On Tuesday evening, under the dim glow of streetlights, Steph, Sevan and Kash set off from Ealing Broadway, equipped with litterpickers and a good dose of energy. The runners met Claire and Bryon at St Mellitus Church in Hanwell to assemble a team for another litterpick adventure. Undeterred by the darkness, the group brought light to the community by tackling the litter problem at the Ealing Foodbank head-on!

Despite hoping that the litter situation had improved since their last visit five weeks ago, they were surprised to find just as much rubbish, if not more, given the volume of bulkier items scattered around. In addition to the usual wrappers and bottles, the gang unearthed some unique discoveries: a clothes dryer in surprisingly good condition and a few abandoned bras! Among the typical finds were countless plastic gloves scattered around the area from the nearby petrol station. That left the team, especially drivers, scratching their heads, wondering who needs to use those gloves.

In total, the crew collected two full waste bags of litter, as well as a few “unbaggable” items. After a successful session and a good workout, the GoodGymers treated themselves to some well-deserved pizza at The Green W7. A great end to a productive evening!

The fifth chapter of GoodGym x Ealing Repair Cafe collab brought three new apprentices of upcycling to Acton: Roberta, Nishy and a guest from Tower Hamlets: Sian. While Sevan, Steph and Kash - not newbies to the sewing workshops - felt comfortable with their speedy 4.5km run from Ealing Broadway, it was Claire who was the most comfortable with the sewing machine. Like a boss - that's how Claire looked in front of the apparatus which others approached with caution, suspicious about whether it can sew their fingers to the fabric. Spoiler alert: no one left the workshop with holes in their fingers.

Mary from Ealing Repair Cafe gave us a choice of two tasks:

1) make draught excluders from old jeans to give them out to residents at the Reduce & Recycle Hub 2) make drawstring bags from old, colourful running t-shirts for the South Ealing Community Food Cupboard)

It was a night full of discoveries!

• Roberta and Sian joined the growing circle of people who know what the draught excluders are. They achieved enlightenment by experiencing the draught excluderness first-hand: by sewing jeans and stuffing them with socks.
• Sevan learned that there is actually a signal in the Donut Factory (Mary's secret facility where she runs the workshops with us).
• We all discovered that the material of Ealing Eagles t-shirts can make running easier, but not necessarily sewing.
• Steph looks stunning in cropped Ealing Eagles tank tops (see the photos).
• Roberta looks stunning even with three legs (see the photos).

The enjoyable evening session with Mary and Lone resulted in six finished drawstring bags for the Food Cupboard and two draught excluders (that's a pair of jeans legs!) for the Reduce & Recycle Hub at Acton Market.

We will team up once more with Ealing Repair Cafe this year before December, so watch this space for more workshops! Next week we are back in Acton to distribute leaflets for next month's Reduce & Recycle Hub - sign up to join us!

What do draught and sausages have in common? It is not the draught beer and wurst at Oktoberfest, oh no! It's a bit too early for that and a bit too far West. Tonight a GoodGym trio, Sevan, Kash and Klaudia, who came to her first session 🥳, set off on a journey to East from Ealing Broadway. Despite totalling a decent distance (8 km on the way there and back), they haven't made it to Germany but stopped in Acton to meet Mary, Yvonne and Lone from Ealing Repair Cafe, a trio who fights waste by teaching people to repair and upcycle clothes by using patching or darning techniques. What a bunch of legends!

Yet another trio, Claire, Emmanuella and Kate (AKA the Punctual Ones), were already at the task location, The Doughnut Factory, accompanying the Ealing Repair Cafe team in creating useful stuff from old stuff using stuffing techniques. They were cutting and sewing old jeans legs, then filling them with scraps and damaged blankets to make draught excluders for the clients of Ealing Soup Kitchen. Those oversized sausage-shaped objects of varying sizes and densities could be placed at the bottom of draughty doors or windows to keep the cold away in the upcoming winter months. The idea was to use upcycling to provide a low-cost option for vulnerable people to make their homes cosy without spending too much on heating! 🧣

Partway through the task, one more trio arrived, who had to use a series of secret knocks to get inside the headquarters of The Secret Sausagety (Sevan gave me a look when I wanted to use The Secret Sausagety as the report title, which I resisted doing, but I couldn't resist using that pun!). Chris, Lena and Marta joined the fun, learning how to use a sewing machine, practising their hand-sewing techniques, and playing tug-of-war in an attempt to stuff three rolled blankets into a single jeans leg. It was intense!

As a result of an exceptionally long (time flies when you are having fun!) over 90-minute Tuesday evening session, ten draught excluders have been created, and - oh boy, is it finally complete? - the upcycled GoodGym flag has been finished! A shoutout to Claire, who has hand-sewn the last two pieces - the GoodGym logo elements - to the flag fabric. Claire became the GoodGym Ealing legend forever in the crafts department! 🏆

Well done to the entire team for their thirst to learn new skills and use them for good while reducing the waste of damaged clothes, and special kudos to Klaudia for sticking out till the end at her first session, then running back to EB with the group 🙌

A massive thank you to all three members of Ealing Repair Cafe for their fantastic workshop idea and for teaching GoodGymers sewing. 🙏 Fingers crossed that the clients of Ealing Soup Kitchen will like the draught excluders and keep warm during the winter.

If you loved the Ealing Repair Cafe workshop, you may be interested in the following:

• Help Mary promote the reduce-reuse-recycle mindset by joining next week's GoodGym task in Acton - sign up here!
• Check out what other events Ealing Repair Cafe has planned
• Check out the brand new Ealing Library of Things, where you can borrow useful equipment without buying it - what about a sewing machine for your new project?

Helping out our local award winning race, the Ealing Half Marathon, has become one of our annual group sessions. The race is incredibly well organised and planned - we provide willing hands to put up advance warning signs on the route. There was some debate as to how far '200 metres apart' actually was - the next lamp post? The one after that? All very high tech.

We split into two teams, taking a side of the road each. There began a quiet sense of competition as we faced each other on opposite sides of the traffic. This was left unsaid, of course - it's better that way. An eyebrow movement can convey all it needs to, even through a couple of lanes of traffic bustle.

There's a fantastic atmosphere on race day at the Ealing half and we got asked lots of questions by curious residents as we made our way through the borough carrying step ladders and large yellow signs!.I think our high vis vests reassured people that we were legit (maybe!).

I saw the sign...and it opened up my eyes (apologies to those too young to get the reference!).