A small but perfectly formed team of GoodGymers turned out this evening, despite Storm Babet and traffic carnage doing their best to deter us.

Our quintet took on a litter hot-spot on the edge of Rose Hill, clearing the approach to the Littlemore underpass on each side of the ring road. It was smelly (discarded nappies), squelchy (rain sodden shoes), and very very soggy. Nonetheless, we filled several sacks with litter before the storm got the better of us.

Great work hardcore GoodGymers!

It takes a team!

Tonight we cleared an abandoned campsite near Rose Hill which has been unoccupied for a year or more.

It quickly became clear that it had been a family with little children living here. There were toys, baby clothes and nappies amongst the pots, pans adult clothing. Discarded food and drink containers, lots of sodden bedding, the tent and awning, a rubber dinghy which was being used to keep the tent off the hard ground, a hoover; it was a huge haul to get up to the ring road for collection by Oxford Direct Services.

We really hope the occupants abandoned their campsite because they found a solid roof over their heads.

It was a chilly night for a litter pick, with winter starting to make itself felt, but we turned out in force at Rose Hill Community Centre.

Our litter picks in the area around the Community Centre and the estates surrounding The Oval are always highly appreciated by the staff at the community centre and the local Low Carbon group - we were even joined by a member of Rose Hill and Iffley Low Carbon group last night.

With quite a large area to cover we find it's best to split into smaller groups to tackle different streets - divide and conquer! We set ourselves an hour limit so that no one got completely chilled to the bone and scattered across Rose Hill, litter pickers and yellow rubbish sacks in hand. We got heckled by a local who appeared to think that we were the Council and should clean up the area more often (the big 'Community Litter Pick' stamp on our bin bags not seeming to give them the clue that we were volunteers), found masks, cigarette butts, hedges full of cans, and all the other usual suspects. Aladdin put us in a cheery mood when we got back to the community centre with his gold sequin shirt, very Pro photo taking, and appreciation for the clean-up job we'd undertaken.

Our litter picking conversations included possible updates for the GoodGym litter bingo cards (newspapers are out, wet wipes are in), whether squirrels really get addicted to nicotine from littered cigarette butts, and favourite festive treats. Clearly we need to be supplying panettone, cheese and biscuits, and mince pies at our Christmas 'do'!

well done everyone!

10 GoodGymers 16 Nepalese community 14 RHILC and friends 1 Lenthal Road Allotments 1 friends of Rivermead including 5 kids!

42 people set out on a very sunny Saturday to clean Iffley and Rose Hill We covered all the streets and the recreation ground, Rivermead nature reserve, Lenthal road allotments

We’re pleased to say many streets are relatively littler free. However many patches still have bags of it!!

Thank you to everyone who took part and helped our community with OXClean 2022 and Rose Hill and Iffley Low Carbon Group

welcome Laura to GoodGym

GoodGym is starting to look at its LOW CARBON and Environmental aims and responsibilities in 2022 as COVID restrictions easy (hopefully) again. Oxford GoodGym got stuck in right away with a Tree care event with RHILC (Rose Hill and Iffley Low Carbon) https://rhilc.wordpress.com

Quick summary!
Kieran helped Richard, Paul and Katharine, Cathy and Eleanor from RHILC planting trees which were Apple Ellison's Orange, 2x Apple Egremont Russet, Apple Greensleeves Ben F and Rachael were star fruit tree weeders making sure they were in top shape Ben G, Matt, and Julia were keen litter pickers and pruners helped by Philippa and Sabine! both also provided mulch to the trees in the recreation ground we planted 2 years ago! Trev helped make sure everyone was happy and took photos of a lion like cat who was hiding and chasing leaves!

We took a group GG photo by our GoodGym Tree which is going well happy to report! (cobnut!) Thanks to everyone for helping with this work, planting trees is indeed great but caring for them so they grow strong is greater 🌲 🌳 Trev

Thanks to Ben and Matt from GoodGym who joined Trev supporting Rose Hill and Iffley Low Carbon to plant Trees in the recreation ground in Rose Hill!

Storm Arwen was just passing through and worryingly there was snow, sleet and gail force winds about an hour before the event!! a few hardy people committed to keeping the event happening (as the trees would have died) and we were very lucky and happy to have a good deal of community support in the end! horray!

As well as Good Gym and RHILC members we had Misbah Omar and her friend, from Amadiyya Muslim women association, who aim to plant 100,000 Trees across Britain!! Good Luck :). Follow lajnauk on instagram to see more!

Katharine who is the main tree organiser from RHILC writes :

"Dear volunteers,

A massive THANK YOU to those who braved the weather for the great success today. There were 20 of us and it was good to see some new faces.

We replanted trees where they had died and we planted and mulched: A 'Wildlife & Shrubs Pack' from the Friends of the Earth: 10 x Hawthorn, 10 x Grey Willow, 10 x Hazels, 10 x Dog Rose, and 10 x Dogwood and 14 hazels from Eleanor and Chris' garden, along the Abberbury Avenue hedge. There was no cost because the mulch was kindly donated by Julian Cooper of ODS/OCC, the whips by Friends of the Earth and the hazels by Eleanor and Chris.

We weeded and mulched some of the trees we planted before; we can weed and mulch the rest in Spring so don't worry if you could not make today. Luckily, the weather improved.

Thank you all so much.

Katharine

Tree Planting Co-ordinator

Rose Hill and Iffley Low Carbon"

If you would like to find out more about Rose Hill and Iffley Low Carbon click for the website and social media

Thank you all for braving the storm and planting the trees, they all look great