Last summer we headed to INS to prep and paint their garden furniture and today we did the same again after the last sat was sadly stolen from the garden.

With six chairs and a large table to do, it was great to have many active hands to scrub, wipe and paint them black, looking as good as new when we were done!

A huge welcome to Mersa for the first time, ans a thank you to task owner Sarah who always welcomes us warmly and was keen to celebrate Volunteer's Week with us.

We had multiple jobs to do at Strand on the Green School last night — finishing off painting the nursery, moving a huge terrace-full of old furniture and toys down the stairs to the skip, and hedge cutting. Three different jobs, three skill sets, no problem.

We ran over to the task where we met caretaker Clare and got straight to work. Michelle, Breda, Lucy and Emily tackled the nursery painting, Jon, Kash, Maxime, Chris, Jonny and Fran became an efficient furniture-moving conveyor belt up and down the stairs, while Gus and Luis turned hedge cutting into an art form outside.

Within just 45 minutes all three jobs were complete. With 12 of us working for 45 minutes, that’s the equivalent of 9 hours (or a full working day!) of work saved for one caretaker — and Clare was delighted with how much time we’d saved her.

With the jobs done, it was time for a lower body blast with three different intensity options to keep everyone moving. We’re also all still wondering what Michelle’s mysterious final blue item could be… answers on a postcard.

After that, we headed back to base for stretches on the grass and a well-earned cool down.

Next week we’re off to Gunnersbury to sort compost — see you there for what will hopefully be a slightly cooler task!