sevan stayed to work through the men's clothes.

The men's donations pile was extra large, both in the number of items to sort and the sizing of the clothes it contained. As Richard and Sevan sorted, the towers of XL clothes grew so large that they toppled over and had to be found a new home.

The incoming donations contained some surprises, including many fashionable but impractical handbags, some Metropolitan Police shirts and trousers, dress shirts and a suitcase full of... well... suits. None of those was particularly helpful for Care4Calais' clients so they'll be donated to charity. There was also a mystery as to who could have owned a stash of colourful cords that were discovered and how to find an adventurous new owner for them 🤔.

To wrap up the session, Richard and Sevan used their freshly organised clothes to prepare some standard men's packs. The whole team then moved as much of the new stock as they could into the storage room, leaving Tamzin to find space for the glut of new, larger clothing.

If you want to discover surprising donations and help provide clothing to refugees in need, we'll be back working with Care4Calais on the 22nd of November. Sign up here.

There were 6 people working away at Care4Calais today, which made the space very busy. Especially the stock room. They were split into 2 teams, with Maria working with Tamzin and another C4C volunteer to bag requests for beneficiaries while Kash, Anita and Sevan sorted the new batch of donations that had magically appeared since last week.

The pack builders were running low on certain men's sizes and shoes, meaning that Maria came hunting for freshly sorted clothes to complete her packs. The sorting started with lots of children's clothes though, then men's (mostly XXL), then women's, also mostly XXL. Some of them still had their tags on, so had never been worn!

With Kash and Sevan heading to a mission in north London, all the clothes were stuffed into boxes in the stock room before they ran off. There were so many 2XL clothes that Tamzin may need to build another room to house them! No doubt there'll be more supernatural clothing multiplication between now and GoodGym's next visit in November, meaning there'll be plenty more for the team to work through.