GoodGym Oxford: The Nearly Halloween Edition!

'Twas the nightmare before Halloween, and all through the Ark-T House
The GoodGymers were working, from Taffies to Scouse
The toys were all placed on the shelves with great care
In the hopes that the kids would find them easily there
The children all nestled so snug in their beds
While visions in sports kit worked hard wearing red
Alison in her Garland, and I in my Cape
Swept sand from the pathways and had a great jape
When out in the alley there rose such a clatter
As GoodGymers picked litter with some fun friendly chatter
Around the whole playground we flew like a flash
Moving scooters and push cars to avoid any crash
The moon rising high on this Halloween-eve
Lighting up piles of newly swept leaves
When what to our wondering eyes should appear
But a slide good for adults once the debris was clear
Then waving the flag and striking a pose
Before running away on the route Anwen chose
And we heard them exclaim as they ran out of sight
That a Halloween task was such a Good Night.

Ark-T Centre had put out an SOS for help clearing up their outdoor spaces - litter-picking along the lane outside the centre and tidying up the play area.

As a small community arts centre they don't have the funding to pay for extra help with jobs like this, so some GoodGym muscle can make all the difference. With a massive 23 runners we certainly had plenty of people to tackle the task in hand!

In keeping with Halloween we grabbed brooms, less in keeping with Halloween we also grabbed litter-pickers, and set to work. There were sand and leaves to be swept up, plastic toys to be put away, mud kitchen equipment to be returned to shelves, litter to be picked both from the playground and the lane outside, and some weeds and dead plants to be cleared off the banks. Fresh from his beach holiday Mark couldn't resist channelling Robinson Crusoe and leaving a message in the sand, and our bedazzled (though sadly not so obvious in the photos) GoodGym flag had it's first glittering outing.

Post-task discussion of our favourite odd UK traditions brought up some ideas for 'GoodGym-on-Tour 2020'. Black Pudding Olympics, Shin-kicking at the Cotswold Olympiks, Pooh sticks, Cheese Rolling, carrying blazing barrells of tar, and then Blackpool Illuminations for a little rest.....our fitness tasks next spring will be preparing us to win at all of these events!

Garland of Joy went to Alison this week for completing the amazing-sounding Beachy Head Marathon on Saturday - and still running on Wednesday! Aoife, ever resourceful, found herself a colander of joy to complete her outfit.

Welcome to Sherleen, Walter, and Chris - lovely to have you along on your first GoodGym runs. Hope to see you back again soon!

It was wonderful to have so many of you along on my last Group Run of 2019. Trev will take the reigns from here until the end of March.

Getting GoodGym Oxford started has truly been a joy - you are all awesome people! See you in April xx

This week we tried out a new format for our Group run. We stayed put at East Oxford Community Centre and did the task first then went for a run; controversial!

Loitering with intent outside the Community Centre, we welcomed Miriam to her first GoodGym session - nagging your friends too come along works folks ;-) - before awarding not 1, but 2 Garlands of Joy to Rachael and Rachel for reaching 10 Good Deeds. We have quite a few people reaching this milestone now, which is awesome!

Nipping round the corner into the courtyard, Tim Wiseman was ready and waiting with our task for the evening. Two unloved benches had been donated by Oxford Direct Services, but they were looking a bit shabby, so our job was to get them restored to their former glory.

Bringing our best elbow grease we set to work cleaning down the slats and ends with white spirit, scrapping off old chewing gum (bleurgh) , and then sanding off the old paint.

Between chitter chatter, hard work, and admiring the Tai Chi sharing the courtyard space, 45 minutes flew by and it was time to pack up. We carefully stashed the bench components out of the way, ready for our 2nd evening working on them next month. Step 2 will be getting the new paint on them.

