On Tuesday we welcomed Salem to his first of many sessions with us, he used to run but family life and children activities got the better of him. He is looking to get back into running and came across an ad for us and liked the idea of combining his runs with doing good.

Another highlight for us was having **Kate joining us on the task, having completed 26.2 miles on Sunday she was unable to jog to the task with us, she also brought her medal to show us, we congratulated her on her amazing achievement in completing her first marathon

We ran to Croydon Refugee Day Centre to assist them with their clothes donations, Simon was there to greet us and while we were waiting on the building to be opened he jumped at the opportunity to lead us in a fitness session. Following our fitness session we went inside the hall where there was clothes clothes for us to sort and hung. Myself Salem and Bassey were on hanger duty where we went around and collected all the empty hangers from the clothing rails, while Kate and Ingrid sorted the clothes to be hung on the rails. We were midway through sorting out the clothes, when Simon came in with treats treats for us.

Before long it was time to store away the clothing rails into the storage room and bid our farewell to Simon.

Nice simple move of a green chair from upstairs to downstairs so Mrs M can have visitors once more. Lots of cables to be moved out of the way in the end zone, a few pictures to come off the wall on the stairs so we didn’t hit them, but all in all a pretty straightforward mission

Miss M was frustrated that her garden, which she used to be very proud of, had become overgrown as she’s no longer able to maintain it. Ian and Ingrid volunteered to help with the tidy up following a task to move furniture for her.

The first challenge was to gain access as the side alleyway was virtually impassable due to brambles. Ian led the way and managed to make a path through so we could squeeze through.

Once in the garden the brambles, weeds and overgrown plants were soon cut back and bagged up. Some trellis which had fallen down was also removed.

On leaving, Miss M was pleased that her garden was tidier, the patio clear of weeds and the alleyway passable.

Usually the first Saturday of the moth is reserved for pacing at Shorne Woods Parkrun, however as they were celebrating thier 500th run on the first Saturday of the month pacing was pushed back a week. I volunteered to pace 26 mins with a little help from mini me as our way of ensuring that we volunteer at least once each month at our local parkrun. Pleased to report back that all persons using us as a pacer achieved their target as we crossed the line in 00:25:46. Will we be fortunate to get the 24/25 mins bib next month as we work our way to sub 00:23:00?

Last night we welcomed Oliver to his first group run, he found out about us via instagram. We had a task all booked and set to go ahead at the Refugee centre, hover due to some issues with the locks being changed we were unable to gain access and complete the planned task. Visit Oliver's page and give him some cheer.

All was not lost as Simon our host was on had to put the group through their paces with a fitness session, he had us doing lunges, wall sits, press ups against the railing and squats.

Simon appologised for not being able to get us into the building, but he seemed to have a good time putting us through our paces.

On our next visit, I'm planning on getting Simon to do our fitness session.

Signup to next week's run here.

On Tuesday myself and Liz ran 6.6 km to St Augustine's to help out in the community garden. When we arrived Ingrid had already started in the task, however Sue briefed us on what she'd like us to do. This was the smallest group we've visited with and when we were told there was a Ton bag of wood chips to move to the back of the church, I thought to myself we were in for a long one. That wasn't the case as we soon had a system in place and within a wink of an eye we had emptied enough of the wood chips for two of us to be able to lift it to the back and spread the remainder under Sue's watchful eyes, ensuring we put it in the right place. After completing the task we said our farewells and myself and Liz ran back to East Croydon.