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 ⛺.

Last December GoodGymers helped Earthwatch Europe plant a new Tiny Forest in Hanger Hill Park. You can see how small the snips had been back then in this story! What is Tiny Forest, you may ask. It is a native woodland of 600 trees planted densely in a tennis-court-sized plot. Tiny Forests mimic the features of a traditional forest while taking up minimal space. Earthwatch is conducting research across the country to help understand how these little woods have the potential to be a powerful tool in the fight against climate change and habitat loss.

To help our partners from Earthwatch, five Ealing GoodGymers: Claire, Freya, Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash turned scientists for one evening to collect data on how the trees were growing and how much carbon they could capture. The endeavour involved plenty of tape measures and an uphill run!

It was the first Ealing session for Freya, who returned to London (and GoodGym) after a long break and established herself in our area. Great choice, Freya - and welcome to Ealing!

After the optional 2.5km run to conquer Hanger Hill, the task was pretty easy-going. It didn't require getting particularly physical - unless you count squatting to measure the diameter of a tree. That gave Kash an idea about tonight's fitness session - the Sally Up squat challenge! Check it out here if you haven't heard about it.

Another challenge was identifying some of the trees that didn't look like we were expecting them to look. Their tag said holly, but the Google Lens said eucalyptus.

Is there a koala on it?
No.
Then it's not an eucalyptus.

The samples didn't look anything like the above. The Earthwatch survey prompt suggested another option: goat willow. We looked the name up on the internet and found pictures of similarly looking trees to our sample, also called pussy willow or salix caprea. That seemed more sensible than Aussie trees in the UK.

After surveying most of the tagged trees and completing the Sally Up challenge, we treated ourselves to a gentle 1.5 km run down the hill, wondering how satisfied our legs would feel tomorrow.

Join us next week for a task in Hanwell, with a totally optional run, to help organisers of the famous free festival, Hanwell Hootie. Sign up now!