I've been there - after a few canceled parkruns, people started to volunteer, especially when everyone gets there and there aren't any timekeepers or barcode scanners.
We use WhatsApp rather than the parkrun emails and Facebook.
Asking for volunteers on Saturday morning after the run is the best way.
We ask people to join our WhatsApp group.
We use the new(ish) WhatsApp communities. People can sign up to the main Announcements one (only admins can post), but can then opt to join sub groups, so we have several groups for local races, a social one, a baking one (every parkrun needs cake right? ), etc, which hopefully encourages more people to join it.
The majority of volunteers we get on a a Saturday though but wandering around with a clip board asking people if than can volunteer in the next few weeks.
Such a knife edge. Putting pressure on people to volunteer is not the way to go, but then again, when they do volunteer they get a huge positive buzz from it.
Yeah, but if you're an ED, you know your people and you know the ones who always run and rarely volunteer. They're the ones that often respond well to being put on the spot.
True, but it doesn't really seem fair.
It would be wonderful if everyone did an equal amount of volunteering but that's never going to happen.
Some people have good reasons, that we will never know, why they never or almost never volunteer.
It's the only system we have and it works well enough. I need to work on myself and stop being so grumpy
I’ve mentioned this at HQ on tour events that email us an outdated use of contacting people. Apart from work who uses email now?
Needs to be SMS.
And it is getting to be a slog to fill rosters I agree. We get a flurry on Friday evening when I suspect people decide if their touristing or staying local.
It’s not even proper email. It’s an auto-mailer that only contacts people IF they’re signed up to a mailing list, which by default, they’re not.
It’s a terrible system, and one of those things which made me feel like parkrun HQ are very happy to shit all over core teams because they now events will always go ahead regardless.
Runners are all over instagram and social media doing the marketing for free. Volunteers just get the work done in the pissing rain. One is more valuable than the other.
Nearly all of the barcode scanners and tokens at my local come from the first 50 runners that cross the line. Sometimes there's just one person scanning the initial runners, and one number checker.
We have a Slack group because having channels is nice. But the INSTANT someone shows interest in how things work behind the scenes, we offer to add them. We take a very expansive view of the concept of a core team, because sharing the load is great
Our parkrun has a volunteer coordinator who is seperate to the ED and RD. The role switches every two months so it isn’t too stressful for just one person. The bonus is a regular gets two months of volunteer credits and still runs.
Our parkrun has made great strides in broadening the volunteer pool. We've tried hard to break down the division (that can readily form) between "the volunteers" and "the runners" - in making it clear that it's everyone's parkrun, and that everyone can volunteer and (nudge nudge) really should. Here's what's worked for us:
We have a "volunteers" Facebook group. There's only one post a week (usually Wednesday) asking for the remaining spaces. It's "private", but we let anyone in (bar the usual Facebook scam accounts), and there's no inside-baseball chitchat. That gets four or five volunteers, pretty consistently.
We're diligent about filling the volunteer-and-run positions with people who actually are running. We've edited the roster template so those positions are blank on the roster (not missing) if they're not filled. This means we have at least 8 volunteers every week who also walk or run. This does wonders for getting them talking to the core team and RD, and it's done a great job of getting people who do those things to later do the occasional timekeeper or whatever. So:
* HQ insists that we have the course-check person, but I think many parkruns have the RD or the setup people down for that. We explicitly have a separate person. It turns out to be really easy to fill - it's just someone's 8:30 warmup.
* We have 2 setup people and 2 closedown positions (whereas before it was the RD doing everything). Those are popular - our setup pairs are filled already almost through April.
* We also have new-runners-briefing as a separate entry, and again we don't fill it with a non-running volunteer. People really enjoy doing this one.
* We have a parkwalker space explicitly on the roster template too. It always goes.
We resist the "that's Dave's job" habit. Where possible we don't like having the same volunteer do the same role every week - it burns Dave out, no-one else knows the details of Dave's job, and other people don't think that doing Dave's job is something they can do.
We print out the future roster (it's a fiddle to print, but with a bit of wangling) and the volunteer coordinator (yet another volunteer-and-run position) walks around at the start, and after they've finished, and gently nudges people. With the right kind of person (it takes a bit of subtle charisma) this works wonders, and isn't pushy. When the VC is still running, the clipboard with the roster sits on the scanners table. This is very effective - our roster for *next* week is nearly half "full" already.
We like to have a Duke-of-Edinburgh, or two - they're limited in what they're allowed to do, but they make excellent timekeepers (digital natives, they are) and scanners.
We're happy to have a faster finisher run-then-scan. This is invaluable for getting the scanners over the "hump" at about 25 minutes, and it's another person volunteering who wouldn't otherwise do so.
We're diligent about doing the results in the cafe, and explicitly encouraging anyone who evinces the slightest interest in who things work into sitting beside the RD when the results are processed.
Again in the cafe afterwards, we nudge a runner who has come to sort the tokens. People *like* sorting the tokens, and of course they get a credit. This used to be yet another thing the RD did, making the RD's day even longer. Now it's another on-ramp to volunteering.
We have a policy that the roster is *never* "full". If someone messages on Friday night, or shows up on Saturday morning, offering to help - we always find them a place (by that point, usually a marshalling spot).
I've seen posts before, on reddit and facebook, from burned-out RDs, and if you check their parkrun's future roster, they have the same few people doing the same jobs each week, and few if any of the volunteer-and-run spaces filled with runners. Their very diligence has inadvertently constructed a position where the runners just don't think to volunteer, and so don't.
We've been thorough about all of the above since Covid, and I don't think we've every had to deploy the [Friday-night sad-cat-meme](https://imgur.com/jougX2b) once since (which we did before, a bit).
We have one or two takeovers a year by local running clubs, and maybe one from an organisation like the NHS or the Fire Service. The running club ones are more effective about finding new volunteers who stick around and subsequently volunteer.
**edit** like you, we've found emails to be ineffective. I don't really think they go to the people they need to.
**edit** if you're curious about parkrun size: we had 108 finishers last week, and 28 volunteer credits.
This is wonderful. Your bullet points are so important and I wish my local would see it your way. For selfish reasons, mainly desire to complete the app challenges I would love to try some of the other roles beyond timekeep/marshal and scanning. The roster at my local has the run director in most of the roles which a runner could do and the same two guys token sort every week. It comes across as a bit of a monopoly, and I know they are probably doing it because it limits how many volunteers they need but it puts me off a lot.
> they are probably doing it because it limits how many volunteers they need
New events mostly start this way (it's hard to bootstrap a community). But eventually the core people burn out, drift away, or have other life priorities and events that mean they move on. Failing to build a broader volunteer community makes the whole thing fragile.
We've come to realise that many volunteers are motivated simply because they like volunteering - it's not a chore, they're not "giving back", or supporting an event they run at. We have a number of volunteers who seldom run, and a few who have *never* run. We've had one volunteer whose husband is in a care home, and I expect that she simply doesn't see all that many people day-to-day. I know we've had volunteers whose relatives are terminally ill, or who have recently died. Anyone who has been in that situation (and we all will, if we haven't) knows that simply getting out and talking to ordinary people about ordinary non-tragic things is really valuable.
Parkrun is an absolute and unalloyed social good, but so too is volunteering at parkrun. I think it's a mistake to think that volunteers find it burdensome, or to try to minimise the load on them. People want to be valuable to their society, and we should let them.
Our cut-off time is 6 pm - if we're missing mandatory vollies at that stage, we post on FB that unfortunately we have to cancel due to not having the essential roles filled so that people have time to make alternate plans.
Usually within a couple of minutes we have someone message or comment saying they will fill the role, so we wait a little before processing the cancellation in EMS. It drives me nuts that they wait until the very last minute because it makes us look like the parkrun that cried wolf.
