Last night we did a litter pick x scavenger hunt mash up. We collected a load of litter from the streets of Oxford, got to explore a little, and had some mildly-competitive fun in the process.

The Teams:
* 7 runners
* 7 walkers

The rules:
* Teams must find at least 3 items from each category
* Must have photos to prove finds/locations
* GoodGymers may go anywhere within the ring road as long as the team sticks together and is back on time
* Teams must be back outside East Oxford Community Centre by 7:25pm
* Litter bags do not have to be brought back to base if there is an appropriate place to leave the full bags along the way

Category 1: Litter
* Alcohol bottle
* Face mask
* Fast food container
* Coffee cup
* Alcohol Can
* Plastic bag (dog poo bag allowed)
* Crisp packet
* Item of clothing (bonus points for underwear 🤢)
* Energy drink can
* Wet wipes
* Cutlery
* Very Random Item

Category 2: GoodGym task locations
* A point for every past task location visited

Category 3: Wild Cards
* Street with a fellow GoodGymer’s name in it
* Place with literary connections
* Blue plaque (extra point if it’s for a woman)
* Number 48 (we are the 48th GG area)
* Animal sculpture (can be knitted)
* Angel wings

The results:
* Runners: Category 1 11 points, Category 2 7 points, Category 3 7 points
* Walkers: Category 1 13 points, Category 2 6 points, Category 3 7 points

The walkers took the glory by 1 point!

Congratulations to Ben on reaching the 50 Good Deeds milestone!

'Twas the last task before Christmas, and all through the Hall
We were wrapping and packing, and having a ball.
The chocolates were wrapped in the kitchen with care,
GoodGymers freezing their (finger)tips off in there.

Worker elves packing up hundreds of gifts,
Hats, socks and toiletries, prepared on our shift.
While out in the cold a hardy quartet,
Delivered fundraising leaflets to the roads near Taste Tibet.

We sprang to our tasks, feeling Christmassy cheer,
Just leave it to GoodGym we'll complete it; no fear!
Then we called out as we walked out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Great work on our last group task of 2022 everyone - so good to finish delivering the leaflets for The Porch winter fundraiser and also to prepare so many of the Christmas gifts which will be delivered with The Oxford Mutual Aid Christmas week food parcels.

Congratulations to Joe and Laura for reaching the 10 Good Deed milestone, and a massive round of applause for Henry who reached 50 Good Deeds last night after only joining GoodGym 42 weeks ago!

Welcome Lucy - good to meet you!

We were getting into the panto-spirit yesterday: Nevermind Jack and the Beanstalk, it was all about Jack Frost and the Longest Bramble Root.

Boundary Brook Nature Park looked like a winter wonderland with frost coating the long grasses and teasels and a beautiful blue sky. Fortunately the sunshine made it slightly less than baltic and it was good to get outside despite the chill. We weren't sure if the ground would be too frozen for our planned task of digging out bramble roots, but fortunately it wasn't solid as a rock.

A bit of competitive spirit got us motivated - prize for the longest bramble root! - and with visits from robins and a local cat it was a very lovely morning in the sunshine.

At the end of our digging session we wandered along the paths we've built on previous sessions in Boundary Brook Nature Park and had a look at the finished bird hide which we contributed to last winter.

Welcome Kewei and Graham - good to meet you both.

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'!

There's a slight autumnal chill to the air, which can only mean one thing - it's time to get bulbs in the ground in preparation for lots of cheery spring flowers. In previous years we've planted bulbs along many of the main roads into Oxford, and they've been one of the most popular gardening tasks we've done. People comment on how lovely it is when the flowers pop up in the spring all the time.

NGL, the struggle was real to get the spades deep enough in the ground to plant bulbs last night!

A summer of drought and heat waves has baked the ground hard, so there was a lot of pogo-ing on spades to try and get holes a few inches deep to give the flowers the best chance of actually sprouting. Despite the challenges we did manage to plant a decent patchwork of bulbs from the OXSRAD entrance up towards the ring road junction on both sides of the road.

Looking forward to seeing them flower in the spring already!

Congratulations on reaching the 10 Good Deed milestone Fred.