parkrun

[RizzoTheRat]

552 runners this morning, probably about 70-100 up on our average. That's a lot of new years resolutions

[Cybertronian]

We also had a swell this morning to 746, consisting of 86 first timers, and 118 unknowns. Granted, a percentage of the first timers could be visiting from other events, and a percentage of the unknowns may have simply forgotten their barcodes.

Edited by Cybertronian on Saturday 7th January 18:30

[Halb]

I volunteered today, numbers were wel up!

[john2443]

110,666 in the UK - previous record 101,420.

171,557 worldwide at 865 events, previous record 156,846 at 864 events.

Both on Christmas eve.

Madness

Edit - updated when more results in.

Edited by john2443 on Sunday 8th January 09:01

[FreeLitres]

From Parkrun UK:

A little bit of history has been made – 10,000 people have registered with parkrun in a single day for the first time ever!

For the record, the first 10,000 parkrun registrations took 3 years, 2 months and 4 days.

[john2443]

FreeLitres said:

From Parkrun UK:

A little bit of history has been made – 10,000 people have registered with parkrun in a single day for the first time ever!

For the record, the first 10,000 parkrun registrations took 3 years, 2 months and 4 days.

My mate who came along to watch while I ran yesterday, first time he's been, signed up when we got home with barcode 3 million and 70 some thousand.

[markh1973]

Nice snowy parkrun this morning in Orpington. Little lad moaned most of the way round - my suggestion that he wouldn't have had cold hands if he had worn gloves like I suggested.

[KTF]

Is anyone on here a parkrun Ambassador? I have an interview about becoming one in early Feb as they were looking for more people in my area.

I just wondered what sort of things they would ask? The application form was pretty detailed from what I recall so I am assuming that they will run through the information on that?

[Cybertronian]

KTF said:

Is anyone on here a parkrun Ambassador? I have an interview about becoming one in early Feb as they were looking for more people in my area.

I just wondered what sort of things they would ask? The application form was pretty detailed from what I recall so I am assuming that they will run through the information on that?

If nobody responds to you before Saturday, I'll ask a friend of mine when I see him about his experience during the interview process. He did become one during the formative years, so it's possible the process has changed. He's now no longer an ambassador after several years at it, citing that he wanted to re-focus on serving our local home event.

[KTF]

Thanks. Would be interesting to know what his experience of it was. Will have to be after Feb though as I have a third place in the last ever points competition to defend

[john2443]

My friend is, he was worried that the interview would be a real grilling, but turned out to be a relaxed chat in the cafe after parkrun. (The funny thing is that he started as one of my RDs and is now my ambassador so my apprentice has become my boss, sort of. Fortunately we get on very well, so no problems!)

I think the main things were to confirm that he wasn't a total knob and he was on board with the basic principles - keep it simple, run not race, inclusive etc.

IIRC the first qualification is that you're an ED or RD, if so you'll know enough about how it works. Someone else will be ambassador for your event to avoid conflict of interest.

The ambassadors do a lot of work and training with the teams setting up new events and are the first person an ED contacts if there's a problem - it used to be that we went direct to HQ but now it's got to big for that so the ambassador structure handles it.
Because ambassadors are still vols HQ give good back up so anything you're unable to handle can be passed up to someone who's being paid to do it.

PM me if there's anything you don't want to ask on here.

<whisper> On the assumption that you 'pass', keep the 16/17/18 June free

[Smitters]

Time to get back to it this weekend for me - been too long.

Just a heads up - there's a new-ish PR in Wootton-Under-Edge, South Gloucestershire. They're at about ten runs I think. I'll get over and give it a go soon.

[KTF]

john2443 said:

My friend is, he was worried that the interview would be a real grilling, but turned out to be a relaxed chat in the cafe after parkrun. (The funny thing is that he started as one of my RDs and is now my ambassador so my apprentice has become my boss, sort of. Fortunately we get on very well, so no problems!)

I think the main things were to confirm that he wasn't a total knob and he was on board with the basic principles - keep it simple, run not race, inclusive etc.

