June 2022
A warm welcome to the Volunteer Hub and thanks for dropping by to have a look at the volunteer update for June.
You might have seen recently that we’ve been working on an exciting new project to bring parkrun to life in print!
The parkrun magazine will challenge everything you thought you knew about ‘running’ magazines. A publication that is inclusive, representative, supportive and kind; that, like parkrun, strives to change the face of physical activity.
The magazine should be available at most parkruns in the UK from the weekend of June 4-5th onwards, so look out for it at your local event and grab a copy! If you’re unable to get hold of one, you’ll be able to order one from Monday 6 June via the global parkrun shop.
As this is a pilot, at this stage the magazine will only be available in the UK. We may look to expand this to other territories in the future.
Changes to the COVID-19 Framework
As you may well have recently seen, in line with COVID restrictions being relaxed across the majority of the parkrun world, we have condensed what we previously called our COVID-19 Framework into a distinct section now referred to as COVID-19 Guidance within the Volunteer Hub.
In many locations where we operate there are no longer any COVID-related legal restrictions that impact our events and therefore all of those events can now return to normal.
In practical terms this means that finish tokens can once again be sorted in the café after the event and volunteer vests no longer need to be washed or quarantined between events.
With regards to barcode scanning, we still believe that the ratio of one scanner per 50 participants at 5k events and one to 25 at junior events is best practice for events, but this is a recommendation and no longer a requirement.
Adding your parkrun barcode when using the Virtual Volunteer App
If you are undertaking a volunteer role that requires you to use the Virtual Volunteer App, please follow the steps below to add your personal barcode, if you have not done so already.
Open up the Virtual Volunteer App, click on the cog wheel, and follow the instructions to ‘Scan Now’.
Your phone will now retain your details so there’s no need to scan your barcode again when next scanning or timing and submitting your results, making things easier for you and the event team.
Course Marshal
We continue the series of our volunteer videos with the volunteer role of Course Marshal. The main tasks performed by marshals are guiding, interacting and encouraging our walkers, joggers and runners around the course, warning them of any obstacles or hazards, alerting the Run Director to any incidents, as well as ensuring that other park users are aware of our presence.
Please take a look at the video series on our YouTube channel, where there’s also many other inspiring stories from our communities. Thank you.
100 club wristbands at junior parkrun
At junior parkrun events (currently in Australia, Ireland and the UK) we are delighted to announce that 100 junior parkrun club milestone wristbands are now available.
These can be ordered via Event Support and are available in bags of five.
It is an amazing achievement for our junior parkrunners to reach this milestone and certainly worth celebrating!
Use of Event Narrative function in WebFMS
The ‘event narrative tab’ provides a log of all the actions on the volunteer roster, and who made them. It is also possible to ‘add a comment’ thus enabling teams to record useful information relevant to the smooth operation of their event on a given day.
For example, you may want to assign a marshal to a particular spot, explain a role to a brand new volunteer, or add a useful reminder for milestone celebrations for the pre-event briefing.
Comments can be viewed via the ‘event narrative’ and also appear at the bottom of the volunteer roster when printed.
Meet parkrunner Bridget, from Tralee parkrun, Ireland
“I remember feeling so anxious that first morning of volunteering, I’m not sure what I thought was going to happen! I felt volunteering took very little effort, so much so that I volunteered a couple of weeks later, and a couple of weeks after that, and a few more after that.
“Because parkrun takes place every week all around the world with thousands of other walkers, joggers, runners and volunteers, I feel an internal sense of pride in getting to take part in and be a member of the parkrun global community.”
Wherever you are in the world, I hope you enjoy a June full of parkrunning, whether that is volunteering, walking, jogging, running or spectating.
James Kemp
Global Operations Manager