Then, not forgetting that we are a running club, we set off for a run. We are really fortunate to be allowed access to run on the Roger Bannister Running Track, and this week we headed straight there for an intervals session. Using the half mile jog to Iffley Road as our warm up we jumped straight into the workout when we arrived. This week's challenge was 400m fast running, 30 seconds rest, 200m fast running, 100m walk, 100m jog, and repeat x3. Having previously run on the track in the summer holidays, when we've had it pretty much to ourselves, it was quite a change to have lots of company this week. What a difference term time makes! Sprinters, packs of speedsters, there was lots going on to keep us motivated.

Blood pumping, lungs burning everyone completed the run in fine style.

The beauty of running on the track is that everyone can work at exactly the pace they want that day, and the springy surface is just a joy to run on.

Chatting our way back to base, the stretches at the end of the run elicited lots of groans this week. Tight legs?! Don't forget those yoga videos I sent last week. They're miracle workers.

Great work as always gang!

Channel your inner-Julie Andrews for this one.

Painting in rain storms
And putting up posters
Bright hi-vis jackets and warm summer evenings
Packets of leaflets all tied up with string
These are a few of our 500 Good Deeds

Wall weeding Iffley and raking in Rose Hill
Door-to-door flyers
And women's day quizzes
Rivers and streams cleared of plastic and trash
These are a few of our 500 Good Deeds

Friends in red Tshirts and flower fairy gardens
Scything and SUPing and sorting through cupboards
Gardens re-discovered under blankets of weeds
These are a few of our 500 Good Deeds

When the brambles scratch
When the nettle stings
When we're feeling sad
We simply remember those 500 Good Deeds
And then we don't feel so bad.

As our 500th Good Deed we ran to Port Meadow to clear up the summer BBQ/picnic litter.

To celebrate our milestone 500th Good Deed there had to be cake, of course. So with edible cake pens (which may have an adverse effect on activity and attention) we wrote our favourite GoodGym Good Deed on the cake before gobbling some down to give us the energy to plog. Then litter-pickers and yellow sacks at the ready we set to work.

Astonishingly, although we found plastic and glass bottles, cans, socks, a disposable BBQ, chocolate bar wrappers, and some kind of electrical circuit board, we didn't find any pants! Is it even a real litter pick without a pair of pants?! With Michael from Oxford City Council directing operations we cleared the litter around the popular River Thames swimming spot, resisting the lure of the rope swing on this occasion, and along the path back towards the Oxford Canal, finishing in near darkness.

We'll be getting the head torches out next week.

Congratulations GoodGym Oxford runners - 500 Good Deeds is awesome!

On a fine and sunny Monday, the Oxford Goodgymers met at the West Oxford Community Centre for an evening of planting, painting, and plogging. After a run briefing and welcoming Gemma to the group we set off to our task, trotting down the Thames Path, ducking under low bridges and avoiding tiny dogs along the way.

We met our pal Tim from Oxford City Council at Hythe Bridge Street to collect tools, paint, and plants.

Our task was to put a second coat of paint over some graffiti which we had started to cover in June and to plant some ivy and honeysuckle in the area to dissuade more graffiti from appearing. Spades and paintbrushes in hand our merry band of 7 made short work of the painting and planting. After 45 minutes the walls were clean and painted (thanks to Aoife’s dab-dab-dab top tip) and the plants happily in the ground and draped artistically over the slightly unsightly bin store.

Bidding a fond farewell 'til next month we surprised people going for their evening strolls by enthusiastically using the benches by the Oxford Canal for our workout. It’s always fun to have an audience for squats, step ups and lunges, and we were all very admiring of Mark’s bouncy mountain-climber technique.

We took the scenic route back to base, meandering along the canal and heading towards Port Meadow. After a quick stop off to play on the monkey bars (props to Gemma for beasting them!) we ran across the beautiful Port Meadow. Sadly this is a big litter hot spot, especially when the weather has been so sunny. Horses and cows graze on the land and there have been some heart-breaking deaths after the livestock eat litter left behind by picnic-ers. We did an impromptu litter pick, filling our bag in less than 10 minutes, and then continued along the Thames Path back to base.

It was a fab evening, so lovely to keep the run off road and complete a task started earlier in the year. Thanks to Julia for the pun!