Rob Edinburgh

The mission behind World Wildlife Day 2021 was to encourage people to learn more about the wooded areas where they live and generally to get out in, learn about, and protect the natural spaces in your local area.

As you can see from the photos in this report you lovely lot certainly did that and it has been fantastic seeing all the gorgeous photos coming through from your exercise sessions - favourite trees, spring flowers, baby lambs, sunsets, turf laying, plogging sessions, even muddy footpaths - all delightful.

A special shout-out to Katie who is walking 100 miles in March to raise money for the WWF. You're amazing Katie!

The main topic of conversation was whether 'loads and loaves of bread' or 'loaves and loaves of bread' was best. We also did some mad packing! Yay for Goodgym and OMA

Not bad packing work for before 9 am. Saturdays are all about Oxford Mutual Aid

The big Friday delivery before weekend parcel packing! Chocolate flavoured porridge and veggies for everyone!

Fresh off the back of our 2nd birthday celebrations, 29 wonderful runners, 1 fabulous trainer, and our very own mascot pooch, Peggy, were back painting the town red (and increasingly black!) for our routine Wednesday night deliveries with Oxford Mutual Aid.

After a weekend of glorious blue skies, sunshine and some much-needed vitamin D, the heavens opened on us; however no amount of rain could ever dampen our spirits!

With the promise of lighter evenings getting ever closer each week – with the light just about holding on til 7PM tonight (if you squinted your eyes titled your head and willed for it to be there hard enough!) - there was certainly a sense of excitement and hope on the horizon, further spurred on by the prospect of adding new tasks to our calendar very soon!

Perhaps too much excitement & hope from our trainer Anwen, who would come to regret confidently saying everything was going to be totally fine and under control, comments that were very quickly followed by a flood of emergency parcels and deliveries to pack and schedule last minute! Perhaps we won’t hear you saying that for a while! (Although with your super organisation skills, everything always works perfectly in the end!) – I’m sure we will still tease you about it never-the-less!

Our deliveries tonight saw 38 regular parcels and 8 emergency parcels packed. These parcels not only reached 62 adults, but also their children, including some babies too. Parcels included (very timely) Daffodils, handmade soap, lovely fresh cooked chicken and veggie meals, filled scones and some very tasty looking Eton mess! While it is remarkable how significantly fresh stock can fluctuate in availability for the parcels, it is nice to known we are still able to deliver parcels that are both personal and varied. This is only made possible by the wonderful donors we have, and the willingness of Goodgym-ers to turn up, week-in week-out and head off on a Wednesday evening adventure!

A big welcome to Angus who joined us tonight for the first time; it was an absolute delight to have you with us, and we really hope to see you again soon!

Inadvertent pun of the evening goes to Anna who realised just how deep the phrase ‘making a meal out of it’ goes, while parcel packing and distributing.

Looking forward to seeing lots of you next week, where we will no doubt be in high spirits, and can hope for less rain and more light, if not only to admire Peggy’s fabulous new barnet following her welfare groom tomorrow (Good luck Peggy and Stu )!

Tonight we packed 38 regular food parcels at the Oxford Mutual Aid food bank, which will help 50 adults and their children. We also packed 8 emergency food parcels to help people through a period of food difficulties. Those parcels reached 12 adults and their children.