On the Early May Bank Holiday, GoodGym Ealing had a different take on playing rock, paper, scissors.

The paper 📰, in the form of leaflets, was a weapon against something much more dangerous than rocks - waste 🗑️! The flyers to be distributed among residential houses around Ealing Broadway advertised a community project Ealing Sharing Space by the Circular Education Hub. At the same time, we dropped some leaflets for the Ealing Friends of the Earth.

In place of scissors, the greatest threat to the paper was water 💧. It seemed that we had picked the worst one-hour slot during the entire long weekend to do a leafletting task! Heavy rain was pouring out of the sky non-stop. The weather didn't scare off either the short-distance runners: Sevan and Kash, longer-distance runners: Steph Ducat and Anuj, or cyclists: Emmanuella and Alan.

A short briefing at the Ealing Broadway shopping centre explained that our aim for the morning was to promote free, weekly community events in Ealing Project cinema where residents can come together to share stories, skills (like sewing, upcycling, sustainable cooking), stuff (e.g. toys and books), and take practical steps against climate change.

We decided to target the houses between Ealing Broadway and Ealing Common. As we walked, discussions ensued about whether the streets we had picked were the good ones. The good ones usually mean streets with big houses converted to multiple flats or house sharing, but not necessarily expensive-looking family homes. We encountered a combination of residents' housing.

"This person drives the newest Porsche, I'm not going to drop leaflets there. They won't be interested in sustainable living."
"Was the car electric?"
"No."

"Maybe we are biased. Those who are better-off can be educated about sustainable living and interested in the activities we advertise."

The last street we hit was definitely a good one, with smaller houses and many letterboxes. That's when we ran out of leaflets that started getting damp. Those of us sporting weather-appropriate clothing held the flyers dearly under their jackets. The GoodGymers who had showed up today wearing t-shirts and sunglasses couldn't do much apart from still looking cool 😎 despite being soaked. With the distribution finished early, the drenched bunch marched back to the shopping centre to grab a coffee or hot chocolate ☕ to adjust their level of cosiness to an acceptable standard.

Roberta and Steph Ducat on to the cleaning shift, joined by a new comer to Goodgym but not unknown as it was Jacquie from Lager Can who we volunteer on other tasks in Ealing. Then we have another fairy 🧚‍♂️ who came along and who has been alone on some tasks at ESK : The Fairies 🧚‍♀️ Emmanuella the whole space with other volunteers and we all left with a spotless Church crypt. The cleaning Fairies exist ..today they were wearing Goodgym tops.

It is a bit lonely when no other Good Gymmers are around, but there are so many good people at Ealing Soup Kitchen to help that it never feels too lonely. Stuck at the kitchen this time. A bit of mess when I arrived around 3 pm. Sparkling clean when I left. A miracle is happening at this place every Friday🪄

Not only Stephan was back full power at ESK this Friday, but we had the honour of a guest star Div(y)a from "The Shinning" (those who witnessed the demolition of the green house at Berrymede school will understand...). Both of them were helping there all day, as I only arrived at the end 🤫. With their help and the help of a few more nice people another day of giving was completed with the least possible waste (sometimes, no matter how hard you try, people refuse to take home a basket of rice or vegetables!!! Why???).

The old fellows are missed but somehow there are always people that help in the crypt of St John's church. It is like magic🪄 The cleaning/tiding work was done to perfection as always. Some food will be frozen for next week and everything else that remained after the clients left was packed into old containers that came handy once more. Nothing went wasted.