The GoodGym Ealing birthday is coming up soon (9th of August). Tonight's epic session with Ealing Repair Cafe was perfect to make some history and generate new GoodGym Ealing trivia for the next quiz! Read on!

Who was the first man in Ealing to achieve 1000 good deeds?

Sevan was the first man in the area to wear the legendary 1000 Deeds cape created by Milly for the overachievers of West London. The cape received Mary's approval! Sevan was also presented with a (rather rude due to ordering mishap!) trophy. Sevan can now show his fingers to counting good deeds (very naughty in a church!) and say he does good for fun and out of a good heart. He's beyond the milestones now.

How did Mary get such a premium venue?

Wait! Was the workshop held in church? Mary and Lone from Ealing Repair Cafe contributed their services to St Mary's Church in Acton, revamping the curtains and providing draught excluders to keep the church a bit warmer in the winter (you can see Mary proudly presenting them in one of the pictures). The grateful church community allowed Ealing Repair Cafe to use the church as a location for tonight's workshop! How cool is that!

How long is a piece of string?

Madhan was busy making threads for the drawstring t-shirt bags. He made two balls of string (the size, not quantity matters!). You may ask now: how long is a piece of string? Madhan has the answer to that - 140ft! Madhan's feet, to be precise, as he unfolded one thread around the church and then diligently measured it with his feet!

Who's not afraid of sewing machines?

While Kash, Steph and Sevan decided to play it safe and stick to cutting t-shirts and jeans or assembling bunting, Gaby was the first one to have a go at the electric sewing machine. She got stuck into it for the entire session, producing 12 multi-purpose bags that others finished adding scraps of thread as drawstrings. Those kind of bags were in the past donated to the Northfields Community Library and Food Cupboard.

Who's the Great Old Dane?

Nishy and Chris got acquainted with the super sustainable Great Old Dane - a classic, portable Singer sewing machine: no pedals, no electricity, no emissions, free arm workout, and 3 lines of bunting for community groups as a result (the last one kindly finished quickly by Lone)!

What happened to Chris' donation?

At the previous episode of our craft adventures with Ealing Repair Cafe, Chris donated plenty of his old sports clothes and trainers. The GoodGymers sent a big box of those running shoes to JogOn for recycling later that week. But what happened to the clothes Mary from Ealing Repair Cafe agreed to take? The sportswear in good condition was sent to the refugees staying in hotels in Hounslow. And the worn football T-shirts? Those ended up even better! At a repair event that Mary ran in Brentford, she made one of the participants smile, getting them a patch with a Liverpool logo - a rare treat!

Who's GoodGym Ealing's go-to baker?

Nishy gave tonight's session an extra flavour - the chocolate flavour! As a part-time pro-baker, she had brought her homemade chocolate cake for everyone to celebrate Sevan's milestone. Thank you Nishy!

What do GoodGymers drink after a session in Acton?

After a break from post-group run socials, we returned to the tradition of grabbing a pot of chaii after the task in Acton. Sevan gave us finally a good excuse for a toast and to stay a bit longer together for a chat.

Next week, we will be running in the opposite direction to Acton, visiting the William Hobbayne Centre in Hanwell to help clear their backyard. Sign up now!

The first group run after the clocks went forward last weekend was all in bright daylight. What a difference it made! Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash ran from Ealing Broadway to Acton to meet Mary and Lone from Ealing Repair Cafe in a new workshop location - the Hall of St Mary's Church.

Chris did not join the runners today as he was doing some proper lifting! He made his way to the task by doing the exercise called farmer's walk - or shall we say a donor's walk? Chris showed up with a ton of bags of used clothes that were ready to be reborn as something else! Well done Chris! Ealing Repair Cafe is all about reusing, repairing or recycling old fabrics.

Mary and Lone did a triage on the spot:

• Clothes in good condition to be donated to the refugees
• Old Liverpool and England football t-shirts to be transformed into the famous drawstring bags
• Trainers - to be donated somewhere else (two GoodGymers declared to run back with them and send the shoes to JogOn)
• Jeans to be upcycled into tote bags
• Socks, shorts and particularly ripped clothes to be cut into scraps to make stuffing for draught excluders

"Those are proper jeans, we can make bags out of them! Traid usually give us those skinny jeans, and they are good mostly for draught excluders" - Mary

Ealing Repair Cafe recently donated a couple of draught excluders to St Mary's Church in Acton, which served well to secure the drafty north church door. Who knows, maybe that has also secured us a venue for today's workshop!