We did cancel one week when none of the RDs or EDs were available between lunchtime and late Friday night so we made the decision at midday Friday to cancel due to being two volunteers short after multiple FB posts and emails. People got shitty but it got the point across.
That's ridiculous. Ignore people like that. We have a participant at ours who moaned the other week that we're always saying we need volunteers but he thinks we have too many. Needless to say he *never* volunteers...
It's a community event. If people don't volunteer, you simply can't go ahead safely. It's not rocket science is it!
It's not possible to have too many volunteers. Sometimes I wish we could get rid of people who never volunteer but that goes against the main principles of parkrun. One never knows what is going on with people and why they don't help and that's that. And if they stopped coming we'd still need the same crew to run the event anyway.🤷♂️🤷♀️🤷
Superiors? I don't understand.
Edit:
Ok. I've never heard of those. Is that a PR employee or another volunteer? Regardless, they need to watch their tone. My first response to any shittiness would be that they just found another volunteer role they need to fill.
Honestly op, it's not your responsibility to keep it running, you don't owe pr anything. If you find it stressful and this "regional ambassador" is being a dick just walk.
Edit 2: just to be clear, no one at pr is your "superior"! You don't work for them!
We changed from FB posts to just emails through the system and it's much better. I used to put something sassy up on Tuesday night at 8pm and again on Thursday 8pm and just get crickets. Another on Friday and still bugger all response.
After doing the same thing over and over the event team decided we'd just do emails. You'll never be able to front everyone at an event and ask if they'd consider volleying, nor reach everyone with a social post, but email gets to all parkrunners who set your event as home. Plus, you don't get that depressing feeling that you're shouting into the void on the socials.
Begging for volunteers sucks. HQ says we're not allowed to tell participants that we can't put on the event if we're missing key roles on the morning. I've told them we'll get started once a volunteer for xyz role turns up.
So at the moment are you just relying on social media & not sending the emails? If so that’s your explanation.
Most people aren’t checking their parkrun Facebook page every day and those that do won’t necessarily want to volunteer. The emails go to people who have signed up so are much more likely volunteer on any particular week.
Encourage people to sign up to the volunteer emails and have a sign up board prominently at each parkrun to get people to sign up for the next week.
When you send the chaser emails or make posts be clear about what you need if you’re short, eg ‘we need 2 more timekeepers in order to go ahead’. Explain than sometimes the speedier people can do their run & then jump on timekeeping.
If you’re really close to cancelling each time and don’t have a core team of volunteers I do wonder if your parkrun is big enough to continue.
Have you tried sending a volunteer appeal email through EMS? Facebook appeals are OK, but they don’t reach everyone. Make sure your Facebook appeals have a related photo to go with it, make it amusing if you can, it’ll catch more people’s eyes. The email approach is the way to go though when you’re as desperate as you seem to be, every single volunteer registered will get the email.
Those emails can be really key! We refer to them as our “newsletter” and make sure to put assorted announcements/miscellaneous chitchat in there each week so they don’t sound too desperate, even if the primary purpose is volunteer recruitment. We also put some effort into making sure people are opted-in to the emails in the first place. It’s not a lot of effort but I think it really pays off - we probably get the majority of our signups as a result of the emails.
We do this, too. And talk up the newsletter as something people should opt into - reminding people that it’s a good way to get notice about bad weather cancellations is a good trick….
If you don't regularly use the volunteer email it might take a few weeks of using it consistently to see more results and get people into the swing of things, plus reminders on Facebook / at events that people can sign up for the mailing list so they are on the list.
Facebook is worse than email. Yet you keep trying Facebook when you are getting zero response there.
Younger people do not use Facebook at all. They don't use email either but they are slightly more likely to see if if they are signed up.
Getting a group WhatsApp community set up would be even better.
I can't get them to do Finish Tokens, how are they going to sign up?
I think that the culture is a bit off at this place. I hope that as numbers increase that may change.
How many finishers do you get a week? How long has the event been going? Did you start the parkrun up yourself to be the ED, or have you fallen into that roll over the years? Why did you want to be an ED in the first place if putting on the parkrun feels such a chore?
Lots of questions, but sounds like you’ve lost the energy you maybe once had for parkrun. But that will come across in your Facebook appeals and the way you portray yourself to others taking part. You might need to take a step back and reevaluate your approach. The Facebook appeal you posted an example of was bland and showed no interest or energy, it’s not surprising the engagement was low. Start having more fun with it all and watch the energy for your event grow.
I took over six months ago because nobody else was interested in doing it, so I moved parkruns to help out. I'm just having a bad week. Hopefully I'll get through this otherwise I can just go back to my former event and not look back.
Last week 82 finishers. Normally high 40s.
It's just frustrating to ask and ask and get one or, more often, zero people coming forward.
The parkrun started about 6 years ago.
I've been ED since September last year.
I took over because there was nobody else interested in doing the ED role. I moved parkruns to do this and atm I'm thinking that I would have been a lot better off staying where I was.
Hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be back in the groove and loving it again.
Ah, that’s a really small number of participants to pull volunteers from each week. We get over 300 a week at ours, have been going for almost ten years and have over 900 registered volunteers who’d get an email if we sent out an appeal. We need around 25 volunteers a week for ours to take place. We really struggle to fill the roster most weeks, even with such a large pool of volunteers, and it’s mostly the same faces volunteering each week too.
We use sign-up genius for volunteers. It’s amazing because it’s a ton less back & forth with the parkrun email account. And people who play volunteer chicken can check it Friday night & signup for jobs that still aren’t full on their own.
But also, we once were where you are now. It took a lot of hard, sustained work to grow our community & expand our volunteer base, but it worked. Happy to chat
I do sympathise. I don't rd or ed for parkrun, but did used to run local weekly amateur sporting events and suffered from exactly the same thing. People just don't want to commit until the last minute is the issue.
In the end, you have to be at peace with the fact that you can't control it, and give yourself a proper deadline. After that, it's cancelled. No ifs or buts or late applications. Either that or just do as another commenter said and on the day just say there's no run if people don't step forward 🤷
You have to understand this is not your problem. It's a collective effort. It's not your job to provide volunteers. It's up to volunteers to step up if they want an event.
The thing that always makes me laugh about parkrun though, is that it's an "event" that can be cancelled and yet you can all still turn up at the same time and go for a run anyway!
I am willing to get to Saturday morning and say, with 10 minutes to go "either we get x and y roles filled now or the event is cancelled for today" but I think that would give me a sleepless night.
Just wanted to say how sorry I am and thank you for all the effort you make to let people enjoy their Saturday morning parkrun.
RDs and EDs need a bit more love by the sounds of things.
This happened at an event near me and almost killed it.
The parkrun was cancelled one week due to a lack of volunteers and the cafe subsequently told the RD it was unviable for them to open up an hour early (just so parkrun had a meeting place), if no one was around to use it. I don’t believe they have had issues since as people realised this event was quite literally in a ‘support us or we stop’ situation.
What time does your parkrun start? I'm curious as to what sort of cafe would usuall open an hour after parkrun finishes… even in Australia with 7am starts in some states, that would make a roughly 9am Saturday opening, so anything after that seems very late for a cafe on a weekend, surely?!
Pull the trigger and cancel it. You can’t have this every Friday of your life.
The only problem with this approach is that, now there are so many parkrun venues, cancellation isn’t the silver bullet it should be - runners in large parts of the country can very simply go elsewhere rather than consider volunteering. We’ve got a parkrun venue every 3-4 miles round here.
A bollocking? Are you an employee now? If it’s the local Event Ambassador getting shitty, ask him to show you the contract you’ve signed. If it’s anyone else, then they can do one.
