Ms E had been living in her house for more than thirty years, but over the last three, she had been battling to have two tall trees trimmed. The trees had been growing in the neighbouring property, but kept dropping large branches regardless of the boundaries, even destroying Ms E's shed in the past. After years of anticipation, the overgrown branches finally came down, but - with them - a few planks off Ms E's fence.

The lady requested GoodGym's help with the repair, and Sevan and Kash from West London responded to the call. The task was a puzzle for all three, who were trying to figure out what the fence looked like before the neighbour's makeshift fixes, what parts were missing, what they could be replaced with, and how to piece together broken planks. After a lot of thought and trying things out, three planks found their place back on the fence, concealing an unsightly gap. The rest could no longer be attached to anything, and the GoodGymers had to give up there.

The remaining time of the mission was used to pull out and bag blue alkanet and trim a neighbouring plant invading Ms E's garden. Ms E concluded that GoodGym's help was brilliant, and even the presence of people coming to help her cheered her up!

Goodgym Ealing : we know what you did last April in Hanwell!!Yes and we were up to it again at the Hanwell stables. Conor, Sevan and Steph Ducat ran in the streets of sunny Ealing to Hanwell to meet Breda, Harvey and Maria who were waiting outside the stables. Andrea was here to open the stables so that we could do what we did last year - this is not a horror film but the scene would be perfect as poor lighting inside, loads of cobwebs and spiders, loads of branches lying around, abandoned sofas, chairs etc...creepy but we were safe.

Task was to move all sofas and chairs outside and give them a wipe, but also for Andrea to assess which ones would be used at the Hanwell Hootie this year. At one stage we had a human chain getting the green chairs from under the stairs. Maria helped Andrea upstairs for a while to tidy some items ...we think they went for a small nap.

We had the vintage leather chairs, the down to earth sofa(no legs), the psychologist(speak to me Harvey), the 3 legged sofa, the comfy sofa(Steph sofa surfing), the nature sofa(green leather sofa), the spring chair(iron springs), the matching cushion chair and some others with legs going haywire.

Once all cleaned we played Sofa Tetris as needed to put them back in the middle section of the stables ready for the festival next month. Sofa La Vista, Baby and we will be back!!

If you live in the Ealing Borough, you might have heard about one day in May when the whole town of Hanwell turns into a massive gig space with pubs, community hubs and green spaces hosting performances of young talent and more established artists. Yes, I’m talking about the Hanwell Hootie, the largest free one-day festival in London, celebrating Hanwell’s legendary link to Jim Marshall, the inventor of the amplifier. GoodGym Ealing is proud to support this fully volunteer-led event year after year.

This Tuesday night, Conor, Sevan and Kash ran 3.7 km to the Stables in Brent Lodge Park in Hanwell for the first Hootie task of 2026. Maria cycled to the session from Chiswick, and Harvey walked to meet the group at the task location. June and Andrea, the volunteers and planners behind the Hootie, were already there, waiting to share with GoodGymers their discovery.

The lack of electricity to light up the indoor of the Stables wasn’t a surprise, but a large pile of tyres stacked inside was! The unexpected stack was obstructing the way to pull out and clean the festival furniture, so the whole team had to think fast on their feet and redirect their energy to removing the obstacle: carrying, rolling, or flipping the tyres to the backyard.

With less time left to deal with the festival sofas and chairs in need of tidying, June and Andrea decided that the best use of the time would be unrolling and cleaning the Hootie banners - some of them really huge! When Maria and Conor unfolded the largest of the banners, it turned out that what was printed on it had no relevance to this year’s Hootie: Marshall’s diamond jubilee. The team uncovered a few more out-of-date posters, which June classified as legacy and recommended putting aside. A big win was discovering the Hootie on the Meadow banner as the 2026 festival was making a comeback to that large outdoor venue after a couple of year’s absence.

After an hour at the Stables, two tasks had been completed, and the runners were ready to set off for the run back to Ealing Broadway, just as the night settled over Ealing. Luckily, we’ve booked a follow-up session with Andrea in advance, so next week we’ll come back to Hanwell to deal with the dusty Hootie furniture. Sign up now!