Hanwell School of Boxing, a volunteer-led charity offering sports activities to young people of all backgrounds, moved to their current site in 2011. Tonight's task owner, Linda, had been one of the key players in making the move happen. She told us about the building’s history and the improvements made over the past fourteen years. But nothing lasts forever. The wooden posts that have stood at the entrance since 2011 were now rotten, and Linda thought it was time to replace them with five plastic bollards.

Five GoodGym runners who braved the drizzle on their 3 km run to Hanwell split into engineering and sweeping teams. The builders, Steph Ducat and Kash, had the job of removing the aged wooden posts and then digging a trench as per Linda's instructions. Paving blocks, no longer held in place by the poles, and tree roots were only minor challenges, solved by a mattock found by Linda and Steph's jigsaw puzzle skills. The real enemy was the stubborn old concrete, not easily removable to make space for the new bollards. The good news? Nothing is set in concrete at the GoodGym tasks, and there's always an option to change the approach.

After consulting Linda, the engineers agreed the best way forward was to set the new posts in place with minimal digging, then pour a mix of cement and water around them. Steph and Kash flattened the soil and laid the first layer of mixed cement - without a trowel! Who needs a trowel if you can use a random square piece of foam found on premises? The technique Linda suggested for the second layer was to scatter the cement around the poles, then pour water on top. The speed-engineering brought concrete results: maybe not the straightest poles, but certainly stable!

Meanwhile, Thaiza, Harvey and Sevan did what GoodGymers are best at in autumn: leaf sweeping. With rakes and brooms in hand, they set a goal to clear the whole tarmac surface leading to the boxing club. Ambitious! The leaves might not have been heavyweight, but there was an abundance of them. The sweeping team bagged as many leaves as they could fit in Linda's car, who would then distribute the green waste where it was needed. The rest of the fallen leaves had to be swept to the side - maybe for another time to bag. The result? A leaf-free driveway to the boxing school!

Before the team set off for another soggy 3km, Linda invited them inside the club and traditionally offered them hot chocolate and minced pies. The sweet treat was a lovely reward that powered the GoodGymers all the way back to Ealing Broadway.

Drizzly weather set the scene at the South Ealing Food Cupboard today, but the team were grateful that most of the delivery arrived on a single large pallet. This meant far less trekking back and forth in the rain with trolleys!

This week's haul was very punctual and consisted of crates of beautiful pre-squashed squashes, heaps of red and green cabbages, and turnips so enormous they were perfect for either weightlifting or clobbering someone like a cartoon cave-person. The fridge section brought an abundance of orange juice, mince and sausage rolls.

It was Stef’s first GoodGym session, and she jumped straight in, hauling heavy crates and flattening cardboard likea pro. She joined Martin and Iram, who helped sort through today’s produce and prep the cupboard for distribution. Everything was done and dusted well before 11:30am!

Kash and Steph Ducat made their way to the church to find the crate of groceries already waiting for them to bring into the food cupboard. What an a peeling task to start the day and week. once all the crates were in, we went all bananas 🍌 as had to separate green and ripe ones in smaller crates. Loads of grapes today too. Once all the crates emptied, we packed them on a pallet ready for collection. last task was to sort out tinned food : soup, custard, loads of beans etc. Then it was time for the 2 minions to leave.

At Acton Junior parkrun this morning, there was a debate over shorts or not as it felt a lot chillier than previous days. There were still a lot of children having fun in their short sleeves who clearly hadn't felt the change in seasons yet and 48 in total finished the 2km run.

Mostly wrapped up warm, 5 GoodGymers were on the volunteer roster to help the event run smoothly. Maria and Sevan were marshalling, Alan timekeeping and Joanna was handing out finish tokens.

Kash was today's tailwalker and had the most exciting role. When the last child dropped out with 500m to go, she sprang into action, transforming from having a cheetah's tail on her tailwalker high-vis into an actual cheetah. She hunted down the next child who was much further around the course, finishing with them to allow the event pack up to begin. "Great running" as the marshals say 🏃.

At our regular visit to Care4Calais this afternoon, Richard came to his first GoodGym task. He was looking to try different volunteering opportunities, which is one of the benefits of GoodGym, variety! Welcome Richard and we look forward to seeing you at future sessions 🎉👏.

There was lots of donation sorting to do today, which Richard powered through with Kash and Sevan. Initially, the trio were sorting and sizing women's clothes until the balance in the bags swung more towards men's donations. Kash then joined Tamzin in preparing custom packs for recipients while Richard and Sevan stayed to work through the men's clothes.

The men's donations pile was extra large, both in the number of items to sort and the sizing of the clothes it contained. As Richard and Sevan sorted, the towers of XL clothes grew so large that they toppled over and had to be found a new home.

The incoming donations contained some surprises, including many fashionable but impractical handbags, some Metropolitan Police shirts and trousers, dress shirts and a suitcase full of... well... suits. None of those was particularly helpful for Care4Calais' clients so they'll be donated to charity. There was also a mystery as to who could have owned a stash of colourful cords that were discovered and how to find an adventurous new owner for them 🤔.

To wrap up the session, Richard and Sevan used their freshly organised clothes to prepare some standard men's packs. The whole team then moved as much of the new stock as they could into the storage room, leaving Tamzin to find space for the glut of new, larger clothing.

If you want to discover surprising donations and help provide clothing to refugees in need, we'll be back working with Care4Calais on the 22nd of November. Sign up here.

The golden leaves fall
No green leaves for Mister G
Panini purchased