We had a lovely evening of chat, drinks, dressing up and games at the Lord Mayor's Parlour to belatedly celebrate GoodGym Oxford's 3rd Birthday.

Congratulations everyone for smashing past 5000 Good Deeds in 3 years!

Thank you Mark for hosting us.

Good luck to Amy and Laura who are both moving this month. We'll miss you!

Last night was GoodGym Extravaganza night at the foodbank!

Oxford Mutual Aid's food bank is a busy operation, running 7 days a week. As such it can be hard to find time to thoroughly clean, organise and prepare portions of bulk goods. That's where a GoodGym extravaganza comes in - 20 people can really blitz through those tasks in not much more than an hour.

Things we did:
* Tuna, baked beans & tea stock count
* Organised baby supplies and toiletry shelves
* Pulled those shelves out & cleaned behind them
* Pulled out the tables and stored stock along the long side of the hall (uncovering the grand stone fireplace), cleaned behind, reorganised as we put it all back
* Decanted all the bulk bags of rice into household sized portions
* Cleaned the fridges
* Checked for mouldy fresh fruit and veg and took out the food waste
* Separated some of the M&S crates from the Tesco ones - the only effective tool for this turned out to be an old mop handle. Whatever works, eh?!
* Put away some bags of donations we found
* Swept and mopped

We’ve had lots of thanks from Oxford Mutual Aid for all your hard work:

“Christ Alive: thank you SO MUCH to goodgym - you are some legends!”

“GG EXTRAVAGANZA left the hall so clean that it was impossible to take a picture because glare.”

After all the hard work we stopped for cookies and cake to celebrate our 3rd Birthday last Sunday, and gave our 3 new Run Leaders a round of applause for completing the training. Well done Ben, Bethan and Sarah!

Battling sideways rain, gale force winds and a sprinkling of fake snow, two teams of hardcore Goodgymers took to the streets of Oxford. Litter was picked, wild card bingo items were ticked off and chats were had.

We admired the famous sights of Oxford, marvelled at a very dramatic full moon and said hello to Mr Tumnus. A fleet of vintage cars was an unexpected surprise due to the new Wonka film set being in situ in the town centre.

Points for creativity to the team interpreting 'Heart Decorations' as decorating Julia within a heart of GoodGymers arms. ♥ Ritzy-est item was the red vintage car.

A good time was had by all, plenty of litter was collected, and cake for Vicky’s birthday was a welcome reward at the end. With both teams achieving a Full House it was only fair that the winner's prize went to the birthday girl.

*The Scavenger Hunt Rules: *

• You can go anywhere within the ring road as long as you’re back by 7:30pm
  
• Must get at least 2 items from each list
  
• Photograph your finds as proof
  

LITTER PICK:
* Crisp packet
* Cigarette butt
* Coffee cup (will allow just lid)
* Energy drink can
* Fast food wrapper
* Face mask
* Glass bottle
* Alcohol container
* Plastic bag (dog poo bag permitted)
* Piece of clothing – 5 BONUS points for pants

WILD CARDS:
* Pub or café with Rose in the name
* Group photo at the Bridge of Sighs
* Heart decorations
* Daffodils (5 BONUS points if we planted them)
* Photo of a life-sized animal sculpture/statue/model (mythical beasts allowed)
* Selfie at a Harry Potter filming location (a point for each one)
* Something red

Happy Birthday Vicky!

Last night we blitzed the tidying and organising tasks at the Oxford Mutual Aid food bank. As a 7-days-a-week operation there's rarely time to pause and take stock due to the overwhelming need to get the food parcels prepared, so a GoodGym flash-mob every now and then helps to get everything back in order.

This week there have been lots of large donations in from other food banks and larders which needed sorting into crates of similar items then stored properly. Also, now that we're into the New Year all the leftover Christmas items needed to be organised so that they can be stored off site instead of taking up precious space in the hall.

We divided into teams and got to work:
* Lorenzo headed up a group sorting through all the recent food donations, crating them up with like-items and stacking them away in a more organised fashion.
* Rachael took her team to the kitchen to sort through the fresh fruit and veg and dispose of any that were too mushy/mouldy to send out, organising the fridges into expiry-date order, and giving the whole area a good clean, before moving on to portioning up bulk bags of pasta.
* Bethan's crew sorted through mountains of Christmas gifts, categorising by age of recipient, and then picking a few crates to remain at the hall as birthday gifts and labelling everything else up for off-site storage.
* Holly, Vicky and Ben did the heavy lifting, re-organising the tin-can corner to make more storage space. Hope your arm muscles aren't too achey this morning!
* Last, but not least, Dan tackled cardboard mountain, flattening the pile of boxes and crushing as many as possible into the recycling bin.

We've already had effusive thanks from the Oxford Mutual Aid organising team:

"This is is so, so helpful! Thank you thank you!"
"Thank you SO SO MUCH"
"I've just been in and everything looks like a dream."

Great work team. Well done!