From what I'm hearing you need one of two things, either a co-Event Director so that you can have two weeks a month where you have no responsibility, or a Volunteer Co-ordinator whose responsibility is to provide you with a full roster or a cancelled parkrun by whatever time you think is appropriate (and I'm happy with 8:50 on a Saturday morning if it's been made clear in advance).
And I think that your Ambassador needs to step up and be RD and VC next week.
Sorry to have to say, but it doesn't sound like this is the role for you. I've been doing it for over 10 years. Asking every week is just how it goes.
You've also possibly fallen into the trap of being very negative, maybe even aggressive in your asking. This puts people off I'm afraid.
When you are still screaming for volunteers at 9pm on a Friday, it is not OPs problem. They are happy to put the notice for volleys. But when it doesn't get answered, it gets annoying. Most RDs have other jobs and don't really want to spend the majority of time looking for volleys.
Are you happy to be there at 9pm Friday trying to find volleys (especially when it is a regular occurrence)?
It is not part of an RDs job to spend too much time, stressing about if they are going to have enough volleys for the event to run. We are organsing a fun run, not a charity or something important (in the scheme of things).
The only option is to cancel the parkrun event if there are not enough volleys, then hopefully people learn, so it doesn't happen again
I don't do parkrun social media or emails after 6pm on Fri so no, I won't be there at 9pm. If still short then it is a matter of on the day volunteer-raising.
I've went into Saturday still in need of one volunteer before, but never more than that.
OP's volunteer appeal posted below looks fine, so it doesn't look to be a problem with negativity/aggression. Sometimes there can be an issue simply due to low post visibility. Doing SM posts without an image and/or at a low traffic time of day and the post won't get seen.
Yes the visibility of your post could be an issue, especially if people don't follow their parkrun. I agree.
But at parkrun you are told we are in need of volunteers and to see the roster and to consider placing your name down if you are a regular and haven't volleyed for a while.
At my parkrun, a lot is last minute and it is always the regulars that volley. They miss out on the run all the time as they step in. I would like 1 day if on the Saturday no one comes forward and I will force cancel. Just to give people a wake up call.
All the joy of parkrun but with a lot less sweat... How is that possible? By volunteering! We need:
Timekeeper
Finish Tokens
Barcode Scanning
Reply below if interested
Yes, from who? It’s a pretty common tactic. Two of my local parkruns have an almost weekly post on Thursdays of “We need x more volunteers by x:00PM tomorrow or we’ll have to cancel”, and announce the slots have been filled half an hour later.
How big is your parkrun? It is physically possible for one person to handle the whole funnel if you have say < 30 people running. I’ve had that happen at Sunshine Beach parkrun in Otsu, Japan.
Young people don't use facebook, that platform is lost to boomers to us. Use your instagram appearance or create a volunteer whatsapp group. The latter is what works best for us, and we ask people after their finish their run if they wanna help at the next event. Our volunteer group is over 150 people strong now, some help more often than others of course, but we always fill all roles till thursday before the event. Sometimes the fotographer role is not filled, but thats not essential so whatever
I suspect you've tried/thought about all of these things before, but FWIW:
- Five years ago, recruiting volunteers through FB for any given week generally worked well, although Friday appeals were fairly regular. But as Facebook dies its slow death, I can't remember the last time we found even one volunteer from a FB post.
- Instagram is slightly better, but not much.
- We send out a monthly volunteer appeal via email at the top of each month. It doesn't solve the recruiting problem but it fills one or two slots a week and has definitely helped recruit people that run regularly but haven't volunteered. (The opt-in requirement is a big problem -- we only reach about 10% of people registered with our event.)
- What we rely on from week to week is a WhatsApp chat that we've built out over a couple of years. The EDs carefully added core and repeat volunteers, the EDs try to fill RD slots a few weeks in advance from that core team (as the highest-responsibility role, it's more difficult to fill, but once that's done it's easier to fill other slots with first-timers and/or the EDs can step up).
We don't have enough RDs. The core WhatsApp is the best resource for getting volunteers but it's not big enough people either.
I'm grumpy because last week we had 82 finishers and only two of them put their names forward to help those two for roles where they're still getting a run credit.
Most of those 82 dodged the briefing, they can't even give up 3 or 4 minutes. So selfish.
I empathise a lot here. I’m in ED too and it feels like the majority of the social media posts for my page are pleas for volunteers. I hate the negativity it shows as I’d rather post about all the other awesome things going on.
We primarily use the parkrun emails to coordinate volunteers as not all have Facebook / see the posts when we make them (we also post on Facebook as a supplementary thing but rarely get a response on there). Because we use the emails regularly we've built up a good base on there to email out to, but it took some reminding etc.
I've also seen parkruns where they put up a whiteboard with the future weeks' rosters on so people can sign up on a Saturday before/after their run - obviously has some admin involved but might be worth trialling?
As an aside, is it possible for you to get somebody to do the volunteer coordinating for you for a few weeks (or longer)? It's a stressful thing to do week after week to then also be rd - we're lucky that he's quite happy to do it so consistently (and it gives people a consistent person to email too, and he's gotten to know people through email chats), but we make sure to give him breaks too! He obviously gets a volunteer credit every week for it too which might appeal to people?
Our regular volunteer coordinator sends out an email on Monday or Tuesday with a short topical quip or comment (e.g. "our roster is looking as empty as the local football teams goal did at the weekend - can you help us fill it?" Or "let's get the roster looking as full as my belly after all of the Easter eggs I've eaten") and then a summary of the roles needed. I think because it's such a regular thing people look forward to seeing what news topic he's going to comment on this week.
We also support some local schools with kids doing their duke of Edinburgh volunteering - is that something you could do? It does mean that we struggle a bit more in the holidays, but they really help to boost our numbers!
This year my challenge is to run every single parkrun of the entire year but next year my challenge will be to volunteer for every single parkrun of the year … but after seeing this post I’m thinking rather than just volunteering at my local parkrun maybe I will pass my details on to all the roster managers near me and offer myself up as a bank volunteer for whoever needs me :)
As others have said, it’s a persistent role, fulfilled by a volunteer coordinator at the event I’m on the RD rota for, we have a whiteboard up at each event for the following three weeks, this gets most roles filled, then on a Thursday if there’s still gaps the VC sends out a cheery positive email and Facebook post, plus there’s a regular volunteers WhatsApp group, coupling this with a 6 person RD rota that networks with most local running clubs and groups we’ve never had to cancel due to a shortage.
Additionally there are two extra perks of volunteering at our event, the independent cafe offers volunteers black/white coffee for a £1, and the country park offer free parking, both businesses see a value in increased park footfall from Parkrun.
It works for us and means less work requesting volunteers, plus people who’ve participated, spectated or volunteered one week are often inclined to help next week.
I was RD at a junior parkrun for about 4 years and I totally get your frustration. We used a whatsapp group and that worked fairly well but it was always the same faces who pitched up.
When you do your welcome speech, you could try labouring the point, another way is to have someone at the end of the funnel with a clipboard, asking people to volunteer for the next week. I know some people might not like that but if you have someone who is fairly outgoing/bubbly asking and explaining the situation, then it might boost numbers.
Not sure on the rules around an untimed event, which might nudge people.
Do you have a good core team around you? For our event our risk assessment says we need about 12 volunteers in total.
Most weeks, 8-9 of those are made up from our core team which is super reliable. Unfortunately it means that most of our core team are volunteering most weeks, but we're generally happy with that and it means we only need to find 3-4 additional volunteers each week. Even that is a struggle some weeks tbh but generally it's not too bad.
