It’s been 9 years since the 9th August 2016, when 21 GoodGymers set out from Ealing Broadway for Boston Manor Park for the very first GoodGym Ealing session: a park maintenance task combined with light fitness. I wasn’t there. And I never met any of those original Ealing GoodGymers, apart from two guests: Ivo, the founder, and Ed from GoodGym Central. If you look at our website, you cannot even tell anymore who led that session. But does it matter?

Since 2016, 918 GoodGymers in Ealing - that includes guests like John who visited us today - have done over 10200 good deeds! That’s quite a number, isn’t it? Many of those GoodGymers already moved on, left the borough, found other communities, or started families, but all of them contributed to making GoodGym Ealing a little bit better by at least one good deed!

And today, here we were, at Sandy Park in Hanwell, celebrating the 9 fantastic years of connecting with each other to help our community and isolated, older people within it. Some of the people celebrating today were new faces who joined this year. No matter how the group evolves, we are still the community connected by the same idea: doing good while getting fit. At the same time, for every one of us, GoodGym means something slightly different - and that’s ok - because we are all different. GoodGym is not a space where people should feel the need to fit in. GoodGym is here for us and should fit our lives and who we really are.

At last year's birthday party, I asked everyone to share what they think makes GoodGym Ealing great. The overwhelming majority said the people, the company, socialising. That’s why this year’s birthday was simple: a picnic in the park. We enjoyed the sun, the birthday cake baked by Nishy, the banana bread from Iram, who used the surplus fruit from Monday’s Food Cupboard task, the homemade pizza and cakes brought by Lena and Marta, the vegan sushi from John, pizzas and other snacks shared by Ash, Sevan, Steph Ducat, and Gaby. We enjoyed the relaxed afternoon, connecting with each other, and, most importantly, enjoyed being ourselves.

Happy birthday, GoodGym Ealing!

Legends about the feats of strength, bursts of joy, and - most importantly - samosas at Western Road in Southall spread quickly outside the Ealing Borough. The accounts reach as far North as Ickenham, where our newest addition to the team lives: Zahra!

Zahra made Western Road her first GoodGym session and was warmly welcomed by Janpal from Southall Community Alliance, who told her the story of the Western Road Urban Garden project. Apart from the GoodGymers, the allotment was visited today by volunteers Andre, Paul and Katie, with a brief cameo from Mr Bhasin.

Janpal likes to bring colour and vibrancy to Western Road. This season, he bought some dahlia tubers of many varieties, some of them named after cocktails and liqueurs like Cuba Libre and Crème De Cognac.

"What about crème de la crème?" - Andre asked.
"That's all our volunteers!" - Janpal replied.

The day was sunny, yet the cold wind made us think that the spring was not quite there. The first task was to bring the bags with soil from outside into the polytunnel, stir the earth and top it with compost. The dahlia bulbs would have much better chances of sprouting in the warmth of the polytunnel than outdoors.

With that job completed, the team: Zahra, Steph Ducat, Kash, Andre and Paul moved to another assignment: moving donated wood from next door's garden to the urban garden site. Sevan was receiving the planks handed over to him and putting them aside. With nails sticking out of the timber, and glass discovered in the grass at the boundary of the gardens, the task was abandoned as the safety of the volunteers was the priority, and not everyone had sturdy enough shoes to risk a cut.

When Lena and Marta arrived, they joined Zahra, Kash and Andre in planting the dahlias. The process involved soaking the tubers, writing variety names such as Tsuki-yori-no-shisha or Kennemerland on donated plant labels, and planting the bulbs. The Dahlia crew filled the soil bags with all 32 bulbs prepared by Janpal. Nice work!

Steph and Sevan returned to their ambitious task of splitting the massive tree stump which had been started last month. 28 days later the GoodGymers discovered the poor wedge still stuck between the stubborn wood and getting rusty at the top, where it had been repeatedly smashed and, as a result, had lost its protective coating. The two GoodGymers took turns hacking the stump and eventually released the wedge and gloriously split the wood. What a victory it was! Both pieces of the root were taken on a trolley and placed on top of the barrier made of logs like a trophy.

After the break, when Janpal's legendary hospitality was proven true (yes, there were samosas, drinks, biscuits and fruit!), Sevan and Steph moved on to a different job: preparing the soil at the community allotment plots. The session ended at 1 pm, and the volunteers were offered the produce to take home, this time: leeks.

