Sarah
Oxford
TaskForce
Doing good since March 2019
122Good deeds
457runs
759cheers
TaskForce achievements
16
Community Missions
listed
11
Group Runs
back marked
0
Walking Groups
led
17
Run reports
written
3
Run reports
photographed
Oxford
Garden Tidy at Warneford Hospital
We've been asked if we can help give the garden of the young person’s mental health unit a good tidy up to get it ready for spring-/summer. Having visited at the start of October last year to plant bulbs and do some weeding, we're returning to get some of the brambles and shrubbery under control.
The Highfield Unit has a large garden divided into 3 different sections, but there is only one gardener for the whole of the Warneford Hospital site, so it is a struggle to keep it looking as good as it could.
It would be fantastic to improve the environment for young people struggling with their mental health - let's get to work!
Please bring gardening gloves. Other tools will be provided.
Meeting point: on the lawn outside the main entrance of the Warneford Hospital. We will walk to the ward together from there, collecting the tools along the way.
Oxford
Marston Community Garden
Marston Community Garden (MCG) is a community-run allotment on the Court Farm allotments site. People from the local area can adopt a raised bed of their own or help with gardening tasks. It's a great way to get involved with gardening even if people can't commit to a whole allotment of their own.
In addition to their main allotment site, MCG have expanded to have a chicken coup, an orchard and a new Community Wood on New Marston Recreation Ground plus much more.
We have been asked to help maintain their young trees in the community woodland area. The site is just off Croft Road in Marston.
Please bring your own gardening gloves. Any tools required will be provided.
Oxford
Litter picking at Longbridges Nature Reserve
Come and join us as we tackle the litter in one of the favourite picnic and bonfire spots beside the Thames in Oxford.
As well as being an eyesore and dangerous to wildlife, the litter accumulating in this area easily washes onto the waterways, so the Longbridges Nature Park has been identified by Oxford City Council as a high priority area for clearing litter. We'll do our best to get it into a good state before the May bank holiday weekend.
We will divide into groups to plog along nearby stretches of the Thames Path, clean up Longbridges Nature Park, litter pick parts of Donnington Bridge Road, and possibly also do a litter sweep around Iffley Meadows.
Litter pickers and bin bags will be provided. Someone from the City Council's green spaces team will meet us to collect the full bags at the end of our session.
Meeting points:
6pm at The Richard Benson Hall on Cowley Road if you would like to jog the 1 mile over to the litter pick.
OR 6:15pm inside the vehicle gate into Longbridges Nature Park on Donnington Bridge Road west of Donnington Bridge.
Oxford
Boundary Brook Nature Park work party
Boundary Brook Nature Park was created in 1990 when a group of community wildlife enthusiasts rescued a plot of disused allotments to carve out a wild space in the heart of East Oxford.
Featuring mixed woodland, meadow, a nature pond and butterfly glade, Boundary Brook is home to a rich variety of wildlife from birds and butterflies to frogs and foxes.
Oxford Urban Wildlife Group have asked for our help to with a mixture of tasks as they start reopening the site, including seeding grassland and building paths.
Please bring your own gardening gloves. Tools and litter pickers will be provided. We will divide into work groups of 8 people or less on site to tackle different areas.
The task meeting point is outside the gate to Boundary Brook Nature Park, which is on the cycle way just past Larkrise Primary School at the end of Boundary Brook Road.
Oxford
It’s the end of lockdown as we know it
Yesterday was our 24th consecutive Wednesday packing and delivering food parcels for Oxford Mutual Aid. We packed 49 parcels and delivered 30 of them, helping approximately 70 people.
The graph picture shows the number of food parcels we’ve prepared each Wednesday session going back to our first one at the end of October last year. What it doesn’t show is our small team’s dedication to helping distribute the much needed food:
We have packed over 900 parcels on Wednesdays, delivered an estimated 600+, walked hundreds of miles between us to deliver food, chatted on the doorstep to lonely people, and got to know the food preferences of strangers.
GoodGymers have turned up to help on cold, dark nights, in rain, ice and snow, supported each other throughout winter lockdown and welcomed new members of the team. We haven’t taken a week off, because hunger doesn’t stop.
Our superstar GoodGym Oxford crew do Saturday and Sunday shifts at Oxford Mutual Aid too (we just don’t have stats and graphs for those!), have helped out on Christmas Day and bank holiday weekends, not to mention Rob raising incredible sums of money to replenish OMA coffers.
A report released by the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee yesterday estimated that up to 5.9 million adults and 1.7 million children experienced food poverty or insecurity in the six months to February. Those statistics are appalling, but they're also just numbers easily scrolled past. Knowing that people on your street, in your neighbourhood, in your town can't afford essential food and are calling for help shows the human impact behind the numbers.
As COVID restrictions lift a little next week we will adjust our way of working with Oxford Mutual Aid to a system which allows us time to also help other community projects who are reaching out to us. So, it’s an end to Wednesdays as we’ve known them for the last 24 weeks, but certainly not an end to working with Oxford Mutual Aid. We'll still be packing food parcels but making fewer deliveries.
At this pivot point I wanted to say how proud I’ve been of Goodgym Oxford members. We’ve been able to muster around 30 helpers every week through some very difficult weeks without ever having to beg or cajole. You’ve seen the need and met it.
Thank you ♥️
Oxford
Boundary Brook Nature Park work party
Boundary Brook Nature Park was created in 1990 when a group of community wildlife enthusiasts rescued a plot of disused allotments to carve out a wild space in the heart of East Oxford.
Featuring mixed woodland, meadow, a nature pond and butterfly glade, Boundary Brook is home to a rich variety of wildlife from birds and butterflies to frogs and foxes.
Oxford Urban Wildlife Group have asked for our help to with a mixture of tasks as they start reopening the site, including seeding grassland and building paths.
We will split into smaller groups of 8 or less to work on tasks in different areas of the Nature Park. We will also have the litter pickers with us for a small group of 6-8 people to clear up the surrounding walk and cycle way. There is plenty of space to spread out and maintain social distancing.
Please bring your own gardening gloves. Tools and litter pickers will be provided.
If you want to jog over to Boundary Brook please meet at Oxford Mutual Aid at 6pm (Richard Benson Hall, Cowley Road). If you want to meet us at the task meeting point is outside the gate to Boundary Brook Nature Park, which is on the cycle way just past Larkrise Primary School at the end of Boundary Brook Road. We will be there by 6:15pm
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