A trio of us helped at Junior Parkrun. Gary was on time keeping, Becky was volunteer coordination and marshalling and Bethan tail-walked.

Junior Parkrun is always a joy!

Mr D has very limited mobility and uses a walking frame. He has many unpacked boxes stacked all around his flat which is making it very hard for him to move around and access his home. He is not able to stand for more than short periods and some of the boxes are quite heavy and stacked quite high. I was able to move some of the boxes to the floor so that we could go through them and unpack things he needed and repack those he is not using into smaller and more manageable boxes at his request. We managed to unpack a number of boxes together and also make access to his bedroom and hallway more manageable. At his request I also vacuumed his hallway and sitting room once we had cleared some space. It was lovely to meet Mr D who is a very amenable and interesting man and we shared some travel stories.

This morning we returned to Kate's Place in Florence Park. This is a regular haunt for Goodgym, previously we've planted trees, trimmed hedges, laid turf, created paths and cleared litter from the site.

With an upcoming family fun day on the horizon some piles of (quite prickly) hedge cuttings needed to be shifted, the dead hedge topped up with a few branches and litter and tennis balls cleared up!

In true Goodgym-flash-mob style we had everything cleared uo, ship shape and shiny within an hour, finding an amphibious friend and a duck in lederhosen along the way!

Welcome to Goodgym Steven and Thura! Thanks for getting stuck in, hope to see you at a task again soon!

An indoor task could not have come at a better time!

Sheltering from the persistent rain, this evening we packaged up 49 pairs of running shoes of various shapes and sizes to be sent off the JogOn for re-purposing and recycling.

That's 49 pairs of trainers that won't end up in landfill.

Powered by tea and snacks (is there any other way) a gaggle of us then headed out into the, semi-refreshing, drizzle of a trot and a chat.

It was good to get a fine day in which to finally do a garden tidy up for Mrs P who has been needing help with this since before Christmas, but we just couldn't get a fine day. Saturday there was a bit of weak sun and I was able to tidy up the front garden. The lawn couldn't be cut as it has been so wet and so hopefully this can be achieved on a future visit. Mrs P is always so grateful for help and she is lovely lady. She always makes me a cup of tea and we have a chat after the task. Anyone who is thinking about signing up to be mission verified and do these kind of tasks, I thoroughly recommend it - they have been some of the most satisfying and enjoyable GoodGym tasks I have taken part in. The recipients are always very happy to get help and it is very rewarding. The mission verification process is very simple and straightforward.

What is January without a litterpick or two? Last night's target was the Wood Farm/Magdalen Wood area. We were treated to a spooky walk through the middle of the wood, with plenty of trash hiding in the undergrowth. We then swooped around a few of the residential streets and back to the Atkyns Road shops, collecting coffee cups, crisp packets, and cans as we went. Socks, a hub cap, and a novel were our more unusual finds.

On our post-task run, we noticed lots of litter on the Headington side of the shops, so we will return to tackle that at the end of the month.

Welcome to GoodGym Joel!