Each Monday morning, GoodGym lends a hand at the South Ealing Food Cupboard, helping the volunteers get surplus food sorted and ready for the local community.

This week’s haul was a more regular size, but still had plenty to keep us busy. Mohamed and Iram teamed up to tackle bags of carrots and piles of potatoes. Thankfully, the eggs arrived already neatly portioned into half-dozens, a much smoother job than last week’s egg marathon!

Alongside the veg, we stocked the shelves with cartons of oat milk, hot sauce and lots of popcorn. Whether patrons are making a healthy salad or settling in for a film night, this week’s delivery had them covered.

As part of the weekly sessions that bring together GoodGym volunteers with the Achilles International team, I participated this week as a running guide in a special training session held at the Paddington Rec Track, after we met at Maida Vale underground station on Thursday evening.

This initiative is part of the ongoing collaboration with Achilles International, a sports charity that embraces people of all abilities and provides them with a supportive and safe environment to exercise alongside trained guides. These sessions aim to support visually impaired runners, helping them develop their athletic skills while fostering a spirit of community participation.

The session included 11 professional guides, 10 visually impaired (VI) runners, and a support team of 2 people. Enthusiasm was evident on the Paddington Rec Track, where the atmosphere was marked by mutual encouragement and positive energy.

I am proud to be part of this wonderful team, which includes a distinguished group of athletes with disabilities, as well as a group of volunteer guides, both experienced and new. The training varied throughout the session, including recovery runs, tempo runs, and interval workouts, all amid a lively atmosphere filled with enthusiasm and mutual support on the track.

This type of event not only enhances physical fitness but also contributes to building meaningful human relationships based on trust, respect, and teamwork.

I am honored to be part of this ongoing volunteer work and look forward to many more upcoming sessions with GoodGym and Achilles International.

Care4Calais had a big job for GoodGym this afternoon. To prepare around 130 packs of clothing for refugees in one hotel. Some of the residents had been given clothes previously and today, the second big delivery would complete the task.

Boxes of clothes were piled up waiting for the team, who welcomed back Mohamed for his first GoodGym Ealing task since moving back west 👋. The ask was fairly straight forward, to make standard clothing packs in a single size at a time, on a larger scale than normal. Everything was set up like a production line to make the system quick and easy:

1. Open a bag 🛍️
2. Place socks inside 🧦
3. Hand on to the next person 🤜🤛
4. Add men's underwear 🩲
5. Add a hoodie 🧥
6. Hand on to the next person 🤜🤛
7. Add jogging bottoms 👖
8. Add 2 t-shirts 👕👕
9. Done ✅

With much of the clothing being black or navy, the team needed ways to make sure the right clothes ended up in the right bags.

"Are these hoodies or joggers?" - GoodGymer
"Which half naked man is on the pack?"
"The hoodies have topless men on them too, which doesn't make sense" - Tamzin, task owner

The "naked man process" worked up until the team realised that some packs had 2 hoodies and no trousers in them. Cue a rapid search through 40ish packs to identify which ones needed fixing.

Despite the hoodie issues early on, an improved system meant that the job of creating the packs finished early, with a range of small, medium, large and XL bags tightly packed into boxes.

After the rapid and fairly repetitive production line, came the slow, creative piece. Fitting all of those boxes into 2 family cars needed thought, inventiveness and some force. With both cars full to bursting and ready to be delivered to Care4Calais' beneficiaries, it was time to wrap up and wander home in the late afternoon sun.