Yesterday, for the first week ever in our 16 month commitment to Wednesdays at Oxford Mutual Aid, we arrived at the food bank to find no food parcels left to pack! There's always plenty to be done around the hall so we set about making up portions of tea bags, bagging up nappies and putting away a donation of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Before too long 5 Emergency food requests came in, so we quickly pivoted to prepare those for collection within the hour.

We're delighted to see OMA managing so well with their own team of volunteers these days, so we now plan to reduce our commitments there a little. We'll always be available if needed but we won't be doing a food bank shift every Wednesday.

Three runners walked, ran, and cycled to spend a delightful morning at Oxford City Farm, lending a helping hand with craft activities, providing Shaun and his friends some love, and helping to serve (and sample!) some delicious home baked goods!

Over the course of half term, Oxford City farm hosted a week of open days. A popular location with highly sought-after events, they needed as many hands on deck to help the day run as smoothly as possible! In total, around 200 happy faces passed through their gates on Wednesday morning alone!

Liz arrived first and used her previous teacher's whiteboard skills to work, setting up the; 'around the world' vegetable craft table, where children were invited to create signs for different vegetables in their own languages, before welcoming farm visitors on the gate.

Jessica took lead on the veggie activity with great enthusiasm, making friends with lots of little people (Including our very own Isla!) before a good catch-up with Shaun and his pals!

Alice was stationed on tea and coffee duties, which involved sampling some of the freshly baked-warm out of the oven Walnut buns (which I can confirm was delicious!!)

After a morning of crafting, animal feeding, and campfire fun in the (chilly!) sun, nearly 200 happy faces went off to enjoy the rest of their day, and our good-deeding was further rewarded with leftover baked goodies for the road!

Great work team! See you soon Shaun!!

This week was our last Saturday at the food bank for a little while: it feels like the right time to handover to another volunteer team for a bit.

This week the food parcels were well under control when we arrived, so we didn't have to spend quite as long as usual finishing them. With just a couple to do from scratch, 4 emergency requests to fulfill and a dozen or so which needed fridge items added we were soon able to turn our attention to hall maintenance tasks: Restocking shelves, putting away donations, taking out the recycling, sorting through the fruit and veg and taking out the food waste, portioning up nappies and tea bags (not together!), trying to make the leaning tower of breakfast cereal less of a danger to all who walk past it, and finally a bit of floor sweeping and fridge cleaning.

Good luck with your move Zoe. You've been a wonderfully reliable GoodGymer - we'll miss you. You might not miss organising bread deliveries every Saturday though I guess!

We packed many food parcels including 5 emergency parcels. Most of us were slightly rusty at food parcel packing but we got by ok with a little help from our friends.

Welcome James!