With a smaller group than the last time we visited The Ealing Food Bank ( which was a record breaking run back in January! ) last night we had 11 awesome runners come out to lend a hand sorting, shifting and cleaning down at this vital community resource. We also had one new runner Rachel join us so a big welcome to her!

Is it spring yet...

With the chilly weather still lurking around (come on spring, get your act together!) we started with a quick warm up with a few exercises (which made you all look ridiculous!) but I promise they are all legitimate running drills! And then we were off into the night to do some good.

We arrived to meet Hilary who had a list of jobs for us to complete which included a lot of shifting and resorting as well as weighing donations and a clean up too. We quickly sorted ourselves into small teams across each task get everything covered in the time we had. Everyone got straight down to it and stuck in with their assigned missions and it was clear this would be a smooth operation...

Creating a rice breaker...

And then a crash! I knew it had to be Michael... A little mishap with shifting the rice donations resulted in a bit of a breakage but luckily it was just the storage containers and it didn't leave us with a big clean up operation!

Once everyone was settled into their jobs myself and Larissa popped around the corner to help with a secondary task for the evening at the local night shelter to see if they needed a hand with anything for the evening. We've been visiting at this pop up winter night shelter for the last few weeks alongside our other tasks to lend a hand where they need it and next week is their last night for the year so we'll be back one more time!

Light work was made of all the jobs on the list and once we returned from the shelter to regroup we were ready to head for home. The first of us to arrive back made use of the time with some core exercises and squats before welcoming in the last runners for some stretches.

Lastly just a quick thank you to Michael for back marking the run and being second in command on the task. Michael is a vital asset to our GoodGym group and is on the taskforce for Ealing, something lots of you are keen to be involved with which is great to see! If you're wondering how you can be involved just ask me at the next group run!

Happy Running!

A last minute change of plan won't stop us!

Last night's task was a very last minute call around to all the previous places we'd had the pleasure of helping in hope there was something we could do! Unfortunately our task for Cultivate London that was scheduled for last night was curtailed by our contact being very unwell, get well soon Rosie! Luckily we have a few more dates booked in to help her at the DIG site in April ( sign up nice and early here! ) so we'll still get to go and help later on!

With a welcome shift in weather from last weeks Narnia like run we had a HUGE 21 runners out last night with two new members joining us for the first time. A Big welcome to Harriet and Victoria

This week we were back to two tasks as we sent a small sub team off again to help at The Ealing Churches Winter Night Shelter. This week taskforce member Jenni led Michelle, Tony and Clare down, so thank you guys for volunteering to be on the smaller run!

We started off with a quick group huddle to discuss to route and to come clean about the fact I wouldn't in fact be running this evening... I felt incredibly guilty but a few niggles meant I didn't want to risk a run last night so instead I was lead bike for proceedings! A few warm up drills saw us nicely warmed up and we were off!

With Michael C backmarking for us we all arrived safely to Hanwell Community Centre with Shan & Michael K ready in waiting for us to get started. The team at the centre were sure they had some bits we would help with when we were left without a task at the last minute, so thanks to them for accommodating us with short notice last night!

We were working across the site doing a bit of cleaning, sweeping and tidying. There was a good mix of things to do, window cleaning and prop sorting were the key tasks, everyone was particularly excited about the group picture that would come of all the great props in the basement we were helping to organise.

What a PROPosition!

With it being the first Tuesday of the month (our dedicated social night!) minds soon turned to the pub so we wrapped things up and headed back to base and complete the run/cycle back to meet the other team. Finishing up nicely with a little leg busting round of exercises we were finished for the evening. Lovely to see so many in the pub afterwards and Jenni and I were happy to be able to share some biscuits we were gifted from a mission a few weeks ago!

Next week the lovely Ana of GoodGym Hounslow and Wandsworth will be covering while I am taking care of some business in Barcelona... it's a lovely spring cleaning task at a local church and it's a new venue we've not visited before so let's show them what we're made of and get stuck in, sign up here!

See you in a couple of weeks!