IIRC the first qualification is that you're an ED or RD, if so you'll know enough about how it works. Someone else will be ambassador for your event to avoid conflict of interest.

The ambassadors do a lot of work and training with the teams setting up new events and are the first person an ED contacts if there's a problem - it used to be that we went direct to HQ but now it's got to big for that so the ambassador structure handles it.
Because ambassadors are still vols HQ give good back up so anything you're unable to handle can be passed up to someone who's being paid to do it.

PM me if there's anything you don't want to ask on here.

<whisper> On the assumption that you 'pass', keep the 16/17/18 June free

Thanks for the information. I suspected it was more of a 'chat' to suss you out rather than a grilling as such.

I am already an RD at my local event so know the principles of parkrun, what each role involves, have trained up new RD, etc. so should have a broad enough knowledge to be useful as an Ambassador. I like the idea that it is a 'floating' role rather than being tied to one particular parkrun so I can still be involved with my local one as well as helping out the others (both existing and new) in the local area.

I did wonder if there was an 'ambassadorcon' and have already had a few ferrero rocher based comments

If I have any questions after they have been in touch again I will let you know.

[john2443]

KTF said:

I did wonder if there was an 'ambassadorcon'

It's a bloody good weekend! Bring your running shoes and drinking boots, lots of both to be done!

[Cybertronian]

KTF said:

Thanks. Would be interesting to know what his experience of it was. Will have to be after Feb though as I have a third place in the last ever points competition to defend

Spoke to my friend, the ex-ambassador. As I thought, he became one before it was a thing, so they pretty much welcomed anybody who wanted to do it.

He did say if you're already a run director, then you're pretty much already there. Best of luck!

[KTF]

Thanks for speaking to him about it. The ED at our local one also had a chat with a guy that used to do it and said similar. Seems you get quite a large area to cover but will see what they say after they have had a chat in February.

Edited by KTF on Saturday 21st January 20:45

[john2443]

KTF said:

Thanks for speaking to him about it. The ED at our local one also had a chat with a guy that used to do it and said similar. Seems you get quite a large area to cover but will see what they say after they have had a chat in February.

I think they try to only give you 8 events to cover (this doesn't always work as new events get added) A few years ago 8 could be 100 miles to the extremes, but now it might only be 20 miles. Our ambassador used to have most of Surrey, Sussex and Kent, but there are now 4 or 5 covering that area.

[KTF]

An ex-ambassador for our area used to cover Southampton, Andover, Basingstoke area which is quite a patch. Might have changed now there are more in the area though.

I don't know if you would be expected to visit them on a semi regular basis or if it's generally backup by email for existing ones and more focus on assisting setting up new ones.

My chat is booked for Feb 7 so will find out more then...

[john2443]

KTF said:

An ex-ambassador for our area used to cover Southampton, Andover, Basingstoke area which is quite a patch. Might have changed now there are more in the area though.

I don't know if you would be expected to visit them on a semi regular basis or if it's generally backup by email for existing ones and more focus on assisting setting up new ones.

My chat is booked for Feb 7 so will find out more then...

Our ambassador doesn't visit very often, but as he's a mate I see him around at parkruns, pubs and races anyway, if we had a problem we'd ask him to come over. He does mail now and then with news and updates. I guess when you start it's worth going in person to introduce yourself.

Keep in mind that it's a voluntary job and HQ are quite keen on not giving vols more work than they can cope with, so it's reasonable for you to say that you will only look after events with (eg) 20 miles of home - it's not like a job interview where you'll accept all sorts of silly journeys because you need the job/money!
It's better for them to have a happy person doing 5 local events than an unhappy-stretched-beyond-what-they-can-reasonably-do person doing 15 over a big area!

[KTF]

Yeah, the plan would be to visit them every now and again - initially to say hello then as/when required. I cant remember when our local ambassador last visited (or even emailed us) so I dont think there is a requirement to touch base that often.

The person doing the interview seems to the regional ambassador coordinator and we have not had anything to say that our existing ambassador is moving on so they may just be looking for more people to cover the increase in events.