On Saturday six goodgymers descended upon Oxford City Farm to offer hands for the annual Wassailing event. For those unfamiliar, Wassailing is a pagan tradition, usually performed in January, with the hope of waking up the spirits into ensuring a good harvest the following year. In our experience, this largely translated into lots of saucepan, pot or potty (!) banging, singing while marching around the farm and lots of mulled apple juice (for both trees and humans alike)!

We were warmly greeted by Maria, in her rainbow bobble hat (much needed!) to match her joyous self, and divvied up on tasks; Lucy and Laura headed to the gate, keeping a track of how many Wassail-goers arrived, while Chris and Zoe did a fantastic job of crowd control while waiting for the urn to boil with a plethora of eager tea and coffee requests only a few minutes after our arrival! Alice floated between roles, helping Phil set up the fire, aiding café requests and ensuring to make time for the highly demanded Shaun the sheep photoshoot, while moving between the different stations (priorities!!).

Not only were over 100 people were able to attend the event put on by Oxford City Farm for free (very much supported by our hands), but we also were treated to some farm-iliar faces – With goodgyms very own Louise busy at work in the kitchen and an enthusiastic wave to Sarah McFadden across the shrubbery.

Managing to somehow stay dry despite a very threatening raincloud lingering all afternoon, we wrapped up by sampling some (amazing) Jerusalem artichoke cake (served with a side of mild confusion for the other kind of artichoke and its baking logistics), a photo shoot with the sheep, and left with our pockets full of left over brownies as a reward for all that good deedin’.

Well done everyone; what a baaaaa-rilliant afternoon! While the farm is not yet open every day, if you are keen to get more involved with the farm (be that for your 1st,5th or 18th time at the farm!), Maria would be more than happy to chat to any goodgymers (and the wider community) about volunteering opportunities; you can find more details on the Oxford City Farm website as a first port of call.

Our February food bank flash mob tackled the cleaning of the Eastern and Northern sides of the hall. As always, lots of crates full of stock needed to be unstacked and moved elsewhere in the space so that the floors and walls could be unveiled for cleaning. Duly relocated, the areas were swept and mopped, then the fun of trying to restack piles of crates in the same configuration as they came out began. Thanks to 'before' photos we were largely successful this time! The Northern end of the hall proved to be the grottiest spot, with lots of dust, spilt items and general muck to clean up.

While the majority of the GoodGymers toiled away on the moving-cleaning-restacking in the main hall, a breakaway crew sorted fresh produce in the kitchen, swept and cleaned the floors and walls, took out food waste, cleaned the fridges, and left the whole place gleaming.

Last but definitely not least, Anja and Steve cleaned dozens of food crates and stacked them back in the regular piles for reuse.

The amount 19 GoodGymers can achieve in an hour is truly impressive!