Wednesday 15th July 2020
Report written by Anwen Greenaway
Makespace is an affordable working and making space offering subsidised rents for social enterprises, charities and workers co-operatives. They have a lovely site on the canal in North Jericho.
During lockdown Makespace has, of course, been closed, and in that time the outdoor spaces have accumulated a lot of weeds and got quite overgrown - it sounded like the ideal job for the GoodGym elves!
On Wednesday evening 10 GoodGymers converged from all directions, gardening gloves at the ready, to tackle the jungle. We weeded, and scraped, and mowed the grass (until the lawnmower decided it was all too much like hard work and it needed a rest). We cleared litter from the car-park, gave a rose bush some breathing space, chopped back brambles, moved a HUGE bag of manure over to fill a raised bed, raked up leaves, and generally got a bit sweaty and muddy, but amazingly no nettle stings this week. (Is it even a GoodGym summer task if there are no nettle stings involved?) An little over an hour later we surveyed our progress with a fair amount of pride - it was looking a good deal smarter than when we started.
Then off we all trotted, fanning out to different areas of Oxford, with the hope that the time for group running will soon be upon us.
A warm welcome to Conor and Kate who did their first GoodGym good deed with us last night.
Twenty social enterprises, workers cooperatives, small charities and creative individuals are work from Makespace Oxford. The building is a catalyst, a question and a demand to make space for sustainability, creativity and community. It’s also a vibrant hub for community action, a place where new partnerships begin and ideas come to life.
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