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!

With the clocks changing last weekend we're into dark evenings for the next few months. Sport England's This Girl Can campaign is continuing the "Let’s Lift The Curfew" campaign, launched in 2023, to showcase women’s stories and concerns around getting active outdoors in the darker months, as well as calling on wider society to acknowledge their role in making getting active outdoors safer for women.

This year, This Girl Can is looking to go bolder and bigger, so they are partnering with GoodGym to help transform the campaign into a nationwide movement that can raise awareness and take critical steps towards making outdoor exercise safer for women.

This week we met for a 1 mile run to our task location, with 5 of us trotting and chatting in the dark. Head and chest torches definitely help us feel safer in the dark, and group exercise is always more fun than solo running.

Once we got to OXSRAD and met the rest of the group we picked up where we left off a few weeks ago - painting the reception areas, corridor and studio to refresh the Disability Hub & Sports Centre. Some of our painting from last time got high praise, so we all tried to "Be More Bethan and Katie" this time round. Painting and chatting is a lovely mindful task, so we're looking forward to another session here in 2 weeks time.

Welcome to GoodGym Helen and Isobel - lovely to meet you both.

We ventured to Osney to The Hollybush pub, with two teams prepared for pizza and quizzing. The usual mix of questions and topics popped up, along with medieval versions of pop songs, a picture round on the tallest celebrities, and guess the intro. We defended our reputation with a very respectable 3rd place for Red Thunder, and 1st place for Red Hot Quizzy Peppers. First prize was a £50 gift card, which was literally a giant playing card with 'gift card' written on it - we are yet to see if it is legal tender.

Any suggestions for other place to try out, or non-quiz socials, then let me know.

For anyone intrigued by the medieval music - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3IzXed3gGgWW206d9vbL40