We are looking forward to the late Springtime sessions at Western Road and seeing our dahlias' colours coming to life! Stay tuned for our next session at Southall's favourite urban garden. Next Saturday morning, we will be meeting for a dose of conservation work at Grove Farm Nature Reserve.

What makes you motivated? What gets you out of the house on Saturday morning? Let me tell you about Lena, who hadn't felt energetic earlier in the day at all, but found her inner Superwoman by thinking about others.

"I saw that you will be on your own at this session, Kash, and I thought it could not be like that!" - Lena.

Lena hopped on her bike and, together with her partner, cycled from Southall to Hanwell to the rescue! She found Bernd's Orchard, where a group of HANGOT members gathered to plant a very special tree. The tree was to celebrate the contributions of a regular volunteer Bruno, who was going to leave the country by the end of the month.

After the bittersweet goodbye, the team headed to the Piggeries Orchard to mulch the fruit trees and cut back the brambles, especially the ones spreading from the corner, behind the pond.

Lena not only had a go at every job: shovelling, wheelbarrowing and snipping the brambles. Her contagious enthusiasm kept everyone smiling. Where did she get her positive energy from?

"Look at those blossoms, the sun, the canal! This is heaven! Thanks for bringing me here" - Lena.

Lena was delighted about her decision to come to the HANGOT session and enjoy the glorious weather. Participating in Bruno's tree planting made her as excited as the children. Before heading off for a coffee with Kash, Lena gave the kids a round of high-fives and praised them for their great work at the orchard. Way to go!

The first task after Christmas was surprisingly popular among Ealing GoodGymers. Was the Magnificent Seven, who showed up on Saturday morning, already bored with the "take-it-easy" approach to the festive end of December? The seemingly quiet air was growing tense with a silent "bring it on!" cry. A small crowd gathered near Walpole Park's cafe. Were they thirsty for a cup of coffee or for a challenge? Maybe both!

A suitable challenge awaited outside the walled garden gate: the remainder of a woodchip pile that the GoodGymers had attacked last week. All the Rickyard tool storage could offer the eager team was five wheelbarrows, four shovels and a few buckets. Oh, and - of course - the usual puzzle of opening the Fort Knox of gardening tools!

When Diana and Kash worked together to break the tool store security, Sevan spotted a new face to GoodGym Ealing. Roxy chose a perfect task for joining our crew for her first GoodGym session: a prominent location, a good crowd and a classic winter task: shovelling woodchip! Welcome to GoodGym, Roxy!

I attended my first volunteering session today, met some lovely people and we worked so well as a team to smash through the community mission! Can't wait to do more - Roxy

After picking up the tools, the team of four met the rest of the Magnificent Seven at the walled garden gate: Lena, Marta and Mohamed, who was bringing a wealth of experience from last week's session. Would the skilled shovellers, a larger team, more time for the task and Kash's constant promises of coffee make the woodchip pile disappear this time?

The eager shovels plunged into the heap, the woodchip flew into the sky, and the clangour of speeding metal wheelbarrows filled the air. The GoodGymers were on it, determined to finish off the job. There's a wealth of woodchip waiting in Ealing to be moved this winter, and the gang wouldn't have left the Walpole Park pile for yet another session! In about 40 minutes the woodchip heap was gone, and another compost bin was filled to the brim. All that was left was clearing the wheelbarrows (and shoes!) of woodchips.

With spare time earned thanks to teamwork, the gang headed for a coffee as the reward for helping the Walpole Park Ranger today.

Next Saturday morning we are heading to Horsenden Farm for the volunteering day, followed by a pizza lunch at the farm's bakery - sign up now!

With several of the regular volunteers having already headed off for Christmas, the team at South Ealing Community Food Cupboard were extra grateful to have four GoodGymers helping out today.

The delivery van turned up on time which meant that Lena, Martin, Mohamed and Alan quickly got to work unloading and unpacking.

Lots of fresh vegetables this week and although Brussels sprouts were notably absent, there were plenty of carrots - including some of the thickest ones we'd ever seen and some of the strangest shapes. Perfect for the finishing touches to a snowman, if Santa can get the weather sorted.