This evening 10 of us gathered at the lovely warm Manor Hospital to brush up on our basic life saving skills.

A few of us have attended this course before but it is always good to have a refresher or learn new skills. You never know when you might need them.

Led by the wonderful Elaine and Nikki we learnt how to tell the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest, how to administer CPR and rescue breaths and how to use a defibrillator.

A few takeaways:

• Of you find a collapsed person who is breathing normally put them in the recovery position (on their left side is best) and call 999.
• If there is no sign of breathing thats when rescue breaths and CPR should be used.
• Drs ABC should be followed (see below)
• If the person has been drowning or choking start with 5 good rescue breaths to get oxygen back into the body.
• A good CPR protocol is 30 compressions to 2 rescue breaths and try to minimise time off the chest.

D - check for danger R - is the person responsive to voice or stimulus S - shout for help (check for bleeding) A - check the airway B - do rescue breaths C - Compressions

Apps: what3words - you can give the exact location to the ambulance AED map - an app for searching defib locations.

Websites:

Defib finder The Circuit

Thank you everyone for coming. I hope that we never need to use the skills that we've learnt today but we have them, just in case.

Our first dark task of the season saw 9 hardy goodgymers gather at Oxford Brookes Campus in Headington. Armed with litter pickers and bags we headed down Gipsy Lane - always a bit of a grot spot. At first glance the area didn't seem that bad but we still managed to amass 6 large bags of litter.

After a successful stroll, chat and litterpick we headed to the pub.

The majority of our group today was women. We stayed in groups and didn't experience any abuse. This, sadly, is not always the experience for women exercising after dark, especially once the clock change and the evenings get darker earlier. Lets lift the curfew.

Tonight saw our first monthly visit of the winter to Oxford Mutual Aid, which is now in its seventh year of countering food poverty in Oxford. Over the winter, Goodgym helps by doing the deep cleaning for which the regular volunteers usually don't have enough time.

With the kitchen out of action after a rat infestation (now dealt with!), we concentrated on the main hall. After a quick introduction from OMA volunteer Martin, we got started shifting shelving, moving boxes, cleaning fridges, and sweeping and mopping the floor. We (or rather Fred) even remembered to take the vital "before" photos we need to make sure everything is put back in exactly the right place afterwards!

A sizeable chunk of the hall is now spick and span, and we'll be back in November to tackle the rest.

This evening was our final visit to the Meadow Lane playground for 2026. With planting due to take place on Sunday we were in a tight deadline to get compost and ballast moved to prepare the beds.

This was one of those tasks that really put the Gym into Goodgym. We dug out one bed and topped it up with rich (and rather smelly) mushroom compost. The rest of the time was spent filling a fleet of wheelbartows with ballast and ferrying them to other planting areas. Core muscles were engaged, raking was done and we even had to deploy the mini flood lights. The result did make us look a little like were creating or investigating crime scenes.....!!

Our rewards was some gorgeous feedback from Usha and delicious brownies from Celestia which contained black beans, making them a health food.

Congratulations to Angus for your 100th Good Deed!!