Broom (secateurs, rakes and hoes) for improvement

Dean Court Community Centre sounded the SOS, and who replied?

Batman's under lockdown rules in Gotham, so when you can't get a caped superhero the next best thing is the red T-shirted army of GoodGym.

Heading West to Botley, this was a first visit to Dean Court Community Centre for most of us. The community centre has been open around 5 years, and is an important hub for the local area.

During lockdown no-one was able to tend to the outdoor areas at the centre, so weeds had taken over the planters and entangled themselves around the fencing and old bike racks. Litter had accumulated around the carpark and surrounding area too. A firm hand (or 26) was needed to get things back under control. Sounded like a job for GoodGym to help with!

Julia and Vicky were in a litter-picking mood and grabbed that task as soon as it was mentioned. No pants found this time, but they were scrupulously determined to grab every last can, wrapper and even a full vodka bottle!

Everyone else divided into teams to weed planters, de-tangle the fence, unearth an extra bike rack from beneath a load of nettles, pull up some very resilient weeds pushing their way up through the tarmac of the car park, and sweep up the detritus of garden waste and unearthed litter as we worked.

After around an hour the area was looking much tidier, we had filled the garden waste wheely bins and 3 sacks, left a pile of browning Christmas trees and other branches ready for the next garden waste collection, and got the compulsory GG task nettle stings. We finished up with some very much appreciated squash and chocolate biscuits from the Dean Court Community Centre team before heading our separate ways.

I enjoyed going to an area of Oxford which was new to me!