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!

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?!

Love it or loath it (the bridge, not the location!), no-one can deny that every session at the community allotment at Hogacre Common gives us a good stair workout! Hogacre is tucked in between railway line and flood plain. The access is across a pedestrian bridge with many steps, making deliveries to the garden challenging.

Items we have been asked to carry across the bridge in the past include sofas and horse manure, so tonight's task of shovelling woodchip into boxes to carry across was pretty easy by comparison. We used the first loads to spread woodchip around the boggy entrance to the site, then refilled the boxes and delivered them to the garden gate for use around the beds and pathways.

Meanwhile, Django the spaniel kept a watchful eye on the GoodGymers weeding and mulching the garden beds; everyone's favourite supervisor!

Welcome back Axelle!

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!

On Wednesday night we worked some GoodGym magic on the car park of Ovada - a not-for profit art gallery in central Oxford. Paid parking is an important income stream for them, but the area needed clearing of weeds, bushes pruned, and fallen leaves sweeping up to keep it a usable space.

GoodGymers got the whole area spic and span in record time, which left time to check out the latest exhibition afterwards - a lovely treat for all of us!

Welcome to GoodGym Kris!