Once upon a time, Los Mariachis from GoodGym travelled through the Ealing Borough and arrived in the town of Hanwell, hoping to find work at music festivals. Have they found any jobs? If you visited Sandy Park in the morning after Hanwell Hootie, you could find six red t-shirts lounging on sofas, getting a lift in vans, and all that accompanied by the whiff of a brewery! What sort of a gym is that? A gym unlike any other!

It was the first GoodGym gig for Roberta, who hadn't known what to expect. The first words Roberta said on arrival were:

How can I help?

And she got stuck in right away!

The regular GoodGymers expected to pack things away and dismantle the festival tents - basically: what they had done on Friday, but in reverse. That wasn't the plan though. Task owner June told our team that the priority was moving the Hootie furniture back to the Stables in Brent Lodge Park. We have done it in two van trips, loading and unloading sofas, armchairs, mirrors, bins, banners and a stand looking like a chromium-plated sombrero, perfect for such a Mariachi as Harvey. Some of us were so desperados to complete the task for our Hootie amigos, that we made an exception and got a lift to the Stables for the sake of time. Runners Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash didn't miss a chance to race the van back to Sandy Park though!

There was one more journey that the Hootie volunteer manager Rose had for us: a trip to the Viaduct pub. That was the task from which some of us emerged with the beer scent. Did we go there for a few pints? Much more than a few! We packed into a van and unpacked crates, boxes and bags of reusable festival pint glasses - hundreds of them! This time everyone walked between locations, much to Michelle's linking as she is very keen on walking to the tasks.

Steph and Harvey took on a bonus quest, also related to popping into a pub: this time The Green. They were tasked with carrying two giant letters "H" there, ahead of a thank you event for the amazing Hootie volunteers crew. Who else if not GoodGym can do a fun pub crawl with no drinking involved?

When Kash arrived at Sandy Park to offer GoodGym services to the legendary Hanwell Hootie festival, she not only had to wait for her crew, who were busy decorating the Busking Boat, but also for The Van. The van was supposed to deliver festival tents. Sevan and Harvey had the pleasure of waiting for that vehicle at their previous task to no avail, so the hype was on!

Our Bunting Bandits just returned from the cruise on the Busking Boat when the van materialised. Three GoodGymers helped Ralph, the Head of Tentology, put up one pop-up tent, then hung around trying to make themselves useful while watching Ralph fighting with the zips in an attempt to connect the tent walls. The rescue came quickly in the form of another task: setting up a uri-tunnel. Forget GoodGym Ealing's expertise in polytunnel architecture! Uri-tunnels are the future.

The team was tasked to shift three portable urinals and connect them, creating a tunnel to allow men some privacy on the festival day. Some male GoodGymers felt that the end-users of the urinals were underrepresented in the design of the tunnel and came up with some ideas to improve the practicality of the solution. The consultation was soon over and their feedback didn't make it to the final urinals setup. The team followed the original design, then Harvey made an inaugural run through the tunnel.

After the pisstraction, the GoodGymers were called to support another tent setup, where 10 pairs of hands were needed. Following the success of that large-scale project, Ralph invited them to assemble another 10-men tent. It turned out that the grandiose tent was an overkill for a spot selling festival merch, so it was reduced in size by a half.

The last job for Harvey, Sevan and Kash was to move black chairs and tables from the VIP area to the volunteer lounge - they did not fit June's vision of the Sandy Park festival layout. We all knew that the Hootie volunteers were the real VIPs, so we moved the cool, black furniture where it belonged.

The life of a roadie is a tough one. No job security, moving equipment and lots of chatting while waiting around for something exciting to happen. That's how GoodGym's first setup session for the Hanwell Hootie felt like for Bryon, Harvey and Sevan too. Sandy Park had a stage, some portaloos and barriers, with most other things still to arrive.

First up was to move some industrial sized bins around the park, so that the Hootie-ers could recycle or dispose of their rubbish. Then, a pause, before setting out tables and chairs in front of the stage. Then, some waiting around again, talking about life, children and Newcastle United's successful season.

Finally, the excitement came. A trip to the Busking Boat to carry out a task so daring that it would not be mentioned to the Health & Safety Officer... putting up bunting by climbing ladders on a boat! Ladders on a boat! As it turned out, it was perfectly safe. The canal was calm, the boat was well moored and the step ladders were stable. The bunting was efficiently threaded around the roof beams, transforming the barge and making it ready to rock 🤘

The trio headed back to Sandy Park for the second part of Hootie setup, which would be po-tent-tially a lot busier ⛺.

