With the Tri-Anglia Volunteer take-over at Sloughbottom parkrun this coming Saturday, 15th Feb 2020, now seems a good time to have a little review of what our involvment is within the awesome parkrun community.
Whilst this Saturday's volunteer take-over is the first time that Tri-Anglia has on mass provided all the volunteers to a parkrun, it is far from the first time that a member has volunteered. That first voluntary contribution to the parkrun world is hard to credit, though Carla Potter was one of the individual's instrumental in the first parkrun taking place at Eaton Park must be amongst our parkrun pioneers. That event has it's 10th birthday coming up at the start of August.
Other Tri-Anglia members over the years have been instrumental at parkruns. Former member Richard Polley is pretty much the face of Norwich parkrun. Sarah Gray was instrumental in getting Blickling parkrun created. David Horton Fawkes instrumental at Holkham parkrun. Steve Dickens was heavily involved at Thetford parkrun. Amy Shawcross with Leigh Bridges Junior parkrun. We have several members (and I know I'm going to miss some) who are race directors at various parkruns – in addition to the above we have Jill Dawson at Brandon, Jon Rowden at Norwich, Sue Flute at Norwich Junior, Liz Clues at Brundall and Pamela Abbott at Cambridge.
We do off course run at parkrun and we get a regular consolidated weekly report that John uses as an input to Transition times each week.
That consolidated weekly report shows which parkrunners with Tri-Anglia as their stated club have parkrun the last weekend and what their time was. It doesn't tell us if the member got a course PB, or if it's the first time that a Tri-Anglian has completed a particular parkrun. Would have thought that Russell Clarke down under at the Cenntenial parkrun last Saturday would have been a good shout for a first TA appearance, but not so Richard Savelli beat him to that (Cenntenial parkrun results for Tri-Anglia). However it does look like ex-member Rebecca Wass is still tagged to Tri-Anglia in her parkrun profile and she managed just that at Ecos parkrun, Ballymena last Saturday. Oh, and if John spots a name connected to another club that he recognises he will give them a shout as well.
Haven't found a parkrun generated page giving an overview of all Tri-Anglia's parkrunners, how many parkrun's they've done, how many different parkrun's they have done and how many times they have volunteered. The biggest list of Tri-Anglia parkrunners that I've found, is unsurprisingly on the Tri-Anglia at Norwich parkrun page. That list reports that 311 of us have completed Norwich parkrun 6032 times at the last count (this report compiled 13 Feb 2020). The table on that page can be sorted by a number of different columns and from that table an individual's parkrun history can be accessed. From that table and a bit of snooping (and not through all 311 Tri-Anglians) I can see Rod Main has notched up the most parkruns with 383 across 24 different venues. Knowing David Hudson likes a bit of parkrun tourism I can stalk 40 different parkrun venues in his 107 parkrun history. Is that our most parkrun tourism? I'm also impressed with Chris Groves whose 166 parkruns have all been at Norwich, and he has also volunteered 47 times.
Who was the first Tri-Anglian to run in a parkrun? Ian Hacon is laying claim to that. He is the one who registered Tri-Anglia with parkrun when he registered for his parkrun barcode and from searches through results he is the first TA to appear in the Gorelston results at their thirteen edition on the 18th July 2009. There are two TA members with lower parkrun numbers.
With 1,639 parkuns globally and 689 parkruns in the UK (last week according to Elliott Line's parkrun stats) I'm not proposing or volunteering to track through all the results weekly, though it's been fun to produce this report as a one off. (If anyone knows how to craft a page like Elliott Line's do please come forward.)
I do think it would be neat though to have a manually crafted page to praise our members who have obtained that Volunteered 25 times t-shirt. If you like that idea, do please comment below.
If you notch up a parkrun achievement (or other achievement), do let John Lee know for inclusion in Transition Times, our weekly newsletter, by emailing tt@tri-anglia.co.uk
And if you are about for a parkrun Saturday 15th Feb 2020, do come along to Sloughbottom parkrun where we'll be aiming to get a club photo at 8:30am.