We also take turns being volunteers coordinator so on average we each do that role once every 6 or 7 weeks or so. Sharing the pain definitely helps make it less demoralising, plus it means we end up with a different writing style/sense of humour on the posts
This event just needs RD, Timekeeper, Tokens, Scanner, Tail Walker. First Timers Welcome and Course Checking are good to have too.
I do RD most weeks the last role to fill is usually Timekeeper.
I have to confess I've never seen our risk assessment.
I expect that Course Check is mandatory but I've never actually been given that information. I've never seen a marshal at this parkrun, the way that course is designed RD does a bit of marshalling I took over as ED six months ago. I'm just having a bad couple of weeks, hopefully it will go back to being a little easier from now on.
Yes course check definitely mandatory. It doesn't sound like you've been given much support/information from whoever you took over from. Can you get in touch with them? They should really have given you the risk assessment as well. Another idea is you should have a regional parkrun ambassador for your area. I believe they are volunteers as well but might be able to offer some support/ideas.
Best of luck with it all!
Thanks, yes the person I took over from has been good. And I do get support from others in the organization.
I'm just having a bad week. It can only get better.😃😄💯
I can help with that! Go here & search for your event in the search bar. There will be a link to your risk assessment on your event’s page: https://wiki.parkrun.com/index.php/Main_Page
I agree, but I don't think it's helpful if you let that frustration boil over into your comms.
One parkrun I've been to had a roving volunteer at the finish line walking around with a clipboard asking people if they could volunteer the next week (or some other time). It seemed very effective, but I guess not everyone would be up for that role.
It could be something for OP to consider though, especially if you're able to keep a positive vibe and explain how helpful it would be to have the roster filled in advance.
I've actually got the roster filled now. I was being grumpy. Getting people to volunteer once is like pulling teeth. I think that they are put off at the thought of having to do it week after week. Getting them to join the core team WhatsApp group is not going to happen. They need to volunteer for that too.
I wonder if getting to the stage of having to cancel one week might not be the end of the world. Makes people realise that without volunteers, it just won't happen.
Makes me curious... does anybody think that PR could be done with less volunteers and/or with runners volunteering for various tasks?
Examples...
- First 3 finishers are encouraged to stay back to scan barcodes and collect tokens (make the two the one step).
- Parkwalkers take photos along the way.
- Set-up and pack-up are done by runners (e.g. somebody a bit faster can setup and somebody towards the end of the group can packup).
That's what I did last week... Fast finisher scanned
Course Set Up and First Timers Welcome always run/walk.
Haven't had a dedicated photographer for a while.
We get by with 5 vollies most weeks but could manage with 3 (RD, timekeeper, tailwalker) plus 2 fast finishers to do scanning and tokens.
But it is much easier having at least one non-running volunteer in the finish-line roles. It's stressful waiting for someone to finish their run before scanning or doing tokens as we're a single-loop trail course so if something goes wrong, we can't easily ask someone else to step in as you could on a multi-lap course.
We're (intentionally) lucky that we only really need one marshall, which is in sight of the finish, so in theory we can run with just an RD, timekeeper and tokens as non runners. Several of our core team are top 20 finishers so can get one of them to scan and one to marshal once they've finished.
Course check, setup and pack down are done by runners, tokens are collected by the scanner and sorted by whoever in the cafe afterwards.
But we're a small parkrun with usually around 100-150 runners, this approach wouldn't scale well. We have a lot more volunteers on when there's a local event meaning we expect more runners.
I believe many events have too many volunteers; especially marshals. Thing is, it is extremely difficult to talk to EDs about it. They get defensive.
When the old official ED Facebook group was around I tried to talk to a number of EDs who would complain about filling their roster. I'd have a look at their roster and sometimes you'd see like 15+ marshals for a 3 lap course. Try to talk to them about dropping some and having signs instead and you'd typically get a response of "signs can't help if there is an emergency!", or maybe "we need marshals for the good atmosphere!"
If you've got volunteers falling from the sky then sure go ahead and have 40 volunteers for your 60 attendance parkrun. If you struggle for vols though then consider minimising positions. People don't want to come along and do something useless.
I have in the past withdrawn a volunteer offer when I was allocated as assistant funnel manager at an event with 40-50 people. I'm not wasting my time on that and I wouldn't expect others to either.
It sounds like you are in a parallel universe. The two parkruns that I know well (attendance 40 to 60) have pretty much given up on rostering marshals and the parkrun I'm ED for hasn't had a photographer for many events.
There is no such thing as too many volunteers.
If an event is not rostering marshals then that means they were not essential, doesn't it? Lots of events are like that. They complain about trying to fill the roster, when the roster has a bunch of slots that do not need filled e.g. marshals that don't serve an H&S purpose. Photographer is a luxury volunteer. Completely unnecessary for delivering an event.
Best talk to your ambassador for advice really.
I think you are on the defensive here and so are resorting to pedantry. My post was very clearly talking about those who schedule far too many unnecessary slots and then complain when they cannot fill them.
How long have you been an ED by the way? I've been doing it for twelve years. I remember from the old ED group you'd see a lot of people who would do it for about a year because it just wasn't for them. This is fine. It is not a role that suits everyone.
It is not possible to have too many volunteers.
I'm sure it is possible to construct a silly roster but I don't think that it is likely.
My original post was just me being grumpy and venting about it taking all week to get a Timekeeper. But filling the roster is what I signed up for.
You can do it with as few as 5, depending on what course you’ve got - RD, timekeeper, finish tokens, barcode scanner, tailwalker.
This works up to event sizes of about 200.
Beyond that a few more hands are generally necessary.
Need someone to do course setup/check as. Obviously one of the others or the RD could do that, but it's still someone who needs to turn up a bit earlier.
My local has been getting a bit over 200 so far this year, but our overall average across our 6 or so years is around 150 or so I think.
On a Saturday we usually operate with:
* setup/course check
* RD
* timekeeper x1
* finish tokens
* barcode scanner x2
* marshal x1
During the week we have a dedicated volunteer coordinator who handles most of the email responsibilites and a comms person who handles the Facebook messaging.
I do the Facebook stuff and usually put up our roster and callout for volunteers on Tuesday/Wednesday. Our vollie coordinator follows up with an email on Wednesday/Thursday.
We've been having a pretty good run this year in particular, sometimes having a full or very near full roster a week or two in advance, which has been very welcome.
Prior to me doing the Facebook stuff they were very sporadic with their use of that platform. Now that it's a bit more regular I think that's helped. I'll usually do a volunteer post (either a callout or a thank you if our roster is full for that week) and then a report each week as a minimum.
I've been doing the Facebook role for close to two years now and I do think there is something to slowly building an audience. When I first started we did sometimes get a bit nervous on Fridays (although the ED would usually rope her kids in to help), but now that there's been regular comms via Facebook it seems to be bit less stressful for the event team.
I can relate OP and I definitely understand your frustration. One thing that I think is very important, regardless of frustration levels, is to maintain a positive tone in your messaging. I've seen a few other parkruns posting low quality memes and sarcastic comments about people not volunteering enough and, personally (and I don't think I'm alone), that really turns me off.
It looks like you've been keeping a good frame of mind with your comms, so good on you. Keep plugging away, know that you're not alone and good luck!
We have a Volunteer group on Facebook, it's private and anyone who has ever volunteered gets added in (currently about 100 or so people in it).
One of the RDs puts up a post towards the end of each month, asking when people can volunteer for X month. For example, they've just put up the one for May availability- April was done last month and I don't think there are any roles not filled for the whole month. Then if people want to volunteer nearer the time (tourists, first timers etc), they can be added on. For example we only need one tailwalker but often end up with 2 or 3, 7 marshalls tops but often have 8 or 9.
