Volunteer Update - August 2022

A very warm welcome to the Volunteer Hub and to the volunteer update for August 2022.

As always a big thank you to all our volunteers all over the world. We’ve seen over 130,000 volunteering instances in the month of July which is an amazing figure, and a testament to how our volunteers are at the heart of everything that we do at parkrun.

Event Day Course Check - thank you teams!

The role of ‘Event Day Course Check’ involves checking that the course is safe for everyone taking part in parkrun that day.

Event teams received an email earlier this month explaining that this important role was becoming compulsory for all teams around the world.

Since then, we have seen the percentage of teams confirming this role in their Volunteer Roster increase from 24% to 91% so far, which is great to see. Thank you.

It really is important for insurance purposes and the safety of our events that this check is done in the morning prior to each event, so many thanks to everyone who has made sure that this role is carried out.

Hot/cold weather policy

With many of our Northern Hemisphere territories recently experiencing very high temperatures, it is perhaps a good time to remind everyone of our policies regarding hot and cold temperatures.

With events situated around the world, we have a huge amount of experience of holding events in high temperatures, and generally we find that people who live in extreme climates tend to cope very well.

We tend to see most temperature- related issues where parkrunners aren’t used to the temperatures they are participating in and where a lack of experience leads them to over-exert themselves in the heat.

parkrun takes place early in the day, before temperatures rise to their highest levels. However, it’s useful for teams to be aware of the signs of heat-related conditions so that they can take appropriate action if a parkrunner is identified as experiencing heat exhaustion at an event.

Thank you to everyone for keeping an eye on our fellow parkrunners and helping to keep all our participants safe during our events.

Run Director

We continue our series of volunteer videos with the volunteer role of Run Director. The Run Director has overall responsibility for event safety and oversees proceedings during the event and at the finish line. They must be near the start and/or finish area at all times. The Run Director has the ultimate authority to decide whether the event should be cancelled or postponed or if an adjustment to the course is required.

Importantly, the Run Director must not complete the course or perform any other volunteer role whilst the event is taking place.

Thank you for sharing this video and the other videos in the volunteering series on your social media channels to let your communities know all the different ways to volunteer at parkrun.

Volunteers doing more than one role

We want to remind everyone that people can be assigned to more than one role - indeed, potentially multiple roles - at each parkrun event.

For example, a volunteer may carry out the Event Day Course Check and the Pre-Event Set Up before volunteering as a Timekeeper or Barcode Scanner. And similarly a Run Director may also receive a volunteer credit for Results Processing , and the First Timers Welcome may be done by a volunteer who also has another role on the day too.

Giving credits for all the roles that our volunteers carry out helps to highlight the different tasks required to deliver parkrun each week, and makes sure that our volunteers are fully recognised for everything they do.

Meet parkrun team Cambridge New Zealand

Kia Ora, We are Cambridge NZ parkrun in the mighty Waikato Region of the central north of the north island of New Zealand. What we love most about parkrun is the community connectedness it creates. We love the looks of accomplishment on parkrunners’ faces as they cross the finish line or complete a volunteer task, and we especially love the fact that it is free and open to everyone. parkrun isn't a race but volunteering at parkrun is totally winning.

We encourage volunteering by making sure we include photos on social media of our volunteers enjoying their participation as well as the walkers and runners doing their thing.

We find that telling people about the opportunities on parkrunday encourages future volunteering and of course giving them a volunteer credit for whatever role they do often leads to more help being offered. We also use our community grapevine Facebook page to advertise the event and promote the benefits of volunteering.

Wherever you are in the world, enjoy volunteering, walking, jogging, running or spectating at parkrun throughout August .

James Kemp
Global Operations Manager