Well Raleigh partnership launch task dawned without any of the Raleigh goodies, but the sun shone and we did manage to get the discount code from Amy at Windsor and Maidenhead GoodGym, so we're chalking it up as a success anyway!

The task:
Makespace had asked us to do a thorough tidy of their canal-side garden and car park. We mowed (without breaking the lawnmower!), scraped, weeded, tidied, litter picked, chopped brambles, pruned weeping willow, and generally gave it a really thorough spruce-up.

Many hands make light work!

Over the last several autumns we have planted lots of daffodil bulbs around the streets of Marston. St David's Day seemed like a great time to go and check out how they're getting on and litter pick while we're at it. The cold, dry winter meant that not many flowers were in bloom yet, but we could see that there's been a good success rate in them coming up and budding, even in areas where we weren't convinced they'd be able to survive, so flowers will only be a week or so away.

Food items were definitely the theme of this litter pick - we could have made ourselves a 3 course meal of fortune cookie, discarded burger and half a chocolate bar plus half a rich tea biscuit to finish. Maybe not exactly recommended! Lots of cigarette and vape packets too. Overall not one of the grubbier litter picks we've done, but 4 sacks of grot collected, and some definite sogns of spring coming.

Our February food bank flash mob tackled the cleaning of the Eastern and Northern sides of the hall. As always, lots of crates full of stock needed to be unstacked and moved elsewhere in the space so that the floors and walls could be unveiled for cleaning. Duly relocated, the areas were swept and mopped, then the fun of trying to restack piles of crates in the same configuration as they came out began. Thanks to 'before' photos we were largely successful this time! The Northern end of the hall proved to be the grottiest spot, with lots of dust, spilt items and general muck to clean up.

While the majority of the GoodGymers toiled away on the moving-cleaning-restacking in the main hall, a breakaway crew sorted fresh produce in the kitchen, swept and cleaned the floors and walls, took out food waste, cleaned the fridges, and left the whole place gleaming.

Last but definitely not least, Anja and Steve cleaned dozens of food crates and stacked them back in the regular piles for reuse.

The amount 19 GoodGymers can achieve in an hour is truly impressive!

Last night was our monthly flash-mob at the Oxford Mutual Aid foodbank. Throughout the winter we go in regularly to do a thorough clean. We are gradually working our way around the main food storage areas moving all the stock, cleaning the area and then restacking it. This month's area was one of the biggest stacks of ambient food and cleaning supplies in the centre of the room. It was all stacked more than head-high, so quite a challenge to get it all moved. Nonetheless, it felt like before we'd even dished out all the jobs most of the stack was shifted and the cleaning was underway - whenever I see the GoodGym team pull together like this it seems like the very definition of Many Hands Make Light Work.

While most of the group took care of the big move and clean, the rest headed into the kitchen area. There they sorted through the fresh fruit and veg, getting rid of anything going mouldy. Fridges were cleaned, surfaces wiped down, food waste removed and the floor mopped.

Also ticked off the 'To Do' list: cleaning and restacking the dirty food crates, portioning up tea bags, a bit of putting away donations.

Lot's achieved - well done all!