On an super sunny sunday a group of goodgym walkers followed a 9km route. We saw little cheeping birds (coots apparently!), CS Lewis's house, ponies, speedy cyclists with enviable legs, and mud mud mud!

Welcome Maria - great to have you join GoodGym, we hope to see you again soon!

It was a big night for Brent with two long lost visitors, and one goodbye!

Area Activator Pritesh was back for the first time in a long time, along with Claire who we were all happy to see visit us.
It was great to see such a big group (double figures!) but sad that it would be James's last regular session in Brent.

After a great long intro from Pritesh, James led the warm up, including the (im)memorable spotty dogs.

Once we were warm we ran the short distance to Brent Mencap who had lots of cleaning materials ready and waiting for us to tackle their outdoor area. Pete got to work with the broom, sweeping the paths. Rebecca did a little weeding before joining Tabitha, James, Monica and Helen cleaning the windows outside....with some helpful pointers from a passerby

" You missed a bit!"

Pritesh, Claire, Lee and Sabina cleaned the general outdoor area and posed for photos.

In no time at all it was spick and span and we stopped to admire our work and take a beautiful team photo.

Our work was done, but our time wasn't up and Claire led us to the middle of a nearby hill and gave us some pointers on mastering a hill run. We split into teams and pumped our arms up the hill, not once, not twice, but FOUR times, cheering on the other team when they ran up.

Not quite ready to finish up, we took a winding route back to Papagayo and gently cooled down and stretched. With the first task done, it was time for the second task of the night......to give James the send off he deserved. James has been part of Goodgym Brent for over two years now and we will miss him, but wish him well in his new adventures. For those who turned up just for the promise of cake, they were not disappointed as we had not one, not two, but FOUR cakes to celebrate!

Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!

A quartet of GoodGym gardeners joined the Flo's gardening team to get some work done in the outside space ahead of the cafe restarting outdoor dining next week.

We dismantled a dried out willow fence, moved picnic benches into place, put together parasol bases, set up a freecycle station, flattened and recycled a pile of cardboard, planted lavender, chopped back (but failed to dig up - as testified by the bent fork prong) a bush in the flower bed, and started the process of weaving new willow fronds to create a new flowerbed fence.

We now consider ourselves East Oxford's premier willow weaving experts.

Sadly, we failed to avoid snow and hail, but since we also had plenty of sunshine we'll call it a draw.

Hot drinks on-the-house were a delightful perk - thank you for a lovely couple of hours Flo's!

Last night Oxford Mutual Aid was a hive of activity!

First we packed:

• 6 Emergency Food Parcels (for 10 adults, plus children) to get some food to people who have run out.
  
• 40 regular parcels (for 54 adults), full of food, cleaning supplies, toiletries, and baby stuff.

Next we loaded up 4 cars for motorised delivery routes, and restocked the shelves as much as possible.

Then, the big event....23 GoodGymers, plus GoodGym mascot Peggy the pooch, flexed their biceps and stretched their legs to deliver 32 parcels of essentials on foot and by bicycle.
With more than one delivery per GoodGymer there was quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing around East Oxford, and even those without a double delivery found themselves loaded up to the gills with carrier bags. Gold stars to all those who brought rucksacks and bike panniers so that they could fit even more on their delivery route, and kudos to Ben and Georgia who managed to transport 6 bags full of goodies all the way to Marston - 1.8 miles by my calculation!

We might be out of the strictest lockdown measures for now, but the demand for food help isn't dropping. In fact tonight we had more emergency deliveries than we've had for a few weeks, and last week emergency requests for food support were at an all time high: 94 emergency food parcels were sent out over the course of the week, alongside all the regular food deliveries. An astonishing feat for a team of volunteers.

Thank you to Ruth for the donation of toiletries and to Lorenzo for the Ramadan goodies.
Welcome Lena - good to meet you!
Welcome back Annabel - lovely to see you for the first time since becoming a Mum. Hope you can make it back again soon.

Tonight we packed 38 parcels of food and hygiene supplies and delivered 25 of them on foot around East Oxford.

Peggy was excited to show off her snazzy new jumper, we peered at each other in actual daylight, and although more than 1 of the bag handles didn't survive beyond the car park fortunately all the cheese, greek yoghurt, corned beef, milk, veggies, bread and pasta made it to the 50 recipients in tact. There may have been a couple of head-scratching moments, but nothing we couldn't sort out, and everything got delivered before it was fully dark - an exciting springtime first!

Thank you to those who answered the call for donations and brought along some hygiene supplies to replenish the bare shelves with shower gel, deodorant and sanitary products, as well as other useful and appreciated items (tin openers, chocolate).

With rules relaxing we hope this will be our last 'enforced' online session but we know we have it as an option should we need it in the future!

This week Claire led the way:

• Squats
• Plank with walking hands
• Crab walk with kicks
• Arm and leg raisers

Tough going. We have a community mission next Monday but all places are gone - keep an eye on the whatsapp group (contact me to join) for more missions and info on upcoming outdoor training sessions!