Providing a good level of support is critical to our events being safe, accessible, and inclusive, and to our volunteers being able to carry out their roles appropriately. As such, we have developed a global model where volunteer Event Ambassadors provide front-line support to their local events. Every event should know their Ambassador and should feel comfortable reaching out to them with questions, confident they will be taken seriously and any concerns or questions will be addressed promptly and appropriately.
Should an Ambassador not be able to provide help in a specific situation then all parkrun volunteers are encouraged to contact parkrun HQ via eventsupport@parkrun.com where their question will be triaged and assigned to the most appropriate member of staff or volunteer.
We also encourage peer support amongst Event Directors and, as such, every parkrun Event Director has the option of joining a dedicated internal communications (Slack) channel that contains fellow Event Directors from their region, Ambassadors, and parkrun staff.
2.3.1 Event Support Procedure
parkrun Event Support operates a Single Point of Contact support model allowing the Support Team to manage the growth of thousands of parkrun events in multiple countries.
To allow further growth we must continue to promote that all contact from any event team or ambassador must be sent to eventsupport@parkrun.com from the parkrun.com email address. If the request does not come in this way it may be rejected.
Why do we promote a single point of contact to event teams and ambassadors?
Event teams and Ambassadors need to know how to engage with the single point of contact and be assured that their question/issue will be properly addressed by the appropriate colleague.
The Global Support Team has a wide range of knowledge and experience and as such can triage all the tickets we receive globally.
Examples are:
- need to request an update to your website
- need to request some new/additional equipment
- need to update an events Risk Assessment
- have a problem with any parkrun technology
- have a question for HQ (and have asked your Ambassador and/or checked the Volunteer Hub)
Please email eventsupport@parkrun.com from the parkrun.com email address.
The procedure
Any emails sent to eventsupport@parkrun.com enter our ticketing system. This system will send an automatic reply to let you know that we have received your request.
Your request will go into a queue which is reviewed daily by the Support Team. Most queries are answered within one working day by the Support Team, but any queries that can’t be answered straight away will be escalated to the appropriate person or team to respond to your query in a timely manner.
If you need to update the ticket please do so by replying directly to the confirmation email you will have received.
Where the information required is available on a parkrun support website the response to the ticket will offer this as a solution.
Any password reset requests will only be actioned when requested by the Event Director.
In summary
- Requests must be directed to eventsupport@parkrun.com and come from the parkrun.com email address.
- You will receive an automatic reply to let you know that we have received your request.
- Requests will be reviewed on a daily basis for the support team to action.
- All requests will be reviewed and responded to.
- All password resets must be directed to eventsupport@parkrun.com and will only be actioned when requested by the Event Director.
2.3.2 Event day support
An online chat facility is available to help volunteers with results processing issues on an event day. Click on the orange bubble in the top right hand corner when logged into EMS. This service is staffed by Ambassadors, and is monitored by the Support Team.