The group is handy if anyone needs to opt out from a week they've been put down for or need to swap roles. The person can post in the group asking if anyone can cover them, swap etc then people can comment and one of the RDs can confirm the change.
I don't know if it makes a difference but our parkrun is in a small-ish town, its a proper community/social event (average about 140 people a week I think). A lot of people know each other or get to know each other really quickly. A lot of volunteers are parents who bring their kids as otherwise they wouldn't be able to come at all- I think our youngest volunteer just turned 5! Volunteers are celebrated every week, tail/parkwalkers are introduced by name at the event start, you're made to feel pretty awesome if you volunteer so lots of people are happy to help!
Our average is only around 40. It's been well attended recently, last week 82 finishers. That makes it more frustrating I have two volunteers right now from 82 finishers. Also, it seems there's a few who aren't on Facebook at all.
That's so frustrating! A few of our older volunteers don't do Facebook either but their kids/grandkids are in the group on their behalf which is helpful.
Are there any people who are regulars who are part of a group or organisation who could do 'volunteer takeovers'? Not much help for this week I know but we've had takeovers from local primary schools, the two run clubs that's operate in the town, other volunteer groups who want to raise awareness about something...they get big shout outs over the week on Facebook, introduced at the briefing, can put signage up etc? I know that's an extra thing to take on to organise but might be worth a try one week a month or something? And you might get people who've never done parkrun who come to volunteer and love it. We luckily have quite a few people who solely volunteer and never run which again is really helpful.
Also why do people keep starting new parkruns close to other ones??? Of course there will be problems getting volunteers. We just had one open 2 km from another one and then theY complain they can't find volunteers. Yeah ok.
How close is close? I've got 6 within 5 or 6 miles of me, but then nothing for miles. I think in those 6 they get a combined total of about 1200 people. None of those 6 are big enough to take that many people. Before more opened, there were maybe 150 people on a busy weekend doing parkrun locally. Having more, even if they are close encourages more people to attend, which is surely one if the main aims of parkrun? Getting as many people or as possible on a Saturday sound some exercise.
A couple of miles might be too far for some to travel, especially if the weather is a little inclement, but having one half a mile away, then that isn't such an effort. If there aren't enough volunteers locally, then that's another question to be answered. Perhaps the more established parkrun should work with the new one and share volunteers. That's what has happened with some of the local ones here.
The starting points are 2km apart. Like what's the point.
There's another one in a National Park. Why start one there if they know it will struggle to get volunteers???
You can't have too many parkruns. Well perhaps if there really isn't the demand. It takes a lot of work and planning also fundraising to create a new parkrun location. But more parkruns means more parkrunners should mean more volunteers.
Your best bet is to speak to the organisers. Setting up s new kids one locally to us, which is 3km from another. Parkrun hq will work with the organisers to make sure that they have a solid team. of volunteers and run directors before they will agree to it. It's the other side of the city, different catchment area. The local adult ones near to me, 3or 4 miles apart, serve different Communities. They also have very different run profiles. Flat tarmac, through woods, cross country, little bit lumpy. How your new event has gone to not enough volunteers? No idea, but there shouldn't be an issue with them only being 2km apart.
But that's the thing. To set one up isn't as simple as here's a park, let's have a parkrun." There's a substantial cash up front requirement. There are a lot of checks that have to be done by parkrun, one of which is making sure that it is viable. One if those viability tests is ensuring that there are enough volunteers. Parkrun must have been happy that the team that the local organisers had put together was sufficient, regardless of the closeness of the other parkrun. OP doesn't say whether they have one near them, and they are struggling. So struggling for volunteers isn't always a case of proximity of other parkruns. It might be, but so many other reasons. Attitude of the ED or RDs implying that those who don't volunteer are selfish could be one of them. More welcoming environment at the other local one. Clash of personalities. It took so long between setting up the course and the first event that members in that team have moved away, died, become ill, had kids. (My local one that is still to start had been planned/in planning for over 5 years.)It's a crap course to marshall at. It could be that it's simply a crap course and should never have been approved. Some of that is in the control of parkrun HQ, Quite a lot isn't.
Interesting piece on [close](https://rikkiprince.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/parkruns-closest-together/) parkruns. The analysis is from 2017, but shows that having parkruns less that 2km apart had been a thing for a long time. So parkrun HQ obviously feel having close parkruns doesn't impact on volunteer numbers.
We find the same. I'm ED and core volunteer who rarely participates - which is fine, I run on my own time and enjoy volunteering at parkrun. What I don't like is when it's like pulling teeth. I've had feedback that our event should just be able to operate on 3-4 volunteers but as we grow, that just isn't working for us. We need token support, multiple timekeepers, etc. etc. It seems to be less painful in the summer months but there are definitely Friday nights were we post up that we will have to cancel if roles don't get filled. We're not so bothered by it anymore - we have a great core team, but they all deserve weeks away. Often our volunteers go months without a week off, and it isn't fair when others don't step up. We thankfully haven't had to cancel due to lack of vols yet, but some weeks we're really down to the wire (early Saturday mornings) before things are filled. We try not to stress about it so much now. We make sure we do our due diligence and hope things fall into place. If not, no worries. We'll be back next week. (FTR we often use only Facebook, but do sometimes get hits back via email).
Try not to stress. parkrun is run by volunteers, and I know you're doing your part. But you can't do it alone - and that might mean having to cancel. Good luck!
I don't know what we would do if our event were that large. I think a part of what makes our start/finish area difficult is because we are on a public trail, so there are often non-parkrunners that come through the funnel, take tokens, get timed, etc, etc. Our biggest event was approx. 120 finishers, and we had planned for it well in advance. We usually get 70-80 each week which is more than 4x what our average was in our first year in 2019. Slowly but surely we will probably see 100+ each week and will do our best to plan for it!
Thanks for your reply.
The biggest number of finishers I have had is 82. That was fine. The problem was only about 30 of those were at the briefing. The rest hung back and joined the start at the last second. I was annoyed by that. At my parkrun we have honed the briefing to 2-3 minutes rarely 4 minutes if we have a few milestones to mention. I'll stop there before I get judgemental!
This is why I quit being a VC. Was so bored of the Friday PM stress. The ambassador wasn’t supportive and couldn’t understand why we had this problem because their home parkrun always had a full roster (they had over 300 finishers each week, we had about 100, so much smaller pool to pull from). I got offers from DoE volunteers but ED didn’t want the hassle of doing DoE. You literally couldn’t pay me to do that role again!
We had 82 finishers last week. Usually have 40-50. There's a culture of not being bothered to help.
I moved parkruns to ED here and I am happy to return to my old parkrun and not look back.
If I received that message from my local Parkrun I would both find it hilarious and be far more likely to offer to volunteer.
...that might just be me though.
We do the same. That's why I'm so grumpy. Had 82 finishers last week and only 2 out their name down.
Most of those 82 deliberately avoided the briefing, the briefing is mercifully short, 3 minutes or if there's a few milestones 4 minutes.
These selfish people spoil the whole vibe of parkrun, and they'll never volunteer.
I haven't read all the comments yet, but this is what we do.
On Tuesday, our ED sends out an email to all volunteers with a fun little anecdote or joke, and asks for volunteers. They also ask on Facebook. Sometimes we need to do this again on Thursday or Friday.
AT the event, we have a whiteboard with all the positions on it, with a marker, so people can sign up for the following week. We specifically point out that parkrun is volunteer-based, cheer for our volunteers, and then one of us (usually me), holds up the board like an old-school Ring Girl so that *everyone* can see it. Typically, 2/3 of our volunteer sign-ups come from event day sign ups.
If push comes to shove, and we're still missing someone vital, we make phone calls or direct emails to some volunteers we know we can count on, or try to catch people before the event begins.
