For a handful of years we have had regular sessions throughout autumn and winter doing a deep clean of the Oxford Mutual Aid food bank in Cowley. The day-to-day operations of food bank leave little time for the kind of thorough clean which involves moving shelving and crates, so we try to lighten the load for their regular volunteers by taking on this task.

We tackle a section of the main hall each month (where toiletries, baby supplies and ambient food are stored), and make sure that the whole kitchen gets a clean every month (which is where the fresh fruit and veg is stored). It's an "all hands on deck" operation, involving moving stock, shifting shelves and crates, sweeping, mopping, dusting, and bleaching.

Session one of AW 2024/5 now complete!

Welcome to GoodGym Sasha and Max!

29 people came in person and 85 joined online for the OMEGA (Oxfordshire M.E. Group for Action) AGM and talk by pro Karl Morten and his colleagues

welcome Becky Sara for their first GG task with kieran megan and trev. This included putting signs up, welcoming people to the event and making sure they didnt get lost

Can I say a big thank you to Trevor and the rest of the GoodGym for all their help in directing people to the event and helping set up the refreshments. I don't think we could have managed without them. Tessa

We ventured to Osney to The Hollybush pub, with two teams prepared for pizza and quizzing. The usual mix of questions and topics popped up, along with medieval versions of pop songs, a picture round on the tallest celebrities, and guess the intro. We defended our reputation with a very respectable 3rd place for Red Thunder, and 1st place for Red Hot Quizzy Peppers. First prize was a £50 gift card, which was literally a giant playing card with 'gift card' written on it - we are yet to see if it is legal tender.

Any suggestions for other place to try out, or non-quiz socials, then let me know.

For anyone intrigued by the medieval music - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3IzXed3gGgWW206d9vbL40

Wednesday evening's task was a race against the sunset: We just about won!

Throughout autumn and winter Boundary Brook Nature Park do a lot of work to maintain their grassland areas. This mostly involves cutting back the brambles, which can easily take over and swamp more delicate plants, then digging out their roots. After all the recent rain this proved to be a very squelchy task, and the roots tenacious, but we managed to dig out several wheelbarrow loads of bramble roots before darkness stopped play. We were hoping to spot some bats in the reserve as darkness fell, but sadly none were visible - perhaps they were hiding from the rain?!