Oxford GoodGym took to the water for a Saturday morning litter picking bonanza! Oddest finds included a radiator, two chairs, and the obligatory pair of pants.

Many thanks to Falcon Boat Club and City of Oxford Rowing Club for helping to facilitate this.

We'll be back in canoes and kayaks for a taster session on the 11 June...

After months and months of restrictions it was absolutely JOYFUL to run as a group again.

After our task at Aston's Eyot we made our way around the corner to the famous Roger Bannister track.

This iconic track was where the first official sub-4-minute mile was recorded and now home of a few Goodgym training sessions. >

After a short introduction on track rules, Anwen set us off on our workout. We were rewarded with cake and applause at the end and an agreement to see if we could use the track again soon.

A fabulous group run!!

Aston's Eyot is a nature reserve tucked away between Meadow Lane and the river. The land belongs (I think I remember rightly) to Christchurch, but there's an active Friends of Aston's Eyot group who manage and monitor it. Our very own Sarah is also a member of Friends of Aston's Eyot. There's all sorts of wildlife resident in the nature reserve - even badgers and deer despite it's proximity to residential/urban areas.

Through the spring an summer months we like to try and get to Aston's Eyot to help out a few times. There's always lots to do!

Tonight the scythes were out again and we got some great Poldark action going, chopping back nettles around a meadow area, and raking enormous heaps of the chopped nettles back (not as bad for the hayfever sniffles this month!). Fresh from our fence detangling at South Ward Allotments we expertly removed and rolled up a long chicken wire fence so that it can be redeployed elsewhere on site. Matty and Meysam bashed some new fence posts in - not the ideal task for someone feeling a bit shabby from a hangover perhaps, but kill or cure....

Turning our attention to other areas of the meadow we threw caution to the wind and let the long-haired people pull out Burdock. Once Bethan got 15 burrs tangled in her hair we realised the error of our ways! Vicky, Sarah and Jocasta took the litter pickers off round some of the favourite picnic areas, finding no pants but making up for it with a burnt bra (approve the feminist principles, less so the littering!), and the rest of the group gloved-up and took to nettle pulling. Hauling out the nettles will hopefully give the smaller flowers room and light to grow and will encourage biodiversity; worth a few tingly stings.

Is it even a GoodGym task if you don't get a bramble scratch or a nettle sting?

Some exciting milestones tonight:

10th Good Deed for Meysam - nicely planned so that it was at the same location as his first GoodGym session.
Holly and Venetia both did their 50th Good Deed. They'll be rocking their black Tshirts soon.
Trev - 100 Good Deeds! Wings on their way.
We preemptively celebrated Ben's 250th Good Deed, which will probably take place before we next see him on a group task. Super Star!
A warm welcome Nick! Glad you could join us.

Lately it's been more famine than feast at Oxford Mutual Aid, so we were pleased to see some of their stock items are now abundant.

A massive delivery of bread and eggs kept Zoe (the bakery queen) and Jo busy sorting and stacking, while Rachel took charge of trying to find kitchen space for thousands of baby tomatoes before preparing the Saturday Emergency parcel - only 1 this week! Meanwhile I tackled the great fridge reorganisation; attempting to get everything ordered by use-by date to make it easier for the Sunday food parcel team to see what should be prioritised. An oddly satisfying task!