Goodgym back at the stables to help prepare Hanwell Hootie that's happening on the 10th May. Small group tonight but both Harvey and Steph Ducat were present to lend a hand. 2 weeks ago sorting out was done and today it was cleaning up of the banners that would be used during the festival. The posters had them on their knees. The black and white posters looking like new.Then it was time for the sofa's to get some attention : brushing the dust off and spraying some freshness to get rid of the dampness smell they got in the humid stables. Also sorted bins that were hidden in the back of the stables.Let the music 🎶 rock and roll.

GoodGym Ealing and Hanwell Hootie go together like salt and pepper. Each year, the famous free music festival run by local people, attracts thousands of music lovers who swarm in Hanwell to hear emerging young bands - and our team is around to support that brilliant volunteer-led initiative! No wonder why the numbers picked up at tonight's group run to the Brent Lodge Park's Stables to help the Hootie organisers: June and Andrea.

Since the Hootie was in less than three weeks, it was about time to start organising the equipment stored at the Stables: mostly furniture and banners. But here is a twist:the storage space was struck by an unexpected leak, resulting in damp floor in one of the rooms! The solution: all the things had to be brought into the yard, where Andrea would triage them and decide which items were going back inside and which the Stables needed to part with. It was a perfect challenge for 8 GoodGymers with an hour to spare!

The runners Mohamed, Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash were glad to see regulars Claire and Madhan again after a short break and welcome a pair of new starters: Erin and Nick. The two could not have chosen a better group run task: local to them, contributing to a beloved Hanwell event, and challenging and fun at the same time!

While part of the team set off to move the furniture in varying states outside, others got rock-and-rolling (mostly rolling) festival banners. On such a great spring evening, we thought that even sofas, armchairs, tables and giant "H" letters deserved a dose of fresh air. Particularly sickly furniture pieces: legless, ripped and mouldy, were going to stay outdoors even longer than us. Spoiler alert: they were not coming back. We split the rest of the items into a YES pile (this year's stuff) and a NO pile (another time stuff). The YES things needed to be kept together and placed in an easily accessible (and most dry) part of the Stables ahead of the festival. We didn't discriminate against the NO objects - they were going back inside too, and for all items, we steered away from putting them in the previously flooded sections.

Our amazing team, thanks to determination, teamwork, muscle- and brainpower (and June's clear direction), achieved the goal in about 65 minutes - and even squeezed in a team photoshoot!

Our tonight's efforts will certainly make the Hootie prep smoother! If you want to join the next task to help the festival, see us in two weeks at the same location - sign up for the session now!

Did you know that Jim Marshall, a guitar amp innovator, dubbed "the Father of Loud", worked in Hanwell? Marshall passed away in 2012, but his legacy of loud lives through a non-profit, free one-day festival: the Hanwell Hootie. On Saturday, live music was heard all across the town, from a local park, through a "busking boat", numerous pubs, a church and even a library. Loud in a library? Liberating, isn't it?

The Hanwell Community Library was the first place where six GoodGymers convened the next day after the festival to help with the teardown. Divya, who cycled to the task, beat everyone else to it. Anuj ran from the North-West and the rest of the runners from the East (think Acton junior parkrun).

One GoodGymer was coming from further East than that! John, a guest from Camden, ran from his area to us and, when reaching the library, he totalled nearly 20 km, thanks to a spontaneous decision to do an extra community mission in Ealing! Both John and Steph are training for next week's Hackney Half, so getting to the tasks on foot is a nice motivation booster for them.

Having quickly taken down the hessian that Sevan and Kash had put over the books on Friday, the group walked to Sandy Park where the task owner, June, awaited with a multitude of activities:

• Taking down four tents
• Cutting cable ties using various tools
• Loading vans with boxes and folded gazebos
• Riding at the back of the van
• Organising the reusable Hootie-themed pint cups into boxes
• Pondering whether the soggy, beer-scented cardboard is recyclable
• Playing a game with the cups that Steph can explain better

The Hootie team supplied us with water and fruit to keep our energy levels up to a good standard in the direct sun and after all the running. June thanked us for our contribution to the Hootie and invited us to a post-Hootie catch-up for volunteers later. The GoodGymers headed towards the Clocktower in Hanwell for some coffee and food, after which some of us were ready for either more tasks, running, cycling or an afternoon nap.

That's where the GoodGym at Hootie 2024 story ends. Hanwell will remain a quiet town until next year. But who knows!