There is a lot of mystery shrouding the history of the Lammas Snail Worshippers. Some academics trace their origins to the Rickyard in Walpole Park, while other historical records associate them with the cult of Bodyline Druids known for their weekly rituals performed in a circle close to the sacred grounds of Haven Green.

Their places of worship are often described as quiet, secluded areas, like clearings in woods and forests, and circles of wooden logs. One such site is preserved in modern Britain and appears to be maintained by the local druids: the Lammas Enclosure. Today's druids' reverence for Nature encourages them to plant trees in sacred groves, remove invasive species like brambles and create holy paths with woodchip.

The primary philosophical posture of the Lammas Snail Worshippers is one of love and respect towards all of life – towards fellow human beings, but primarily snails. That love is often expressed in constructing snail temples inside wooden log circles. Probably the most famous log circle in Britain is a megalithic monument in Lammas Park dating back to May 2024. Its alignment with the solar and lunar cycles suggests the importance of harmonising human activities with the natural and cosmic cycles. Most importantly, the circle contains a sacred hollow log, believed to be a temple.

This unique site embodies the druidic fascination with slugs, the homeless deities without a shell who need a sacred dwelling. The hollow log serves as the slug home and gives the druids a sense of serving Nature and connecting the people with the snails.

The mysticism of snail temples often intersects with various other traditions and practices such as the harvesting of burdock in Elthorne Park. This ceremonial act, performed with great reverence, before the summer solstice, can be observed on the 28th of May.

Our second stop on the tour with Your Voice, Your Town to promote GoodGym Ealing took us to a well-known venue: the William Hobbayne Community Centre, the home of one of the oldest charities (we learned it is in the top 10!) in the UK. We met June and many other familiar faces from the Hobbayne Charity, Hanwell Hootie and Hanwell Carnival.

Our table was placed in the room adjoining the main hall, unfortunately not in the main hall itself, but June made sure we were at the stall that would be visible from the main hall, and not around the corner. Kash continued the makeshift decorations tradition and created a More fun this way sign to attach in front of the entrance to the small room where we were stationed. After all, we had been told we were colourful and lively, so our job was to lure more visitors that way.

Since the Wednesday night event in Ealing Broadway, we have boosted our cardboard box displays with previously loose photos and upgraded the rules of our darts game to enable more prizes to be won and more thought-provoking questions answered.

As it was a weekend day, we had hoped for more residents to show up and learn about GoodGym's work. Instead, it was more of an opportunity to meet the representatives of other charities and community organisations - potential task owners?

The event ended with an unexpected, very short but energetic dance party which brought smiles to people's faces and got the bodies moving. Let's see if the Acton gig will have an equally wild element to it!

After their debut as funnel managers at Pitshanger junior parkrun, Sevan and Kash, rather than running back home, hung out at the cafe in Pitshanger Park, as they had other fish to fry in the park. But the fish had to be first fished out from the River Brent!

The GoodGymers met in front of the Pitshanger Bowls Pavilion with Ben - the founder of Clean Up River Brent, Cathy - the leader of LAGER Can, Ranger Jamie and volunteers eager to have a dip in Brent and collect some souvenirs from the Sunday out in the river: the rubbish!

They also met Richard, a volunteer gardener from Walpole Park, who recognised the GoodGymers as the helpers doing the jobs his small group of volunteers wouldn't be able to cover: filling the raised bed and planting and mulching ahead of filming the Antiques Roadshow. Richard was extremely grateful for all the GoodGymers who made impossible jobs possible and reminded Sevan and Kash that the BBC filming takes place today!

Back to Pitshanger Park! After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to get into the river in Pitshanger this year, all volunteers jumped into waders. Ben gave everyone the usual health & safety briefing, mentioning the treacherous depths, current, bacteria and...

"And remember to watch out for that hogweed!" - a passerby.
"Exactly! It is coming..." - Ben.

After viewing some pictures of giant hogweed, the squad of rubbery mermaids and tritons armed with wading poles marched through the park and found a place to descend into the water. This time, it was Jamie's turn to talk about safety rules after entering the river.

"Cathy, how deep are we allowed to go? Was it waist level?"
"Mid-thigh level. Some of us have holes in their bums!"

In case you wondered what kind of people don't have that anatomical feature, you need to know that Cathy's waders had a puncture, well, below the waist level.

The volunteers got into the water in pairs. The GoodGym explorers decided to go in the opposite direction than the mainstream litter pickers and discovered land on the other bank of the river with jungles of hogweed, and litter islands made primarily of carrier bags tangled around tree roots.

Sevan was a bit underwhelmed by the size of the objects he was finding in the water, hoping for a bigger catch, but agreed with Kash that maybe it was a sign that CURB's efforts to keep the river clean were paying off. Later, they found out that the other volunteers excavated a mattress buried in the riverbed.

The GoodGymers could stay only 90 minutes on the task but collected three bags of aquatic litter before running off to prepare for their next gig, with a stop in Walpole Park to check out whether Antiques Roadshow was really there as Richard said.

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Appendix A - Creative process behind report writing

Kash: "I need a pun. And I want something related to that bum quote. And water. Like 'watering bum-hole'. Or, you know there is a phrase: 'water below the bridge'..."
Sevan: "Water under the bridge?"
Kash: "Yeah, that one! 'Water under the bum'!"
Sevan: "There was an MTV show in the nineties called 'Beavis and Butt-Head'. They had this phrase: 'Cornholio'! Maybe 'Bumholio!'? But I don't think it will be accepted."
Kash: "Yes, I think bums are only accepted in the body. Hahaha! Report body, I mean! My quote is almost as good as Cathy's original!"
Sevan: "Maybe we should record this whole conversation in the appendix?"

Sevan arrived at this morning at Pitshanger Junior parkrun expecting to be a marshal and Kash, having forgotten to sign up didn't know what role would be in store for her. It turned out that they were both assigned to be funnel managers, a role that neither of them had done before. Apparently last week the funnel was a problem

"It was chaos" - marshal

"Last time the funnel manager set it up then went to run with her daughter" - frequent run director

Oh well, said Kash and Sevan. They'd roll with it. Kash was stationed at the entrance to the funnel to siphon adults away and Sevan was at the finish line to make sure that everyone stayed in finish order and took the left turn to pick up a finish token.

"You're doing a much better job than last week" - frequent run director

"You mean I'm doing better than no one? Just kidding" - Sevan

Kash had the harder job, with people milling around the funnel entrance and some adults and children being confused by being asked to split up. Sevan on the other hand only had to gently cajole to get children running all the way to the finish line and not stop dead on the line.

In total, 96 runners were shepherded through the funnel. The same number as last time, but with 3 funnel managers in action this week, everything worked like a well oiled machine.