Had prohibition hit the Hobbayne Centre's Burns' Night? Like previous years, set up involved preparing bamboo cutlery and napkins and pouring drinks to prepare for the Address to the Haggis.

With the cutlery completed and placed on the tables for the guests, the GoodGymers saw 3 partially empty whisky bottles to pour 90 shot glasses from. Hmm, there didn't look like there'd be enough.

As the first 2 bottles were emptied, 40 glasses had been filled. It was time to open the last bottle and the cork crumbled. A bottle opener was tried and made a hole through the middle of the cork. What to do? Find a strainer and a measuring jug to remove the "bits" from the liquid, of course. Mother is the necessity of invention and keeping everyone whiskied up was also a motivator.

Fifty glasses were filled and then the team had to wait for the next bootleggers to make it through police lines with a new bottle to finish pouring...

A sunny Saturday morning following a week of greyness. Ivy hanging from the tall trees of Grove Farm like a canopy. Yellow mushrooms against a pattern of brown bark. A carpet of moist leaves rolling down a muddy slope. Calmness filled with faint birdsong coming from above. And then a sudden whirr of hedge trimmers and clink of shears. What's happening?

A group of people, mostly wearing red, are chopping large patches of baby brambles with zeal and enthusiasm. Is that how woodland conservation is supposed to be? Well, yes! According to Mike, a friend of Grove Farm, blackberries, if not kept in check, are taking over green spaces and suppressing the growth of other species that should be part of the ecosystem. And we believe him, because we've seen that in the past two years of helping at Grove Farm. Without a little help from volunteers fighting off brambles, the wonderful wood anemones wouldn't be able to bloom in March and April! See how they looked in the past!

This January, volunteers Mike and Livio are joined by seven GoodGymers: runners Steph, Sevan, and Kash, walkers Ash and Thaiza, and cyclists James and Richard. Richard is actually a runner too, and he already did a parkrun in the morning. Now, swapping swimming for shearing makes a different kind of triathlon for him!

The results of our conservation work from previous years have made a visible difference. The 2026 brambles are much smaller and more spread, compared to what we've dealt with in the past. A single session of cutting back and raking today allows us to clear the entire slope alongside a woodland path, and give wood anemones a strong boost. With enough sunlight reaching the ground, their flowers will be stunning in the spring!

The brambles never stop growing, though, and we'll need regular visits to Grove Farm this winter to stay in control of the wood anemone territory. Our February session will be another opportunity to help biodiversity, while enjoying a forest-bathing session by absorbing nature’s sights, sounds, and smells. If boosting wellbeing by spending time in nature and doing something impactful sounds like something for you, sign up to join us!

It was task owner Tamzin's first day at home after a long holiday and it was straight back to Care4Calais work as she arrived with a car full of clothes. Team GoodGym caught up on the holiday highlights over a coffee before the first job of unloading the car and getting to work.

Kash & Steph started fulfiling requests that had come in while Tamzin had been away. They had the most difficulty finding winter coats and shoes of the right size. Most of the requests were completed, however there for 2 for women with large feet. Size 9 or 10s! According to Laycy this wasn't unusual for supermodels, but the Care4Calais stock room wasn't prepared for such sophisticated or legendary clientelle.

Nearby, Laycy and Sevan were busy building standard packs of medium clothes for men. The new boxes of stock were filled with jogging bottoms, sweatshirts and t-shirts. Their production line put together 28 packs, some with a rather Xmas-y red & green feel. They moved onto box crushing and recycling duties and eventually helped Kash and Steph complete their requests.

The team completed everything they could with the available clothes. Any requests that are still missing items could still be around when GoodGym returns next week to help Care4Calais again.

On a windy Tuesday night, six GoodGymers came together for an (unintentional) Winston Churchill-themed litterpick. Little did they know about what they'd find in South Ealing, where they ran from Ealing Broadway. Armed with litter pickers and bin bags from their allies, LAGER Can, they were determined that they would fight in the alleyways and on the streets, and they would never surrender.

The GoodGymers' main enemy was rubbish dropped along the alleyway splitting the South Ealing Cemetery into two, but, under a cover of leaves, the group found things that were hardly classified as litter. Next to a small collection of pots and vases, Conor found a bust of Winston Churchill, and Harvey discovered a toy British Bulldog! Or was it just a pug?

Rather than cigar butts, the team kept finding single-use vapes, which Churchill would surely disapprove of. Neither would he endorse the cheap beer cans and four laughing gas canisters which Harvey carried out of the alleyway for collection.

Walking through a lane of birches raised some questions about the white sheet-shaped deposits found in abundance on that stretch. Some GoodGymers would have sworn that it was paper (which, according to a quote often attributed to Churchill, was the enemy of action) or even wallpaper. Others, maybe better versed in dendrology, explained it was bark from the birches and didn't need to be collected.

The battle against litter ended on South Ealing Road, at the first available bin, where it was appropriate to leave two blue bags of collected mess. Those who hadn't tried it ahead of the group run had the last chance to taste Maria's home-baked coconut puffs that she brought today - what a treat! Having accomplished the task in about half an hour, half of the team ran back to Ealing Broadway to either catch a bus or a train or... run back to South Ealing.

Sevan and Kash usually take a break from GoodGym on Mondays, but for Ms K, they've found a space in their calendars and visited her in the evening, after work.

"Happy New Year!", Ms K welcomed the GoodGymers.

In fact, the two saw Ms K for a mission on New Year's Day to build a bed. Since then, the lady's bedroom underwent quite a transformation! The wardrobes have been filled, chairs brought in, one of the walls repainted, and rugs covered the floor. Most importantly, the bed, which Sevan and Kash had started building, had been finished with some help from Ms K's friend. It was great to see the room usable, and a proper place to sleep for Ms K already functional. The only thing missing was the wardrobes' doors.

Sevan was hoping that attaching the hinges and hanging the doors on the two wardrobes would be pretty easy. And it was. The surprising part had nothing to do with the hinges, but the door handles. There were no holes to screw them in! As it turned out, to attach the handles, one had to drill holes in the doors - in IKEA furniture, can you believe it? Electric tools were a no-go at a GoodGym mission, so the duo focused only on attaching the doors to the wardrobes. They left the drilling for Ms K's friend, who was coming to visit the following day.

"We actually finished this mission well ahead of allocated time", Sevan triumphed.

Finally, with the wardrobes' doors closed, Ms K's bedroom looked like a proper bedroom. Well, maybe except for the handles!

A band of two-armed band-its met on Sunday morning at Pitshander Park to bend their joints and bond with a bunch of elastic bands. They didn’t need any weights to give their muscles a kick!