What a lot of litter!

Helping Rose Hill and Iffley Low Carbon 17 runners, walkers and cyclists met at Rose Hill Community Center where Trev and Katherine from RHILC explained how we can help the environment by clearing up our litter.. or in this case Rose Hills!...

no strangers to mess the last time we were in Rose Hill in April we cleared an amazing amount from under the bridge Watch the video if you missed it!! Trev initially was worried there wasn't much to be picked on this Wednesday evening in November... how wrong he was!...

So splitting into group, we covered streets around the Oval, Rivermead Road, Spencer Crescent and Asquith Road, and the Southern Bypass (a little futher along that last time!). The estate is now looking spick and span but there is still quite a bit on the Bypass (why do people chuck rubbish from their cars? or even bag whole bags of rubbish or clothes and not take it to... a bin!!!)

Pant, yes! Shopping Trolleys, tick! Pumpkin, indeed.. Mog the forgotten cat, aww.... serial killer in the paper, aahhhhhh!!! we got a bit of everything! Thanks especially to the committed GGers who were stuck on the A34 on the way to the task.. no COPing out though and even Bethan and Lorenzo joined us in the end! Top picking commitment guys!

Welcome back Chloe and Jack on your second GG Tasks!

If you would like to know more about RHILC, or to get involved please do goto the website, sign up to the mailing list or let Trev know!

So....it's back to loitering in the car park outside the food bank in the dark! How many of you had a major sense of deja vue last night?!

Oxford Mutual Aid runs a food bank out of the Richard Benson Hall on the Cowley Road. It is the only 7-days-a-week food support available in Oxford, and offers both regular support to households and emergency provision. Overall food parcels are sent out to over 300 households in Oxford every week. Last week, for example, 368 parcels were prepared and supplied, which helped over 1100 adults, children and babies. Hundreds of prepared meals were also sent out under the Kitchen Collective programme.

We've been a weekly fixture on the Oxford Mutual Aid volunteer rota for a year now, but last night was something a little different - Oxford Mutual Aid called in the GoodGym flash mob for a blitz through tasks at the food bank which are usually difficult to get done with such a busy weekly schedule of food parcel picking.

Team work makes the dream work. Never a truer word spoken!

We:
* Took bulk boxes of pasta and portioned them out into 500g servings.
* Took the 10kg bags of rice and scooped them into 500g portions.
* Broke down the cardboard boxes, turning cardboard mountain into an orderly stack.
* Portioned out hundreds of nappies into individual packs.
* Bagged up tea bags.
* Portioned up sultanas.
* Restocked the shelves.
* Labelled up previously portioned pasta.
* Put away donations.
* Sorted out the kitchen - cleaning fridges and floors, throwing out the food waste, getting all the fruit and veg deliveries in order.
* Swept up in the main hall.
* Helped drivers load up their food parcels for delivery.
* Delivered 2 food parcels.

We also took the opportunity to rotate through training on how to prepare food parcels with Sarah, the Hall Manager. It was a great opportunity as a refresher for those who pack parcels regularly, and a helpful introduction to those who haven't taken on that task at the food bank previously. I hope you'll all feel more confident having had some dedicated training time.

After the last food parcel had been loaded up, the last box of pasta decanted, and we'd nearly run out of nappy space we called it a night. There's so rarely time for the tasks we took on during a normal week at the food bank, so an hour or so of our time makes a big difference to how easy it is to prep food parcels for the coming days. Since it seemed to work well we'll do this task again before Christmas

Bethan lead a breakaway group of runners on a 5k trot post-task, including a sprint-jog lamp post workout along Meadow Lane with added llama spotting. Thank you Bethan!

We had a quartet of newcomers to GoodGym tasks this evening, so a warm welcome to Alison, Luca, Ross, and Thomas.

This evening’s task was a double whammy. Goodgym power was needed to clear and tidy the Toad Distillery yard and also clear ivy from the railings at the top of South Park – revisiting the scene of our very first task back in 2019!

A group of us huffed and puffed (I mean ran in an athletic manner) up the hill to the distillery, meeting Bryon and the rest of the team there. The register featured “what would your desert island drink be” with answers ranging from the sensible (filtered, safe-to-drink water) to the decadent (ruby port, champagne). We then split into two groups and got to work. The team headed up by Mark (Lord Mayor and tool breaker extraordinaire) tackled the distillery yard sweeping up mountains of autumn leaves and tidying up around the outside seating, as well as planting daffodil bulbs.
The other team headed out to South Park. South Park in Oxford is a gorgeous park with fantastic views over Oxford – Dreaming Spires galore. It is also a busy cut through from town to campus for a lot of the Oxford Brookes students. With the evenings getting darker we needed to do something to make the sight-lines clearer and safer for all involved. We stripped LOADS of ivy off the railings and did a litter pick along the lane. This week’s random spot was not the usual scattering of pants but a beautiful, slightly sparkly, toadstool which we left in-situ to grow.

After all our hard and dusty work, we headed back into The Oxford Artisan Distillery for a G&T and a lovely chat and catch up.

The gin was delicious and it was so fab to be able to relax and chat to everyone after a task. Thank you Bryon!!

Welcome Dan - good to have you along!

Thanks for the report title Sarah and to Bethan for the write up.

GoodGymers: not just speedy runners, but speedy learners too!

Last night at Oxford Mutual Aid:

• We started by adding the chilled goods to a dozen (or maybe more) parcels which were due to be delivered that evening
  
• We then explained the full parcel packing system and got to work on the 14 requests for emergency food support.
  

Oxford Mutual Aid is the only food bank in Oxford which operates 7 days a week, and so it is a lifeline to many households. Over the course of last week they sent out 576 food parcels, supporting 1162 people. Thank you to all volunteers who make that possible.