Chris spent the rest of the session cutting his old apparel into shreds. He did not expect that turn of events when contributing his old stuff but was extremely grateful that Ealing Repair Cafe accepted his donation. That made Chris immediately stuck into the task.

Steph, Kash and Lone were making t-shirt drawstring bags from already sewn material and by the end of the task completed all 30 that had been prepared. Ealing Repair Cafe donated their last bags batch to The Store Cupboard in West Ealing - a not-for-profit shop providing affordable food to people referred by agencies and charities. We should soon find out which charity receives our latest creations.

Sevan got stuck into detailed work of tracing the letters for Act for Ealing banner, then cut them out. That provided us with some good entertainment: making anagrams! Cleft Granola? Teal Frog Clan? Is that a good band name?

We partner with Act for Ealing as a green travel and exercise group and occasionally share our upcoming activities with them. Check out their news - you can find a lot of fantastic events with an environmental theme if you ever get bored with GoodGym. Hopefully you won't as we have an exciting event planned for this Saturday in collaboration with WWF - check it out here!

Tuesday evening group run with 3 goodgymers warming up at Bodyline Studio before setting off in the windy streets of Ealing towards Acton Town. Sevan, Liuba and Steph Ducat were meeting up with Michelle and Anita who cycled their way to Acton West London Office for a upcycling workshop with Ealing Repair Cafe. Mohamed shortly made his way too. Mary and her crew welcomed 6 goodgymers indoors and away from the wind. Tonights task was filling draught excluders and finishing off bags made from T-Shirts with strings. Deal sealed in the windbreak market as the team finished roughly 10 draught excluders. During our workshop, a lot of chatting of bands and their skinny jeans which looked a lot like the draught excluders...Rod Stewart trouser style 🤘🤘. Sevan had one that was in a weird shape and different colour...banana style. There was also small battles going on : no one was hurt...Battle of the draughters!!A first for Anita and you could see that she was in her element.Cracked on with marking and cutting jeans. Steph Ducat brought a box of chocolates : for what reason? Was he trying to get rid of a leftover Xmas chocolate box as Mary mentioned. Or was he telling the runners/cyclists : you will need to run and cycle more to burn these calories!No in fact it was time for Steph Ducat to rock as Sevan presented him with the 500 good deed trophy/totem. Yes reached my 500 good deeds tonight in 22 months, well 21 months and 1 week!! After a great workshop,the 6 goodgymers were blown back out in the streets of Acton...4 running back in the direction of Ealing Broadway and 2 cycling back to Hounslow and Richmond.

It was a first and a last for an Ealing Repair Cafe x GoodGym Ealing collab. All 5 GoodGymers arrived on time for the first time! Early, even. On the other hand, this would be their last session of 2024 together. 3 of the today's stitchers ran from Ealing Broadway, while Nishy and Gabriela, who was at her first GoodGym session met the runners at the Doughnut Factory. Welcome to GoodGym, Gabriela! 🎉

Task owner Mary was glad to see them

"Great, you can help with the backlog!"- Mary

There was indeed a backlog, with 2 tasks to get started with. Each would produce items from reused materials for Age UK to donate to those in need.

The threaders, Nishy, Kash and Mohamed, had a pile of drawstring bags that had been sewn from waste t-shirts. The only problem was that they hadn't had their drawstring inserted yet, so they were only "bags", waiting to achieve their drawstring potential. The threaders used the secret skill, passed down through generations of Ealing Repair Cafe volunteers, to add the ties to the channels at the top of the bags, speeding through 16 of them.

Meanwhile the stuffers, Gabriela and Sevan, were working to make draught excluders to stop the cold wind from blowing under the recipients' front doors. The casing had been made with old jean legs and the GoodGymers were filling those casings with wadding and scraps of waste fabric. There were lots of different techniques to get the filling evenly distributed, including swinging the draught excluder around their heads.

Eventually, everyone moved on to draught excluder production, with each of them learning something new. Mohamed took control of a sewing machine for the first time to turn fabric into casings. Everyone else learned that running stitches wouldn't seal the open end of the draught excluders securely, so instead they needed a back stitch to strengthen the closure. No more sewing while running then 🙄

In all, the team had 16 fully completed bags and 7 draught excluders which will help the elderly in Ealing borough keep warm this winter.