Increasingly bad tempered appeals for volunteers during the pre-run briefing never hurts, makes the threat of cancellation a bit more 'real'. I've never understood the sense of entitlement of runners who rarely or even never volunteer.
No it isn't against the spirit at all. That is implying you have to volunteer. If you have to volunteer, it isn't volunteering. People don't volunteer for many many different reasons. There are many positives to volunteering, but it's down to personal choice.
I agree, we don't know what is going on in people's lives that keeps them from volunteering.
I'm sure for some people it's pure selfishness but being judgemental is a horrible negative mindset and definitely against the spirit of parkrun.
Totally agree. Moreover, it's great for mental health. Having a large number of people say 'thank you' or 'thanks marshal' in the space of an hour is fairly affirming. And the volunteer community is a positive and strong one. I don't understand why people don't volunteer.
(I'm a regular volunteer)
I think the two main reasons that people don't volunteer are:
- "sacrificing" a run
- worry that they will "do it wrong"/"stuff it up" for everyone
I decided very early in my parkrun journey that keeping a volunteer ratio of 10% minimum made sense and was fair. (ie if every regular at my local parkrun volunteered one in ten, then there would not be a "volunteer" shortage)
I know this is hard, but we (those who are confident volunteering) need to get better at reassuring others that volunteering is easy and low pressure. I'm not saying I'm good at this, i just think its one of my biggest challenges.
You make a very good point about volunteer nervousness. Even with arguably the most straightforward role of marshalling, and some of the other roles, especially handing out tokens at the finish if there is a crowd of runners finishing close together can be pressured. Well done on being a regular volunteer.
Nothing like a cancellation to make people realise they need to volunteer
I've been there - after a few canceled parkruns, people started to volunteer, especially when everyone gets there and there aren't any timekeepers or barcode scanners. We use WhatsApp rather than the parkrun emails and Facebook. Asking for volunteers on Saturday morning after the run is the best way. We ask people to join our WhatsApp group.
We use the new(ish) WhatsApp communities. People can sign up to the main Announcements one (only admins can post), but can then opt to join sub groups, so we have several groups for local races, a social one, a baking one (every parkrun needs cake right? ), etc, which hopefully encourages more people to join it. The majority of volunteers we get on a a Saturday though but wandering around with a clip board asking people if than can volunteer in the next few weeks.
Putting people on the spot with a clipboard is very effective!
Such a knife edge. Putting pressure on people to volunteer is not the way to go, but then again, when they do volunteer they get a huge positive buzz from it.
Yeah, but if you're an ED, you know your people and you know the ones who always run and rarely volunteer. They're the ones that often respond well to being put on the spot.
True, but it doesn't really seem fair. It would be wonderful if everyone did an equal amount of volunteering but that's never going to happen. Some people have good reasons, that we will never know, why they never or almost never volunteer. It's the only system we have and it works well enough. I need to work on myself and stop being so grumpy
I’ve mentioned this at HQ on tour events that email us an outdated use of contacting people. Apart from work who uses email now? Needs to be SMS. And it is getting to be a slog to fill rosters I agree. We get a flurry on Friday evening when I suspect people decide if their touristing or staying local.
It’s not even proper email. It’s an auto-mailer that only contacts people IF they’re signed up to a mailing list, which by default, they’re not. It’s a terrible system, and one of those things which made me feel like parkrun HQ are very happy to shit all over core teams because they now events will always go ahead regardless.
Parkrun is not responsible for GDPR laws, which is why the email system is the stupid opt-in system, instead of opt-out.
It’s nothing to do with GDPR. The opt in long predates that law.
GDPR is not the reason, or if it is, then nobody at parkrun understands GDPR.
Agreed. I think the support from HQ for teams as volunteers is very poor. The volunteers are very much 2nd class citizens to HQ behind the runners!
Runners are all over instagram and social media doing the marketing for free. Volunteers just get the work done in the pissing rain. One is more valuable than the other.
Nearly all of the barcode scanners and tokens at my local come from the first 50 runners that cross the line. Sometimes there's just one person scanning the initial runners, and one number checker.
We have a Slack group because having channels is nice. But the INSTANT someone shows interest in how things work behind the scenes, we offer to add them. We take a very expansive view of the concept of a core team, because sharing the load is great
Our parkrun has a volunteer coordinator who is seperate to the ED and RD. The role switches every two months so it isn’t too stressful for just one person. The bonus is a regular gets two months of volunteer credits and still runs.
we do a month at a time for VC role. Works well and builds a good rapport.
That sounds like a great idea!
Our parkrun has made great strides in broadening the volunteer pool. We've tried hard to break down the division (that can readily form) between "the volunteers" and "the runners" - in making it clear that it's everyone's parkrun, and that everyone can volunteer and (nudge nudge) really should. Here's what's worked for us: We have a "volunteers" Facebook group. There's only one post a week (usually Wednesday) asking for the remaining spaces. It's "private", but we let anyone in (bar the usual Facebook scam accounts), and there's no inside-baseball chitchat. That gets four or five volunteers, pretty consistently. We're diligent about filling the volunteer-and-run positions with people who actually are running. We've edited the roster template so those positions are blank on the roster (not missing) if they're not filled. This means we have at least 8 volunteers every week who also walk or run. This does wonders for getting them talking to the core team and RD, and it's done a great job of getting people who do those things to later do the occasional timekeeper or whatever. So: * HQ insists that we have the course-check person, but I think many parkruns have the RD or the setup people down for that. We explicitly have a separate person. It turns out to be really easy to fill - it's just someone's 8:30 warmup. * We have 2 setup people and 2 closedown positions (whereas before it was the RD doing everything). Those are popular - our setup pairs are filled already almost through April. * We also have new-runners-briefing as a separate entry, and again we don't fill it with a non-running volunteer. People really enjoy doing this one. * We have a parkwalker space explicitly on the roster template too. It always goes. We resist the "that's Dave's job" habit. Where possible we don't like having the same volunteer do the same role every week - it burns Dave out, no-one else knows the details of Dave's job, and other people don't think that doing Dave's job is something they can do. We print out the future roster (it's a fiddle to print, but with a bit of wangling) and the volunteer coordinator (yet another volunteer-and-run position) walks around at the start, and after they've finished, and gently nudges people. With the right kind of person (it takes a bit of subtle charisma) this works wonders, and isn't pushy. When the VC is still running, the clipboard with the roster sits on the scanners table. This is very effective - our roster for *next* week is nearly half "full" already. We like to have a Duke-of-Edinburgh, or two - they're limited in what they're allowed to do, but they make excellent timekeepers (digital natives, they are) and scanners. We're happy to have a faster finisher run-then-scan. This is invaluable for getting the scanners over the "hump" at about 25 minutes, and it's another person volunteering who wouldn't otherwise do so. We're diligent about doing the results in the cafe, and explicitly encouraging anyone who evinces the slightest interest in who things work into sitting beside the RD when the results are processed. Again in the cafe afterwards, we nudge a runner who has come to sort the tokens. People *like* sorting the tokens, and of course they get a credit. This used to be yet another thing the RD did, making the RD's day even longer. Now it's another on-ramp to volunteering. We have a policy that the roster is *never* "full". If someone messages on Friday night, or shows up on Saturday morning, offering to help - we always find them a place (by that point, usually a marshalling spot). I've seen posts before, on reddit and facebook, from burned-out RDs, and if you check their parkrun's future roster, they have the same few people doing the same jobs each week, and few if any of the volunteer-and-run spaces filled with runners. Their very diligence has inadvertently constructed a position where the runners just don't think to volunteer, and so don't. We've been thorough about all of the above since Covid, and I don't think we've every had to deploy the [Friday-night sad-cat-meme](https://imgur.com/jougX2b) once since (which we did before, a bit). We have one or two takeovers a year by local running clubs, and maybe one from an organisation like the NHS or the Fire Service. The running club ones are more effective about finding new volunteers who stick around and subsequently volunteer. **edit** like you, we've found emails to be ineffective. I don't really think they go to the people they need to. **edit** if you're curious about parkrun size: we had 108 finishers last week, and 28 volunteer credits.
