19 runners and walkers came out last night to join GoodGym Ealing’s last Tuesday session this year, and in fact this decade!

And what a year it’s been!

But before we could celebrate we had one last task to do. Tonight we were delivering Christmas cards to local residents on behalf of St Peter’s church to let them know all about the services happening there over the festive period.

We were delighted to be joined by Ellie who wanted to squeeze in her first GoodGym before saying goodbye to 2019, big welcome and hope to see you back in the new year!

It was great to see everyone arrive in their festive attire and glad everyone got the memo about Christmas hats being highly encouraged this week! After welcoming everyone and a run down of the news we wasted no time in deploying groups in all directions to get the job done super quick time and get to the pub for our celebratory Christmas party! Each group had a map and set of flats to target so it was a bit like GoodGym orienteering and like that everyone was off into the night walking and running in all directions! With such a good turn out last night, Jenni, Phill and I stayed close to the broadway to give Ealing town centre a festive blitz with the trusty litter pickers.

It wasn’t long before everyone was back and raring to get the party started. So with that we bid farewell to 2019, we’re coming for you 2020!

Group runs are over but you can still do some good stuff before the year is out! Also if you do a community mission between Thursday 19th of December and Sunday 5th January there's an awesome badge in it for you!

• Tomorrow, Thursday 19th December, we have a community mission to help The Grove Community with their winter wonderland. All the details and sign up are here.
• Jenni and Alex are leading a plog at 10am on Saturday morning from Horsenden Farm. If you’re keen to keep our waterways safe and tidy, would like a nice walk or jog with some awesome people and are free for an hour, then sign up here to join them!

Four goodgymers met at City Harvest for our final food sort of the year! We've been at City Harvest the first Saturday of the month all this year, helping them sort the donated food so they can get it back out to local charities and organisations as soon as possible, and prevent food waste.

With lots of boxes to sort, the group set-to it, sorting meat, fruit, dairy, veg and fish into boxes ready for storing and redistributing.

Team work helped us speed through the first pallet, with Mo from the charity commenting on how efficient we were!

Next task, a van unload and sort. And with the delivery sorted, the gang can certainly feel like they earned their good deed and will find themselves on Santa's 'nice' list this year!

Thirteen brilliant people joined me for my first session looking after GG Ealing. We ran almost 4km and helped out at Hestia.

So, for the first of two weeks I headed in to the dark depths (only dark because it is Winter) of West London to lead the Ealing GoodGym group. I was met by everyone who were ready and waiting to go. Big thanks to Chris who had the keys ready for people to store their things and to access the gloves we needed for tonight’s task.

Thankfully the rain had cleared from earlier in the day so we were able to do the intro and warm up outside. The main news this week is the GG-wide Christmas party in Barnet – you can find all the details and sign up here. We also welcome Mark for his GoodGym run and Sarah for her second ever GoodGym run and first time in Ealing!

Chris was in charge of being the frontrunner and leading the way, Harvey mid-marked and I was at the back. We would our way up the hill for the short run to Hestia. Once there we said hello to Sandra and she outlined the tasks:

• A clear up in the garden collecting leave and any litter that we could find
• A clear up of leaves in the front garden and drive
• A cupboard sort and the moving of a bunch of lever-arch files from the downstairs office to the cupboard all the way upstairs

We split the group to each task and everyone went about their way. Before we knew it all was done and it was time to say our goodbyes. We posed for a group photo and then headed off for some more running.

Chris again led the way and we took a longer route home with a hill rep thrown in for good measure too. Before we knew it we were back at base and we stretched before heading home.

A job well done everyone, see you next week!