Tonight saw our first monthly visit of the winter to Oxford Mutual Aid, which is now in its seventh year of countering food poverty in Oxford. Over the winter, Goodgym helps by doing the deep cleaning for which the regular volunteers usually don't have enough time.

With the kitchen out of action after a rat infestation (now dealt with!), we concentrated on the main hall. After a quick introduction from OMA volunteer Martin, we got started shifting shelving, moving boxes, cleaning fridges, and sweeping and mopping the floor. We (or rather Fred) even remembered to take the vital "before" photos we need to make sure everything is put back in exactly the right place afterwards!

A sizeable chunk of the hall is now spick and span, and we'll be back in November to tackle the rest.

Last night we did another of our monthly spring cleans at OMA. Because we have been CLEANING DEMONS the last couple of months this was actually a relatively quick task.

We dusted, hoovered, mopped, sprayed and wiped and sorted out the fruit and veg. Things we learnt; what turmeric looks like, Henry the hoover has a sister called Hettie.

Great work team! Next month we'll be tackling the big shelf of cardboard boxes, get ready to think "keep, store, chuck, donate".

And we are back for 2026!!

This evening we did our monthly deep clean at the Oxford Mutual Aid food bank. The order of the day was to weed out mouldy veg, scrub the fridges, sweep & mop the floors and scrub and restack an area of shelving.

Pats on the back and gold stars to Angus for scaling the ladder and tackling the window sill - home to dead spiders and muchos dust.

Leaving the hall suitably spruced we headed out into the FREEZING cold for a trot.

Happy New Year everyone and welcome to Goodgym Joshua!

Our winter food bank clean got going last night; a very welcome indoor task given the sudden chill!

Each winter we do a session roughly once a month to give the food bank a thorough clean. It's hard for their usual team of volunteers to take time away from packing food parcels to do a really thorough clean, so GoodGym taking over the task helps them focus on getting food out to people in need.

This month we cleaned fridges, emptied food waste, cleaned the wall behind the food waste crates, swept & mopped in the kitchen. In the main hall we moved the shelving along the wall closet to the car park, swept, mopped, cleaned the shelves.

We usually take the opportunity of the darker winter months to gradually work our way around the food bank giving it a thorough clean. We haven't been able to fit in with the food bank schedule for a couple of months, but with ITV due to film there tomorrow, tonight the diary was cleared for us to do an emergency clean.

We swept, we mopped, we wiped, we dusted. We sorted expired food, we threw out an unmentionable amount of black bananas, we even scraped food off the walls. Within an hour the whole place was looking much more camera ready.

Welcome to GoodGym James!

We took to the foodbank for our monthly winter cleaning session last night. This time we cleaned fridges & sorted food waste in the kitchen. In the main hall it was the turn of the toiletries, pet food and baby supplies to get moved and the whole area cleaned. As nominated tallest person in attendance, Max even climbed a very tall ladder to clean the huge arched windows.

Well done team - as ever, many hands make light work of this big task!

Good to meet you Laura - welcome to GoodGym!