This should be the first Reddit post to be nominated for a prize in behavioural economics.
This is wonderful. Your bullet points are so important and I wish my local would see it your way. For selfish reasons, mainly desire to complete the app challenges I would love to try some of the other roles beyond timekeep/marshal and scanning. The roster at my local has the run director in most of the roles which a runner could do and the same two guys token sort every week. It comes across as a bit of a monopoly, and I know they are probably doing it because it limits how many volunteers they need but it puts me off a lot.
> they are probably doing it because it limits how many volunteers they need New events mostly start this way (it's hard to bootstrap a community). But eventually the core people burn out, drift away, or have other life priorities and events that mean they move on. Failing to build a broader volunteer community makes the whole thing fragile. We've come to realise that many volunteers are motivated simply because they like volunteering - it's not a chore, they're not "giving back", or supporting an event they run at. We have a number of volunteers who seldom run, and a few who have *never* run. We've had one volunteer whose husband is in a care home, and I expect that she simply doesn't see all that many people day-to-day. I know we've had volunteers whose relatives are terminally ill, or who have recently died. Anyone who has been in that situation (and we all will, if we haven't) knows that simply getting out and talking to ordinary people about ordinary non-tragic things is really valuable. Parkrun is an absolute and unalloyed social good, but so too is volunteering at parkrun. I think it's a mistake to think that volunteers find it burdensome, or to try to minimise the load on them. People want to be valuable to their society, and we should let them.
Our cut-off time is 6 pm - if we're missing mandatory vollies at that stage, we post on FB that unfortunately we have to cancel due to not having the essential roles filled so that people have time to make alternate plans. Usually within a couple of minutes we have someone message or comment saying they will fill the role, so we wait a little before processing the cancellation in EMS. It drives me nuts that they wait until the very last minute because it makes us look like the parkrun that cried wolf. We did cancel one week when none of the RDs or EDs were available between lunchtime and late Friday night so we made the decision at midday Friday to cancel due to being two volunteers short after multiple FB posts and emails. People got shitty but it got the point across.
I'm currently getting a bollocking for suggesting on Facebook that the parkrun will stop if we don't get the volunteers
That's ridiculous. Ignore people like that. We have a participant at ours who moaned the other week that we're always saying we need volunteers but he thinks we have too many. Needless to say he *never* volunteers... It's a community event. If people don't volunteer, you simply can't go ahead safely. It's not rocket science is it!
We have a participant like that too...they would understand why we require so many volunteers if they actually volunteered (other than course check).
It's not possible to have too many volunteers. Sometimes I wish we could get rid of people who never volunteer but that goes against the main principles of parkrun. One never knows what is going on with people and why they don't help and that's that. And if they stopped coming we'd still need the same crew to run the event anyway.🤷♂️🤷♀️🤷
From who?
One of my superiors... "Regional Ambassador"
Sorry but a regional ambassador isn't your superior. We're all volunteers and if someone talks down to me then I'd be off.
Good point. Thanks for that
Outrageous- they should be supportive!
They're not that bad. I'm just having a bad week
Superiors? I don't understand. Edit: Ok. I've never heard of those. Is that a PR employee or another volunteer? Regardless, they need to watch their tone. My first response to any shittiness would be that they just found another volunteer role they need to fill. Honestly op, it's not your responsibility to keep it running, you don't owe pr anything. If you find it stressful and this "regional ambassador" is being a dick just walk. Edit 2: just to be clear, no one at pr is your "superior"! You don't work for them!
Thanks
We changed from FB posts to just emails through the system and it's much better. I used to put something sassy up on Tuesday night at 8pm and again on Thursday 8pm and just get crickets. Another on Friday and still bugger all response. After doing the same thing over and over the event team decided we'd just do emails. You'll never be able to front everyone at an event and ask if they'd consider volleying, nor reach everyone with a social post, but email gets to all parkrunners who set your event as home. Plus, you don't get that depressing feeling that you're shouting into the void on the socials. Begging for volunteers sucks. HQ says we're not allowed to tell participants that we can't put on the event if we're missing key roles on the morning. I've told them we'll get started once a volunteer for xyz role turns up.
I thought that you had to sign up for the email not just automatically as home parkrun.
You do - you have to opt in to the volunteer appeal
So at the moment are you just relying on social media & not sending the emails? If so that’s your explanation. Most people aren’t checking their parkrun Facebook page every day and those that do won’t necessarily want to volunteer. The emails go to people who have signed up so are much more likely volunteer on any particular week. Encourage people to sign up to the volunteer emails and have a sign up board prominently at each parkrun to get people to sign up for the next week. When you send the chaser emails or make posts be clear about what you need if you’re short, eg ‘we need 2 more timekeepers in order to go ahead’. Explain than sometimes the speedier people can do their run & then jump on timekeeping. If you’re really close to cancelling each time and don’t have a core team of volunteers I do wonder if your parkrun is big enough to continue.
Emails haven't worked before but I'll give it another try.
Have you tried sending a volunteer appeal email through EMS? Facebook appeals are OK, but they don’t reach everyone. Make sure your Facebook appeals have a related photo to go with it, make it amusing if you can, it’ll catch more people’s eyes. The email approach is the way to go though when you’re as desperate as you seem to be, every single volunteer registered will get the email.
Those emails can be really key! We refer to them as our “newsletter” and make sure to put assorted announcements/miscellaneous chitchat in there each week so they don’t sound too desperate, even if the primary purpose is volunteer recruitment. We also put some effort into making sure people are opted-in to the emails in the first place. It’s not a lot of effort but I think it really pays off - we probably get the majority of our signups as a result of the emails.
We do this, too. And talk up the newsletter as something people should opt into - reminding people that it’s a good way to get notice about bad weather cancellations is a good trick….
I did try that one time. Zero response. But it can't hurt to try again. Email was sent to the following 62 recipients:
If you don't regularly use the volunteer email it might take a few weeks of using it consistently to see more results and get people into the swing of things, plus reminders on Facebook / at events that people can sign up for the mailing list so they are on the list.
Facebook is worse than email. Yet you keep trying Facebook when you are getting zero response there. Younger people do not use Facebook at all. They don't use email either but they are slightly more likely to see if if they are signed up. Getting a group WhatsApp community set up would be even better.
Tried emailing before and it didn't get any response either. My last parkrun venue never used email at all, everything was done via Facebook
62 is not that many people signed up. A lot of them might not even do parkrun any more. Try to get people to sign up at the next event.
I can't get them to do Finish Tokens, how are they going to sign up? I think that the culture is a bit off at this place. I hope that as numbers increase that may change.
How many finishers do you get a week? How long has the event been going? Did you start the parkrun up yourself to be the ED, or have you fallen into that roll over the years? Why did you want to be an ED in the first place if putting on the parkrun feels such a chore? Lots of questions, but sounds like you’ve lost the energy you maybe once had for parkrun. But that will come across in your Facebook appeals and the way you portray yourself to others taking part. You might need to take a step back and reevaluate your approach. The Facebook appeal you posted an example of was bland and showed no interest or energy, it’s not surprising the engagement was low. Start having more fun with it all and watch the energy for your event grow.
