It was back to the Tolworth Recreation Centre on a muggy Tuesday for our regular clean-up of the Kingston Pantry, the area's foodbank. Shelves needed re-arranging and wiping, tackled with enthusiasm by Ben, Hazel, Jana and Rachel while Tom volunteered to don the plastic gloves and separate frozen pastries into small bags. Some rapid hoovering by Claire and we were done.

Susan, who runs the foodbank, is always delighted to see us and even furnished the group with Cadburys Time Outs, which none of us could remember having for ages. A fine reward for a rewarding task.

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.

Seven of us met at the Quaker Centre for our group run to Kingsgate Student Pantry. All the students have finished for the year and were heading home so the foodbank needed to be packed up for the summer.

Sarah greeted us when we arrived and we were soon put to work. Emma, Ed and Claire wiped down the fridges in the sun room, Hazel and Ben wiped the fridges by the stairs and Dave and Luke wiped down the buckets and containers. We powered through the tasks so Sarah brought over a big box of herbs and spices and we decanted the big bags into smaller plastic packets for individual use.

Soon we were all done and it was time to run home. Great session everyone! We'll be back in October to help organise the food bank when the students are back. Hope to see you there.