What a wonderful evening!

It started with a small group of 6 hardy souls taking on a HIIT workout before the gardening and then we were joined by 9 other wonderful humans for the gardening part.

We were blessed with some glorious evening sunshine to help Vicar Steve in the church garden. Since lockdown the garden has been in need of a little TLC and although they have some amazing local volunteers (including Alex who was on hand last night to show us what needed doing and give us endless thank yous!) there was still a lot to get done.

Jo joined us for her first every GoodGym deed - welcome Jo! Go give her a cheer!

This is how it went down:

• Chris, Jenni & Jo worked to trim the overgrowth around one of the trees
• Tracey & Marieke weeded around the grave stones
• Sevan & Milly dug out a border
• Ellie & Emily did some serious clearance
• Claire chopped back all the overhanging plants from on the pathways
• Mike, Shan, Chris J & Callum all worked together to dig out and clear a large area ready for new plants

We worked hard for an hour before lots of us went off in search of some eat out to help out action. If eating also helps, we're there!

A TREEmendous start to GoodGym Ealing FIR sure!

Wow, 21 of you came out to kick start 2020 with a 2.5 mile run, a Christmas tree collection (a workout in itself) and a super fitness session, all crammed into 90 minutes!

We welcomed two new runners, go and give Annette and Jessica a big cheer for coming along to their first ever GoodGym session!

But the big news tonight was that we had a 200er in our Midst. Huge well done to Jenni on a massive 200 good deeds! Woah!

After pumping up the group with all the facts about the January Challenge and how to get involved we started with a warm up and whip around of new years resolutions, lots of you with none (keep doing you!) and lots with ambitions to read more, do more exercise and do more GoodGym. We like that!

So after a quick briefing, we headed up (literally, a nice hill to start!) to the Christmas tree collection point in Cleveland Park before dispersing in groups of 4 on the hunt for Christmas trees! We were particularly looking to move any that were obstructing the pavements so that they could be moved on and safely stored at the park for recycling.

I like the double drag technique - Jenni

A successful haul of Christmas trees scooped up from the streets of Ealing and deposited at the recycling point. This keeps streets clear and tidy and provided us a great workout! #goodgym #ealing #dogoodgetfit #redjanuary #januarychallenge pic.twitter.com/IdUUK8xSrJ

— GoodGym Ealing (@GGEaling) January 7, 2020

It wasn't long before Christmas trees were arriving left, right and centre and naturally competitiveness between teams was evident throughout with everyone heading out quickly again to find more.

The final total was an awesome 41 tree saved from the streets with Jenni, Laurianne, Mathilde and Callum making up the winning team with a huge 13 between them!

Time for a quick HIIT session in the park before and nice jog back down to base to finish.

What a way to start 2020!

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How can you help with the January Challenge?!

We need to complete as many good deeds and cover as many miles as possible in January so on Saturday 18th we have a whole day of good to take part in! You can sign up for any or all of the below tasks and we'd love to see you there!

• Part 1 - 8:30am-10am: Gunnersbury parkrun takeover - Volunteer by signing up on this page.
• Part 2 - 10:30am-11:30am: Litter picking jog around Gunnersbury park after parkrun - Sign up and details here.
• Part 3 - 12pm-2pm: City Harvest - Join us at City Harvest after the litter pick to help fight food waste - Sign up on this page
• Part 4 - 3pm-4pm: The final part of the day will see us do another litter pick in Acton Park, just across the road from City Harvest - We will finish up with a quick sweep of the area, making the park beautiful for the junior parkrunners the day after - Details and sign up here.

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!