We have been teaming up with the Falcon boat club for river cleans for a few years now: a lovely partnership where we have fun, do good for the environment and learn new skills.

Unfortunately, after the wettest February on record, the river conditions weren't safe for less-experienced canoeists this time, so we adjusted our plans. GoodGymers split into 3 teams to tackle the litter on different parts of the Thames Path, with a trio of pro-canoeists on the water collecting the full litter sacks and taking them back to the boat club. We collected a literal tonne of trash, with bikes, shoes, cans, bottles, hub caps, and (fan-favourite) pants all forming part of our stash.

The sun came out in time to enjoy tea and snacks on the boat club terrace at the end.

Great work as always team!

Welcome to GoodGym Jo and Daphne!

"Is it a swimming cap or a baby bib?"
"Do you categorise dungarees as top half clothing or bottom half clothing?"
"Is a scarf clothing or an accessory?"

It was the important life questions occupying us last night as we sorted and categorised donations for the OX4 Food Crew Community Party pre-loved market.

The OX4 Food Crew is an alliance of 9 grassroots organisations who have come together to help tackle food insecurity in OX4. They are having their first ever Community Party on Friday afternoon, and one part of that will be a stall selling pre-loved items to raise money for OX4 Food project.

GoodGym were asked to sort through the donated items, check them over for safety/cleanliness and categorise them.

As always, many hands make light work of big tasks, and we managed to finish by 7pm and have a lovely 4 mile run post-task.

The OX4 Community Party is taking place on Friday 16th February, 2:30-4:30pm at the Old Schoolhouse on Hertford Street, OX4 3AJ.

GoodGym have a lovely partnership with Boundary Brook Nature Park which goes back a few years. We've done a whole variety of tasks around the site, from reprofiling the pond, to building yards and yards of gravel path, litter picking and digging out bramble roots, to possibly our creepiest task to date - clearing the rubbish out of the abandoned sheds on the edge of the allotments.

Our January 2024 session at BB saw us getting stuck in (the mud) digging out bramble roots to try and stop them spreading further into the meadow area. Lazy dogs, forks, spades and plenty of brute force were the order of the day as we competed to dig out the biggest bramble root (some disagreement on whether length or girth were more important!). Working away, discarding layers as the sun broke through the clouds, getting thoroughly covered in mud, we ended up chatting away about all kinds of assorted topics including giant edible dormice, the current tally of GoodGym babies, the goats at Oxford City Farm, and how much Charlie has in common with a Disney princess with his knack of attracting wildlife to him (a frog, robin, cockchafer beetle grubs).

We always enjoy a couple of hours at Boundary Brook, so we'll look forward to some more path-building in the spring!

Welcome to GoodGym Susanna :-)

Last night we finished our 'spring' clean of the Oxford Mutual Aid foodbank.

Throughout autumn and winter we deep clean the main hall one section per month, and a do a thorough clean and sort of the kitchen every month. We've clearly got pretty efficient at this now, as we finished the task last night; a month ahead of schedule!