How to volunteer at parkrun

parkruns are community events delivered every weekend by volunteers. Anyone and everyone can be a volunteer. You need no prior experience and you can volunteer regularly, or just once in a while.

All the roles are explained to you on the day, it’s super easy, fun and rewarding. Plus you get to feel a part of your local community. Fancy giving it a go? Here’s how.

1. Send an email to your local parkrun

The simplest way to sign up to volunteer is to send an email to your local parkrun. You can find your local event here, and you can locate their email address on your event’s home page, under the ‘volunteer’ tab.

Let the team know when you’d like to volunteer (it might be the coming event, or further ahead), and if you have a preference, you can say what role you might like (or not like!) to do. Include your parkrun barcode number too. Then, the volunteer coordinator will be in touch to book you in. Easy.

2. Tell the event team when you’re at parkrun

When you’re at parkrun, just tell the team (someone in a high-vis vest) that you would like to volunteer (again, you may want to volunteer the following week, or another date in the future) and they will help book you in.

3. Sign up to receive Volunteer emails

You can choose the events you would like to hear from by signing into your parkrun profile here.

Or you can click the ‘volunteer opt-in’ button when you receive your results email after taking part in a parkrun. This then means that you’ll receive emails in the future from your local event when there are specific roles still available. You can just reply to the email to sign yourself up.

4. Check the event team’s social media page

You can keep up-to-date with the local team’s news by checking out their Facebook and other social media pages. It’s a great place to see stories from the community and find out what roles are available or ask any questions you might have ahead of the day.

There are lots of reasons why you may want to give volunteering a go, perhaps you’re new to the area and want to meet people, or maybe you’re looking to challenge yourself to learn more skills, or feel part of the parkrun community. Volunteering also gives you a volunteer credit, counting towards the parkrun milestone t-shirts.

No matter the reason, we’d love to see you in high-vis!

Don’t worry if you’re not sure which volunteer role is best for you, you can read all about them here, or just drop the event team a message, they’ll be more than happy to explain and help find a role suitable for you.

Many roles can be combined with walking, jogging or running parkrun, if you still want to get that 5k in, and most can be done with children – providing a fun morning for the whole family.

If you haven’t given it a go before, we hope that you’ll give it a try!