Thomas Heath

Oxford Mutual Aid have asked for a GoodGym flash mob at the Richard Benson Hall food bank tonight.

There’s lots to do:
* Restocking the food shelves.
* Sorting through the fresh food and throwing out food waste.
* Breaking down cardboard boxes.
* Helping load up food parcels for delivery.
* Cleaning

We ask that you wear a mask inside the food bank.

Tonight we will meet at the task - Richard Benson Hall, 276b Cowley Rd - at 6pm. It’s next door to St Mary & St John church. There won’t be a run to the task but there will be a 5k run after we finish at the food bank. We’ll also provide a run-walk option for those starting Couch-2-5k this month. All welcome, so come in your running kit if you fancy a social run.

The return of the Lazy Dogs!

Yesterday afternoon we descended on Boundary Brook Nature Park for a bramble up-rooting session. Boundary Brook is a gorgeous hidden corner of Oxford between the Iffley and Cowley Roads. We've helped out there pretty regularly over the last year or so, laying the gravel path, clearing bramble roots in other areas of the nature reserve, and reprofiling the pond. On Saturday afternoon our task was to prepare the ground for the next project; to build a temporary bird hide from green wood taken from around the nature reserve (a hidden spot for humans to observe birds from, not somewhere for birds to hide out). The hide will go up in the spring, but first the area needed to be de-brambled. The bird hide will be tucked on the edge of a copse with a grassland butterfly meadow in front. The brambles had been chopped down, but as regular GoodGymers will know, the roots can be extensive, and brambles are tenacious and will keep returning unless the roots are dug out.

The tool of choice for bramble roots is the Lazy Dog; expertly modelled in the photos by GoodGym Hero Rachael. 2 lazy dogs between 15 doesn't go far, so spades and forks were also added to the mix and we got to work digging out the knarly roots from all over the meadow, frog spotting as we went.
Team 2 took on the heavy lifting task of moving the green wood from around other parts of the Nature Reserve to the spot where the Bird Hide will be built. 2 or 3 GoodGymers to a log we meandered to and fro along 'our' gravel path getting a surprisingly good weight lifting work out. Anyone else got slightly sore shoulders this morning?!

Swipe through the pictures to see the Bird Hide design. It will be a self-supporting structure made from mostly Ash wood from the Nature Park, with a turf roof and viewing windows at different levels so that everyone from toddlers to the tallest adults can use it to observe the birds.

You can join Oxford Urban Wildlife Group for £5 per year and have unlimited access to Boundary Brook Nature Park. All the details are here.

As discussed while carrying logs: follow @OxThamesSewage on Twitter for alerts when sewage is being released into the Thames.

Welcome Andreea and Alex - lovely to meet you both.

In a dark, dark city,
There was a dark, dark road,
And off that dark, dark road,
There was a dark, dark path,
And along that dark, dark path,
There was a dark, dark school,
And a dark, dark brook,
And a dark, dark nature reserve,
And dark, dark allotments.
And all of them were blighted by litter,
Blowing in from the dark, dark path.

It was certainly a dark, dark, cold, cold night for litter picking last night!

It was well worth wrapping up warm, donning our hi-vis and head torches and patrolling the paths and cycle ways of Boundary Brook area to clear up the litter and fly-tipping. It's a litter grot spot just where you wouldn't want one (I mean, we don't want them anywhere, but this is particularly bad) - by two primary schools, edging a waterway and a nature reserve, and one of the worst areas is right outside the Children's Allotment.

We filled a couple of dozen litter bags with masks, cans, newspapers, takeaway cartons, and all the usual litter suspects. More surprising were the lengths of carpet, kitchen sink and assorted other flytipping!

Welcome to GoodGym Megan!

Last night we blitzed the tidying and organising tasks at the Oxford Mutual Aid food bank. As a 7-days-a-week operation there's rarely time to pause and take stock due to the overwhelming need to get the food parcels prepared, so a GoodGym flash-mob every now and then helps to get everything back in order.

This week there have been lots of large donations in from other food banks and larders which needed sorting into crates of similar items then stored properly. Also, now that we're into the New Year all the leftover Christmas items needed to be organised so that they can be stored off site instead of taking up precious space in the hall.

We divided into teams and got to work:
* Lorenzo headed up a group sorting through all the recent food donations, crating them up with like-items and stacking them away in a more organised fashion.
* Rachael took her team to the kitchen to sort through the fresh fruit and veg and dispose of any that were too mushy/mouldy to send out, organising the fridges into expiry-date order, and giving the whole area a good clean, before moving on to portioning up bulk bags of pasta.
* Bethan's crew sorted through mountains of Christmas gifts, categorising by age of recipient, and then picking a few crates to remain at the hall as birthday gifts and labelling everything else up for off-site storage.
* Holly, Vicky and Ben did the heavy lifting, re-organising the tin-can corner to make more storage space. Hope your arm muscles aren't too achey this morning!
* Last, but not least, Dan tackled cardboard mountain, flattening the pile of boxes and crushing as many as possible into the recycling bin.

We've already had effusive thanks from the Oxford Mutual Aid organising team:

"This is is so, so helpful! Thank you thank you!"
"Thank you SO SO MUCH"
"I've just been in and everything looks like a dream."

Great work team. Well done!