In a record breaking turnout, 18 GoodGymers met at St Joseph's Hospice to help clear up after a fundraising jumble sale. The hospice was raising money for its work providing free support for people affected by serious illnesses. The jumble usually raises several thousand pounds to support this great cause.

Lets start with a couple of shout outs!  On this mission we were welcoming Aino, Agathe and Richard for their first ever GoodGym deeds. Great to have you along!

As the jumble closed, GoodGym got to work. Not everything from the sale sold today, and everything needed packing away to be stored in the container at the back until the next jumble.

We loaded up enormous blue trollies with bags of clothes, bedding, stacks of books, children's toys, bric-a-brac and racks of clothes, all to be sorted and stored in the right place.

As there were so many of us, we split into an upstairs team and a downstairs team, and in record breaking time, in just an hour all the jumble had been packed up.  In the past, the St Joseph's staff were tidying up into the evening, so having us along made an enourmous difference to them.

We finished with our traditional jumble pic, grabbing assorted bric-a-brac to pose for a group photo.

We'll be returning on 6 June for the next jumble sale so save the date!

Before I start on the proper report of how we cleared away after a jumble sale, huge shout-out to Becky for reaching 50 good deeds today! That's amazing, especially in less than a year at GoodGym! 😄🎉

Hackney''s St Joseph's Hospice regularly holds an enormous jumble sale to raise money for its work providing free support for people affected by serious illnesses. Bargain hunters queue for hours before opening time, and the hospice can make £10,000 from the three storey jumble. Despite the rush on goods, not everything gets sold on the day and it needs clearing away for next time.

And so, just as the fair was ending, an unknowable number of GoodGymmers arrived to help out (Writer's note: I mean, I counted seven, but that doesn't always mean anything).

After informing the group that I would be guest starring as leader for today's community mission (I am the frantic legs to Eva's serene swan), we said hello to our contact, Emma, and got started.

At first, we split up into two teams. Team Trollied worked on moving some trollies full of either rubbish or sale items to a bin and an outer storage respectively (definitely NOT confusing the two!) Team On-the-rails worked on moving clothing rails to the basement. This second job didn't take very long at all, and so it only took a hot minute for Team On-the-rails to become Team Trollied. This suited us all fine 👍🏻

There was a slight kerfuffle at one point, when a handful of us may have gotten temporarily locked outside the building (sorry, Eva - I know you recommended asking for a key card 😅). We solved this afterwards by simply having one runner (me!) permanently on door (& photograph) duty. Two birds. One stone. Boom. (Incidentally, I told a staff member that my job at the door was to make sure that "No one gets left behind", to which she responded "I think you've found your métier". I'm unsure whether she meant living by GoodGym mottos or holding doors open 🤷🏼‍♀️).

Within an hour, we were done. We finished up by taking a few more bits/trollies down to the basement and getting the traditional "grab-a-random-item-for-the-photo" photo before trundling off.

Hope to see you guys at another one of these soon! 😄

7 goodgymers met at St Joseph’s hospice to help pack away their jumble sale in what has become a regular Hackney favourite. The sale takes place every quarter and gives this local charity a huge fundraising boost, with the takings often running into the tens of thousands of pounds. After I’d had a quick recce with task owner Emma, we split into 2 teams: upstairs and downstairs. Upstairs consisted mainly of bags of clothes and shoes which had to be brought down to the basement in our big blue trolleys. A bit of gymnastics was required to manoeuvre 3 trolleys and 4 GoodGymers into the lift at once but we soon had it mastered. Kudos to Amy for her bag stuffing skills in the store room, not an inch of space was wasted. Team downstairs cleared the books, bric-a-brac and assorted jumble in double quick time and we had the whole place cleared in under 90 minutes. The team were full of praise for team GoodGym so I’m sure we’ll be back for the next sale.

This super humid Saturday three of GG's finest went down to Hackney institution, St Joseph's Hospice to help with a big clean up after a big jumble sale

St Joseph's Hospice provide huge amounts of support, compassion and advice to guests when they, their families and friends are dealing with a serious life-limiting illnesses. However, they need to raise half their annual spend from donations and the periodic jumble sales provide valuable funds to enable the hospice to continue doing supporting so many people.

A big sale means a big clear up, but thankfully GoodGym are regulars in attendance to snap up a bargain then help with muscle!

Today, a small but mighty trio came down to help out by moving arts and bric-a-brac, clothes rails and toys. The stuff either went to:

• St Joseph's Hospice's new shop across the road
• Some went to the red shipping container in the garden
• Some went to the 🗑️ 😓

The heaviest things were definitely the art collection which we put in the red container of miscellany!

The SJH team offered refreshments and even beauty advice using coffee for hair and skin!

Look out for the next jumble sale and visit the shop at 77 Mare Street in the meantime!