Steph Ducat and Emmanuella went on a sunny afternoon to the Monday Ealing Soup Kitchen and release the first Good gym volunteers Naomi and Alaa who were on the 4 to 6pm shift. Alaa got stuck in the kitchen and stayed longer to help with the cooking as it was super busy. Steph and Emmanuella started with labelling clothes. Then Emmanuella was on clothing section and Steph was assigned to security at the food take away queue which was a bit heated today...was that due to the sun, hungry clients or something else? Sunny so sun glasses were to hand and they were red!!Feeding hungry people all before midnight and giving them bottles of water....oups 3 rules to remember that Mr Wing mentioned for those who know about the Gremlins :-) . Avoid sunlight, do not let them in contact with water and no feeding after midnight. Of course it was not the case as none are furry and got their food at 6pm!! Once the rush hour was done, we carried on with labels...good thing we dont hate labels as we would have call ourselves the antilabelists. Tonight we were lucky to see the small bags we did from old t-shirts with the Ealing Repair Shop over 2 weeks ago.

Schools started and everyone’s back to their routine. Thankfully part of our routine was making an impact in the community. Volunteers packaged loads of grocery bags for families, including distributing mammoth bags of rice! Our snack bags were jam packed full of fresh apple slices to help with the autumn feeling that’s fallen on London. Clothes were sorted and a delicious pasta and meatball dish was cooked for the hot takeaway service. More and more people joined as the night went on and this was another successful team effort by all volunteers!

See how we come to Horsenden Farm? Very demure, very mindful. We don't show off, carrying 30 kg wooden logs in front of our new joiners.

Today's first-timers, Kat and Kane, showed our GoodGym divas it's time for a reality check! They were very modest, not flashing their red t-shirts yet, but working equally hard, if not harder, as our most celebrated GoodGym heroes.

Sevan, who has reached 750 good deeds, didn't put his celebratory vest on until the pizza party time. Very demure. Or maybe Kash has forgotten about the milestone vest in her bag again this week?

While Alaa, Kat, Michelle, Sevan and Kash mindfully transported the chicken manure to the compost piles, Kane, Luis and Steph Ducat, together with a new Horsenden volunteer Tom, moved the heavy wood and bed frames out of a former chicken coop. They rested all the bulky things against the shed on a slippery slope. How all that stuff we had piled by the shed throughout the year hadn't slid down yet - we don't know. Very mindful.

Elsa suggested a third task in case we'd finished with either of the two jobs: razing a wild hedge to the ground. We don't come to work to cut green trees. We don't bring big saws and axes. That would be way over the top. Today, we cut the whole hedge at Horsenden with a few pairs of humble loppers.

When it was time to see the animals, Elsa showed Alaa, Kat and Kash how to jump the fence demurely so as not to disturb the pig residents. See how the goats were very well-behaved today - let's not forget to be demure, divas!

Stay demure and join us for another day of volunteering 🫶 + animals 🐮 + pizza 🍕 + craft beer 🍺 in October!

Tonight, our group run attendees were sew happy with the task, that they all stayed for an extra 30 minutes to tie up some loose ends and finish off their draw string bags. In total 15 bags were created which task owner Mary will donate to Ealing Soup Kitchen to give to their clients 🛍️

While everyone was excited about the task, there were some experienced needleworkers, some lapsed and others who'd never sewn a stitch in their lives. Mary and Yvonne came prepared with t-shirts which would otherwise have gone for textile recycling and were ready to be given a new life. They explained - more than once - how to slice and dice a t-shirt into 4 bags, using the features of the original garment to easily transform it.

Clare meanwhile inherited the job of hand-sewing the GoodGym flag, making good progress with the letters and also cursing the slippery material of the GGs. Who chose that spangly material is lost in the mists of time. On our next visit, completing the GoodGym flag and the GG challenge will pass on to someone else.

By the end of the task, almost everyone had created at least one bag end to end and learned the skill of threading cord through a hem or waistband. Emmanuella also became a magician, turning a t-shirt into yarn which was a bit like reversing the manufacturing process. Reusing and recycling in act(i)on 💪

See Emmanuella's trick here https://www.instagram.com/p/C-6EiobhtQl/