A last-minute change of plan from our planned task, including a few late phone-calls to redirect wayward members, and we were back in Surbiton for one of our regular visits to help out at the Growbaby shop.

Rachel quickly assigned tasks around the shop. Hazel, Claire, Tom and our new recruit Marcos got to work downstairs, reassigning bags of new clothes and shoes into the appropriate crates, hanging up snow suits and occasionally venturing into the world’s most terrifying storeroom.

Upstairs, Jana repositioned wellies for a new display and Marie-Noelle and Dave tidied the rest of the shop floor. On a damp autumnal evening, we were all relieved to have a task inside. Growbaby, a valuable local resource, is always appreciative of the extra help.

Mel & Rachel got stuck into organising the donations for this year's Christmas donations - pulling boxes out to impose order (and surprise the resident spiders), dividing the toys and gifts into age boxes, and leaving a few boxes to sort on our next visit!

Rachel, Melissa and Petra met at Growbaby in Kingston to help with the enormous amount of donations they had received over the summer. As we sorted through and sized the clothes, we had a lovely catch up and talked about jobs, charities and everything on between. Thanks so for helping! All the bags have been cleared from the storage room now which is great progress.

It may be August but Santa’s elves were back in action tonight preparing for the big day.

Toys, books and clothes donated as Christmas presents for disadvantaged children were piled high and needed sorting.

Ben and Rachel tackled the toys sorting them by age category in to different boxes whilst Claire and Mel sorted the books and a few clothes.

This will hopefully speed up categorising all the items in December on packing day and we even found a few toys we would like to find under our Xmas trees.

This is just the start of Santa's preparations so the elves will be required for more tasks. Keep an eye on the listings.

Despite the high temperatures and sweaty run to Growbaby tonight we still worked tirelessly to tick everything off the to-do list - and more.

A number of the group sought sanctuary in the cool basement when we arrived. Dave mended a shelf while Sabir moved broken items into a side room. Hazel and Benjamin sorted the baby food, sanitary products and other random bits littering the tight space. Gemma sorted through the toy boxes and refilled the basket of soft toys and Luke restocked the supply of summer hats upstairs. Upstairs Emma sorted the story books while Dave satisfyingly tidied and matched up the toys on display making the collection more appealing for the visiting families.

Growbaby is such a valuable place for the families that use it and as usual Rachel had a long list of jobs for us to tackle. It was a pleasure to leave the hub spic and span. Luckily it had cooled down a bit for our 2.5km return run back along the river to the Quaker Centre.

A short and sweet task! Petra had organised a donation from DLAG and I helped her to unload the car, organised the items into types and the took the boxes to the Growbaby basement. We can have a proper sort out on Tuesday evening when we have our group run there.

Thanks for organising, Petra! You superstar.