Over the last 2 years the Warneford Hospital has been building an eight-bed psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) to enable young people experiencing the most acute phase of a serious mental disorder to receive specialist help closer to home. The new Meadow Unit opened late last year, adjoining the Highfield Unit where we've been involved previously.

The gardens at the Meadow Unit have been designed and planted but over the summer months have become swamped with weeds. De-weeding is the perfect job for a GoodGym flash mob - many hands make light work! Starting in the furthest section of gardens we gradually worked our way back to the external gates, freeing geraniums, hydrangeas and pretty grasses from encroaching weeds. Lots of careful checking of "weed or deliberate?!" ensued as we did our level best not to pull up anything that should be there (including the intentional thistles). We cleared numerous trugs and wheelbarrows full of weeds, tried our best to keep our chat quiet by the ward windows (not easy with many back for their first task post summer holidays and lots to catch up on!), and learnt plenty about about plant identification.

We very much hope the garden thrives as it gets more established and is a joyful feature for service users and staff.

Welcome to GoodGym Charlie!

Oxford Homeless Project Christmas meal was a warm and festive evening. Christmas dinner was served, gifts given to guests, chats had, washing up done.

We were really pleased to play a small part in making it happen.

Welcome to GoodGym Frederic!

Bethan and Jessica ran, Alice and Shati volunteered and an excellent festive time was had by all!!

For the 2nd year in a row we took the task of handing out running numbers the day before Oxford Half. 17 dogs were stroked (yes Anna counted), the queue was marshalled with ruthless efficiency, and many happy/nervous runners left ready to race their hearts out.

Last night was all about BOG creation on Aston's Eyot, with bonus tasks of scything and pond sculpting to keep us all happily occupied. (Make a bog, get 2 tasks free.) The Friends of Aston's Eyot are very proactive about habitat creation across the nature reserve. We've previously helped dig ponds, make boggy patches and built hibernaculums (hibernaculi?) in other areas of the Eyot. This time the pond and bog areas had already been dug by a digger - somewhat more efficient than by hand! - just leaving some finishing touches to be made by volunteers. The bog area had been lined already, just leaving the task of filling the soil back in on top. Luckily Trev and Henry had wellies on, which made wading around in swampy mud a lot easier for them, while the rest of the group shovelled and ferried soil from heap to bog. Our scythers, Axelle and Venetia cleared the nettles from the perimeter of the bog very efficiently, while the rest of us got artistic, sculpting/reprofiling the sides of the recently dug pond so that it has a shallow slope instead of a cliff edge into the water - better for frogs and other critters to get in and out.

Despite being up against the failing light we made good progress on all tasks. Great work team!

Welcome to GoodGym Kate and Jamie.