The fifth chapter of GoodGym x Ealing Repair Cafe collab brought three new apprentices of upcycling to Acton: Roberta, Nishy and a guest from Tower Hamlets: Sian. While Sevan, Steph and Kash - not newbies to the sewing workshops - felt comfortable with their speedy 4.5km run from Ealing Broadway, it was Claire who was the most comfortable with the sewing machine. Like a boss - that's how Claire looked in front of the apparatus which others approached with caution, suspicious about whether it can sew their fingers to the fabric. Spoiler alert: no one left the workshop with holes in their fingers.

Mary from Ealing Repair Cafe gave us a choice of two tasks:

1) make draught excluders from old jeans to give them out to residents at the Reduce & Recycle Hub 2) make drawstring bags from old, colourful running t-shirts for the South Ealing Community Food Cupboard)

It was a night full of discoveries!

• Roberta and Sian joined the growing circle of people who know what the draught excluders are. They achieved enlightenment by experiencing the draught excluderness first-hand: by sewing jeans and stuffing them with socks.
• Sevan learned that there is actually a signal in the Donut Factory (Mary's secret facility where she runs the workshops with us).
• We all discovered that the material of Ealing Eagles t-shirts can make running easier, but not necessarily sewing.
• Steph looks stunning in cropped Ealing Eagles tank tops (see the photos).
• Roberta looks stunning even with three legs (see the photos).

The enjoyable evening session with Mary and Lone resulted in six finished drawstring bags for the Food Cupboard and two draught excluders (that's a pair of jeans legs!) for the Reduce & Recycle Hub at Acton Market.

We will team up once more with Ealing Repair Cafe this year before December, so watch this space for more workshops! Next week we are back in Acton to distribute leaflets for next month's Reduce & Recycle Hub - sign up to join us!

What do draught and sausages have in common? It is not the draught beer and wurst at Oktoberfest, oh no! It's a bit too early for that and a bit too far West. Tonight a GoodGym trio, Sevan, Kash and Klaudia, who came to her first session 🥳, set off on a journey to East from Ealing Broadway. Despite totalling a decent distance (8 km on the way there and back), they haven't made it to Germany but stopped in Acton to meet Mary, Yvonne and Lone from Ealing Repair Cafe, a trio who fights waste by teaching people to repair and upcycle clothes by using patching or darning techniques. What a bunch of legends!

Yet another trio, Claire, Emmanuella and Kate (AKA the Punctual Ones), were already at the task location, The Doughnut Factory, accompanying the Ealing Repair Cafe team in creating useful stuff from old stuff using stuffing techniques. They were cutting and sewing old jeans legs, then filling them with scraps and damaged blankets to make draught excluders for the clients of Ealing Soup Kitchen. Those oversized sausage-shaped objects of varying sizes and densities could be placed at the bottom of draughty doors or windows to keep the cold away in the upcoming winter months. The idea was to use upcycling to provide a low-cost option for vulnerable people to make their homes cosy without spending too much on heating! 🧣

Partway through the task, one more trio arrived, who had to use a series of secret knocks to get inside the headquarters of The Secret Sausagety (Sevan gave me a look when I wanted to use The Secret Sausagety as the report title, which I resisted doing, but I couldn't resist using that pun!). Chris, Lena and Marta joined the fun, learning how to use a sewing machine, practising their hand-sewing techniques, and playing tug-of-war in an attempt to stuff three rolled blankets into a single jeans leg. It was intense!

As a result of an exceptionally long (time flies when you are having fun!) over 90-minute Tuesday evening session, ten draught excluders have been created, and - oh boy, is it finally complete? - the upcycled GoodGym flag has been finished! A shoutout to Claire, who has hand-sewn the last two pieces - the GoodGym logo elements - to the flag fabric. Claire became the GoodGym Ealing legend forever in the crafts department! 🏆

Well done to the entire team for their thirst to learn new skills and use them for good while reducing the waste of damaged clothes, and special kudos to Klaudia for sticking out till the end at her first session, then running back to EB with the group 🙌

A massive thank you to all three members of Ealing Repair Cafe for their fantastic workshop idea and for teaching GoodGymers sewing. 🙏 Fingers crossed that the clients of Ealing Soup Kitchen will like the draught excluders and keep warm during the winter.

If you loved the Ealing Repair Cafe workshop, you may be interested in the following:

• Help Mary promote the reduce-reuse-recycle mindset by joining next week's GoodGym task in Acton - sign up here!
• Check out what other events Ealing Repair Cafe has planned
• Check out the brand new Ealing Library of Things, where you can borrow useful equipment without buying it - what about a sewing machine for your new project?