12 GoodGymers were up bright and early for a task at Boundary Brook Nature Park. We split into two groups to tackle raking, and digging for our old nemesis - the bramble root.

Boundary Brook have won a grant to plant some different species of grass and create a 'living library' for people to come and learn about them. Hopefully there will now be room for more grass and less bramble!

There was plenty of random conversation about the horrors of children's tv, how we could probably have our own GG band by now, and all about badgers (How big are they? How do you catch them? Just how accurate is the Animals of Farthing Wood?).

We also had congratulations for Louise on her 100th task!

November Autumn/Winter clean at the Oxford Mutual Aid.

This month we moved crates and racking in the lower central part of the main hall to clean that area. The ever-intrepid Ben scaled a ladder to sweep many years of accumulated cobwebs off the end window. Add to that the regular kitchen clean, fridge scrub and fresh-food check, and we made light work of our monthly 'spring' clean task.

I slightly mis-sold this task, as instead of clearing ground for hedge-planting we ended up clearing the workshop corner of the South Oxford Adventure Playground and filling the skip with all kinds of interesting objects.

Muscles and spatial awareness were both tested as we played skip-tetris in order to fit in an organ, a table football, a very heavy piano component, a large metal cupboard, loads of wood, broken chairs, rotten pallets, concrete fence posts etc etc.

Our post-task coffees were well-earned!

'Empire of Cats' and 'Left Intentionally Blank' battled it out at the fully booked Thursday quiz at the Angel and Greyhound. We managed to rank within the top 50% or so in each round, with a few 2nd and 3rd places for TV and Film, and General Knowledge. We didn't manage to win any prizes though, which randomly included a bag of doughnuts, and some scotch eggs.

I'm aiming to make this a semi-regular social session during the darker months, so any suggestions for new places to try are very welcome. We have The Gardener's Arms, and Cape of Good Hope as possibles for the next one.

Random fact - 'M&Ms' stands for Mars and Murrie!

Autumn means we pivot away from our summer of gardening and nature reserve tasks and resume our monthly deep cleaning of the food bank on Cowley Road.

The day-to-day tasks at the food bank take up all the time of volunteers, so there is never time to shift shelving and give everywhere a really thorough clean. Over the last couple of years we have become efficient at working our way round the main hall of the foodbank from October to March, deep cleaning a different section each month.

Last night we started our process. Splitting our team between kitchen and main hall, we shifted and cleaned crates and shelving, swept the floors, mopped the floors, sorted through fresh produce to ditch anything going off (some VERY mouldy mushrooms!), cleaned fridges, disinfected the walls, and took out food waste. A one hour flash-mob can make light of a deep clean.

Great work team!