A terrific twelve sorted, cleaned, steamed and tagged to make a real difference to Crystal Palace St Christopher's charity shop.

Thankfully the weather was kinder to us this evening so we headed to the park, safe in the knowledge that the branches should stay attached to their trees. We did our winter stress pig warm-up, with the cold evidently affecting the groups imagination, with multiple star jumps and lunges completed before we democratically decided to run through the centre of the park, to avoid the stonking hill. Thanks to Ian for back-marking.

Mark joined us at the shop, where we were greeted by manager Teresa. She had plenty of jobs for us to tackle, so we split off into groups to clean the shoe shelves (with a pair of boxer shorts!), sort bags of donations and hunt for clothes with J1 labels as their time in the shop had come to an end. We learnt that they would be sent to another shop, as would the donated clothes deemed to be poorer quality. There were some lovely items in the shop, along with plenty of striking footwear.

We soon had piles of clothes ready for the rails, which we hung (rose gold hangers for the women, wooden for the men, fact fans) and tagged, after a quick lesson on the tagging gun from Teresa. Check out the looks of concentration on Bradley's face for evidence that it wasn't quite as easy as first thought..

Fiona armed herself with the steamer and set to work steaming the clothes ready to be returned to the rails. It was a very satisfying job and we almost had to prise the steamer from her hands when time was up. A few us were tempted to smuggle it out of the shop and bin our irons at home!

It was soon time to go and Teresa was mightily grateful for our help, having made her Wednesday morning far easier. She had kindly bought drinks, Jaffa Cakes and Maltesers for us, which tempted some of us, energy for the run back to base. It was thankfully downhill on the way back, but I had craftily planned some hills runs for the fitness session. We were slightly scuppered by the lack of light and a wet surface, but we managed three before carefully making our way back through the park to stretch.

Next week takes us back to Upper Norwood Methodist Church to continue clearing the outside space, sign up here. I will bring lights but please bring a head torch if you have one, and gardening gloves. Here's hoping the weather will be kind to us..

Ten tree-mendous runners made fir-ly tree-sy work of clearing the streets of discarded Christmas trees.

A big welcome to Nick who was joining the Bromley group for the first time, and welcome back to Raven.

Our planned task was postponed so the Christmas tree hunt was brought forward a week. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I recall the trees being rather spiky last year, having had a little longer to dry out before being whisked away by our marvelous runners for chipping.

We headed to the park for a warm-up using the trusty stress pig to throw around the group, with the recipient choosing the warm-up exercise. After a round of star jumps, squats, high knees and leg swings, we switched our tree radars on and headed out on our hunt. Sam had spotted a tree on the way into the park, which was the first of many trees gathered.

My initial concerns about finding enough trees were unfounded as shouts of 'tree!' came thick and fast and we were soon laden down. We certainly raised a few eyebrows as our chain of trees made their way over the bridge at Penge East station. The next tree to be collected had tinsel and a bauble still on it, the owner evidently not doing a very thorough job when taking their decorations down! Our ingenious runners had decided to form a chain to carry as many trees as possible, with no fewer than 6 runners and 5 trees forming one long line along the pavement at one point. By the time we had reached the drop-off point at Mayow Park, we had gathered an impressive 9 trees, with some rather sizeable specimens amongst them. The gates to the park were locked so we heaved them over the railings, before splitting into small groups and heading off to search the roads around the park. Each of the groups returned with more trees, with special mention going to Reece and Ian who managed to find not one, not two but FIVE more trees, taking the groups final count to 19, a tree-rific effort.

As the task had worked our upper bodies so hard, I thought it only right to balance things out and give our legs a work-out. After a run back towards our start-point, we diverted to a local park where the speaker came out of my bag, prompting groans from those who knew what it meant.. Moby's 'Bring Sally Up', aka the squat song. I promise not to be so mean next week.

Talking of next week, we can hopefully reschedule our visit to Forest Hill, keep an eye on the task page here for an update and to sign up.

Seven Santa-stic runners headed to St Christopher's Hospice to provide some festive cheer for the patients and their families (and the staff, of which I am one).

A big Bromley welcome to Matt, who has visited 4 different areas for his 4 good deeds, with an aim to visit all boroughs. I hope you enjoyed your visit to Bromley Matt. Kat arrived in her festive finery, sporting snowflake leggings, a christmassy bobble hat and coloured lights around her rucksack.

Tonight's task was very close-by, so after a short warm-up in the park, we headed around the corner to the hospice, where Bradley was waiting to join us. I took the group into the Anniversary Centre, which is the hub of the hospice and is used by patients and their families as a cafe, waiting room and a space for arts and entertainment. Our task for the night was to decorate 2 christmas trees, one in the Anniversary Centre and one in the main reception.

Both trees had been securely wrapped in many strings of battery-powered lights before we had arrived, but we had been asked to remove these, to be replaced by mains-powered lights. This also meant moving both trees to a different location near a plug socket. Removing the battery lights was easier said than done, with FOUR sets around one tree, all inter-woven to make for a frustrating task. Matt, Kat and Jane did their best maypole dancing impressions, walking around the tree, passing lights under and over each others arms, trying to find the end of the seemingly never-ending strings of lights. Once they had finally been removed, they set to work untangling the new lights, weaving them around the newly-positioned tree. They had chosen a red and gold colour scheme for the tree, with robins artfully perching on branches amongst the baubles and beads. There were a LOT of robins in the decoration box, but they rightly went for the 'less is more' approach.

The second tree was being tackled by Bradley, Clare and Darryl, who went for a silver and white theme, which looked really stylish with their string of blue lights. Rather than the lights, it was the knotted silver beads that caused frustration, but they had soon unraveled them and adorned the tree. Pine cones on sticks caused much confusion and hilarity, before being returned to the box.

Whilst the 2 teams were hard at work, I climbed onto the reception desk to hang giant baubles from the ceiling, to add a festive touch to the reception desk. Whilst we were working, Colin the hospice cat made a brief appearance, unfortunately not hanging around long enough for a photo, and refusing our offer of a bit of mince pie.

Time had shot by and it was soon time to leave. The trees looked fantastic as we tidied the excess decorations away before heading out into the cold night for a short run back to our start point. Next week is another task for St Christopher's, helping in the newly opened, and rather swish, Crystal Palace charity shop. Sign up here for another feel-good Tuesday evening. Last but definitely not least, don't forget our Christmas bash this Thursday night, sign up here and come a-quizzing.