Last night we started 2022 as we mean to go on, helping the food bank and litter picking some of the city grot spots!

Heading West for the first time in a few months we planned to tackle the Osney Mead/Botley Road litter. Although we don't get out that way regularly we're still familiar with some of the favourite dumping grounds: around any park bench (even if there's a bin right next to it), car parks, and bushy hedge are surefire litter gold mines. Our 3 teams set off in different directions - forming a pincer movement from each end of the Osney Mead Industrial Estate, with the 3rd group cleaning up the known dumping ground in the small park next to the bridge. Sure enough, we were soon laden with gin bottles (some fancy artisan gin drinkers in Oxford green spaces), clothing, cans, takeaway containers, newspapers (old skool!), the ever-present masks, even a pair of steel toe-cap boots and a trolley!

An hour of litter picking in freezing temperatures yielded over 20 sacks of trash. We came away thinking that it's high time the UK stole Rwanda's system of Umuganda: "Umuganda is a national holiday in Rwanda taking place on the last Saturday of every month for a morning of mandatory nationwide community work. Participation in umuganda is required by law, and has resulted in notable improvement in the cleanliness of Rwanda."

Welcome to GoodGym Chris!

Does it get any more festive than breaking out the wrapping paper and spending and evening surrounded by Christmas presents?!

Last night we had 2 tasks to complete - constructing and wrapping the boxes needed by Shoebox Project for their Christmas gift packs, and making a start on Operation Christmas Gift for Oxford Mutual Aid. Fortunately we were able to take over the Richard Benson Hall where the food bank is based and do both tasks there - saving us from a logistical nightmare!

On arrival we got stuck into (literally in some cases) the flat-pack boxes for the Shoebox Project. They were easy enough to construct, but quite tricky to find the best way to cover them in wrapping paper! Still, a bit of puzzling and perseverance paid off and everyone seemed to find a good method in the end, getting all 20 boxes covered in Christmas paper, and a few even decorated with festive bows and ribbons too.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the hall we tackled the mountain of Christmas gift donations. First we hauled the crates out and worked out what was actually in them, categorising by recipient age. Then we started picking out the gifts for households on the Monday food parcel delivery routes; wrapping them, labelling them up and putting them into crates ready to be added to food parcels in the week leading up to Christmas. We were the trial run for the system, so there was a bit to figure out, but once we'd got the hang of where everything was we got into the swing of it very efficiently.

As people finished their Shoe boxes we redeployed them over to gift corner to unpack and categorise the pile of incoming gift donations which hadn't yet been opened or sorted.

We definitely left the task feeling festive, but I must remember to bring Christmas TUNES for next week!

What a lot of litter!

Helping Rose Hill and Iffley Low Carbon 17 runners, walkers and cyclists met at Rose Hill Community Center where Trev and Katherine from RHILC explained how we can help the environment by clearing up our litter.. or in this case Rose Hills!...

no strangers to mess the last time we were in Rose Hill in April we cleared an amazing amount from under the bridge Watch the video if you missed it!! Trev initially was worried there wasn't much to be picked on this Wednesday evening in November... how wrong he was!...

So splitting into group, we covered streets around the Oval, Rivermead Road, Spencer Crescent and Asquith Road, and the Southern Bypass (a little futher along that last time!). The estate is now looking spick and span but there is still quite a bit on the Bypass (why do people chuck rubbish from their cars? or even bag whole bags of rubbish or clothes and not take it to... a bin!!!)

Pant, yes! Shopping Trolleys, tick! Pumpkin, indeed.. Mog the forgotten cat, aww.... serial killer in the paper, aahhhhhh!!! we got a bit of everything! Thanks especially to the committed GGers who were stuck on the A34 on the way to the task.. no COPing out though and even Bethan and Lorenzo joined us in the end! Top picking commitment guys!

Welcome back Chloe and Jack on your second GG Tasks!

If you would like to know more about RHILC, or to get involved please do goto the website, sign up to the mailing list or let Trev know!

3 GoodGym teams enjoyed an evening of Halloween-quizzery at the Rickety Press. 'Ghouls just wanna have fun' emerged victorious - bagging a £20 bar tab, bragging rights, and winning the best carved pumpkin to boot.