Oxford Preservation Trust have a piece of meadow land up on Harcourt Hill which they want to use for grazing. A water supply has been sorted, fencing is on it's way, and the final job on the list is to get the ragwort explosion under control.

Common ragwort is one of the most frequently visited flowers by butterflies in the UK and more than 200 species of invertebrate have been recorded on it. However, despite it's benefits to biodiversity, it needs to be got rid of on grazing land. Ragwort poses a significant threat to livestock, particularly horses and cattle. While animals generally avoid it in its green state due to its bitter taste, they can ingest it when it's dried in hay or silage, or when other food sources are scarce. While ragwort is not a neurotoxin in the strictest sense, it can cause neurological symptoms in animals due to the liver damage it causes. The plant's toxins primarily affect the liver. When the liver is damaged, it can no longer properly filter toxins from the blood, leading to a buildup of these toxins and impacting brain function, resulting in neurological signs.

Hugging the shade, we set about digging and pulling up as much ragwort as we could. We managed a good haul, almost filling a tonne bag with plants. This is definitely an ongoing task, but we feel like we made a good start at it.

With the temperature finally starting to drop by the end of the session we had a beaut of a run post-task up towards Boars Hill.

Welcome to GoodGym Becca!

Last night we returned to Makespace to continue the tasks we started earlier this spring. It was lovely to see that there was already a raised bed and planting where we'd cleared the ground last time.

This time we sanded benches (much competition for the electric sander), we painted the benches a jazzy turquoise-teal, we weeded around the picnic area and entrance, and we watered all the pots.

Well done Joe for completing your 10th Good Deed and tolerating the Garland of Joy.

Welcome to GoodGym Raúl!

What a lovely day to be out on the river!

Today we teamed up with the Falcon Boat Club to clean up the river and river banks between Donnington Bridge and Heyford Hill ring road bridge. We've worked together to clear litter from the river many times now, so we know we always recover a big haul, but it still surprises us every time JUST how much stuff we pull out of the river and off the banks!

Today was no different, with the canoe teams getting creative to float a drowned moped back to base, 2 trollies wheeled up to the road from under the bridge, and many many bottles and cans picked up. In sartorial news, the garment of the day was shoes - we found sliders, a pair of trainers, and several socks to go with them - but honorable mentions go to the buried coat and the pair of shorts.

Great work once again team - that was a brilliant amount of litter cleared up.

Welcome to GoodGym to all our new GoodGymers today: Adam, Dima, Muireann, Nazanin, Daniel, Deb, and Carmen!

On Wednesday we did our own mini Morse plog around Oxford.

Taking inspiration from the locations used in Inspector Morse films we set off to visit the sites of significance in central Oxford and Jericho, litter picking as we went.

From the Oxford police station (sadly, no Morse cut out in the windows) to the Phoenix Picturehouse we ran and walked our way across the city, amassing 2 sacks of litter and covering 3.75 miles.

Favourite sightings: The Oxford Story Museum telephone box (definitely worth a detour down Pembroke Street), and the murals on Canal Street.

It's our Birthday!

To celebrate GoodGym Oxford being 6 years old a bevy of GoodGymers got together at County Hall. Of course we had to include a Good Deed in our birthday celebrations (no Wednesday is complete without one), so we packaged up 3 boxes of old trainers to send to JogOn for repurposing and recycling. These had been collected up from friends, family and colleagues over the previous few weeks, saving them from going to landfill.

With 26 GoodGymers in attendance that task was complete in record time, leaving us the rest of the evening to chat over drinks and nibbles, reminiscing about the past 6 years and speculating about what the future might bring.

Our 6 year Good Deed count is 8038. Happy Birthday to Us!