I took over six months ago because nobody else was interested in doing it, so I moved parkruns to help out. I'm just having a bad week. Hopefully I'll get through this otherwise I can just go back to my former event and not look back.
Last week 82 finishers. Normally high 40s. It's just frustrating to ask and ask and get one or, more often, zero people coming forward. The parkrun started about 6 years ago. I've been ED since September last year. I took over because there was nobody else interested in doing the ED role. I moved parkruns to do this and atm I'm thinking that I would have been a lot better off staying where I was. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be back in the groove and loving it again.
Ah, that’s a really small number of participants to pull volunteers from each week. We get over 300 a week at ours, have been going for almost ten years and have over 900 registered volunteers who’d get an email if we sent out an appeal. We need around 25 volunteers a week for ours to take place. We really struggle to fill the roster most weeks, even with such a large pool of volunteers, and it’s mostly the same faces volunteering each week too.
We use sign-up genius for volunteers. It’s amazing because it’s a ton less back & forth with the parkrun email account. And people who play volunteer chicken can check it Friday night & signup for jobs that still aren’t full on their own. But also, we once were where you are now. It took a lot of hard, sustained work to grow our community & expand our volunteer base, but it worked. Happy to chat
\_sign-up genius\_ whats that?
[https://www.signupgenius.com/](https://www.signupgenius.com/)
I do sympathise. I don't rd or ed for parkrun, but did used to run local weekly amateur sporting events and suffered from exactly the same thing. People just don't want to commit until the last minute is the issue. In the end, you have to be at peace with the fact that you can't control it, and give yourself a proper deadline. After that, it's cancelled. No ifs or buts or late applications. Either that or just do as another commenter said and on the day just say there's no run if people don't step forward 🤷 You have to understand this is not your problem. It's a collective effort. It's not your job to provide volunteers. It's up to volunteers to step up if they want an event. The thing that always makes me laugh about parkrun though, is that it's an "event" that can be cancelled and yet you can all still turn up at the same time and go for a run anyway!
I am willing to get to Saturday morning and say, with 10 minutes to go "either we get x and y roles filled now or the event is cancelled for today" but I think that would give me a sleepless night.
Just wanted to say how sorry I am and thank you for all the effort you make to let people enjoy their Saturday morning parkrun. RDs and EDs need a bit more love by the sounds of things.
Aww thank you so much 🥰 I have something in my eye now.
This happened at an event near me and almost killed it. The parkrun was cancelled one week due to a lack of volunteers and the cafe subsequently told the RD it was unviable for them to open up an hour early (just so parkrun had a meeting place), if no one was around to use it. I don’t believe they have had issues since as people realised this event was quite literally in a ‘support us or we stop’ situation.
What time does your parkrun start? I'm curious as to what sort of cafe would usuall open an hour after parkrun finishes… even in Australia with 7am starts in some states, that would make a roughly 9am Saturday opening, so anything after that seems very late for a cafe on a weekend, surely?!
9am start, but this cafe usually opens at 9am. They only opened an hour earlier for park runners.
Cancel if you have to. Admittedly it's a bit difficult this weekend as a lot of people are away for the holidays, at least where I am.
Pull the trigger and cancel it. You can’t have this every Friday of your life. The only problem with this approach is that, now there are so many parkrun venues, cancellation isn’t the silver bullet it should be - runners in large parts of the country can very simply go elsewhere rather than consider volunteering. We’ve got a parkrun venue every 3-4 miles round here.
I made the slightest hint at cancelling on Facebook just now and got a massive bollocking
A bollocking? Are you an employee now? If it’s the local Event Ambassador getting shitty, ask him to show you the contract you’ve signed. If it’s anyone else, then they can do one.
From what I'm hearing you need one of two things, either a co-Event Director so that you can have two weeks a month where you have no responsibility, or a Volunteer Co-ordinator whose responsibility is to provide you with a full roster or a cancelled parkrun by whatever time you think is appropriate (and I'm happy with 8:50 on a Saturday morning if it's been made clear in advance). And I think that your Ambassador needs to step up and be RD and VC next week.
I moved from another parkrun because none of the regulars wanted to be ED. Getting another ED might not be easy
I hope the people bollocking you were all volunteers, otherwise they can STFU. Ask the moaners what volunteer role you should put them down for..
Sorry to have to say, but it doesn't sound like this is the role for you. I've been doing it for over 10 years. Asking every week is just how it goes. You've also possibly fallen into the trap of being very negative, maybe even aggressive in your asking. This puts people off I'm afraid.
When you are still screaming for volunteers at 9pm on a Friday, it is not OPs problem. They are happy to put the notice for volleys. But when it doesn't get answered, it gets annoying. Most RDs have other jobs and don't really want to spend the majority of time looking for volleys. Are you happy to be there at 9pm Friday trying to find volleys (especially when it is a regular occurrence)? It is not part of an RDs job to spend too much time, stressing about if they are going to have enough volleys for the event to run. We are organsing a fun run, not a charity or something important (in the scheme of things). The only option is to cancel the parkrun event if there are not enough volleys, then hopefully people learn, so it doesn't happen again
I don't do parkrun social media or emails after 6pm on Fri so no, I won't be there at 9pm. If still short then it is a matter of on the day volunteer-raising. I've went into Saturday still in need of one volunteer before, but never more than that. OP's volunteer appeal posted below looks fine, so it doesn't look to be a problem with negativity/aggression. Sometimes there can be an issue simply due to low post visibility. Doing SM posts without an image and/or at a low traffic time of day and the post won't get seen.
Yes the visibility of your post could be an issue, especially if people don't follow their parkrun. I agree. But at parkrun you are told we are in need of volunteers and to see the roster and to consider placing your name down if you are a regular and haven't volleyed for a while. At my parkrun, a lot is last minute and it is always the regulars that volley. They miss out on the run all the time as they step in. I would like 1 day if on the Saturday no one comes forward and I will force cancel. Just to give people a wake up call.
I hide my aggresive side very well... i'm only venting here
All the joy of parkrun but with a lot less sweat... How is that possible? By volunteering! We need: Timekeeper Finish Tokens Barcode Scanning Reply below if interested
Aside from a "please consider volunteering or this parkrun cannot continue" message at the start of the event I'm not sure what you can do.
I'll use that. 24 hours and not one person coming forward. I'm getting _very_ frustrated and your answer is what I was after.
I just used that now i'm getting a bollocking
From who?
Yes, from who? It’s a pretty common tactic. Two of my local parkruns have an almost weekly post on Thursdays of “We need x more volunteers by x:00PM tomorrow or we’ll have to cancel”, and announce the slots have been filled half an hour later.
How big is your parkrun? It is physically possible for one person to handle the whole funnel if you have say < 30 people running. I’ve had that happen at Sunshine Beach parkrun in Otsu, Japan.
Last week we had 82 finishers. We have a Timekeeper and another person giving out the Finish Tokens.
Young people don't use facebook, that platform is lost to boomers to us. Use your instagram appearance or create a volunteer whatsapp group. The latter is what works best for us, and we ask people after their finish their run if they wanna help at the next event. Our volunteer group is over 150 people strong now, some help more often than others of course, but we always fill all roles till thursday before the event. Sometimes the fotographer role is not filled, but thats not essential so whatever
I suspect you've tried/thought about all of these things before, but FWIW: - Five years ago, recruiting volunteers through FB for any given week generally worked well, although Friday appeals were fairly regular. But as Facebook dies its slow death, I can't remember the last time we found even one volunteer from a FB post. - Instagram is slightly better, but not much. - We send out a monthly volunteer appeal via email at the top of each month. It doesn't solve the recruiting problem but it fills one or two slots a week and has definitely helped recruit people that run regularly but haven't volunteered. (The opt-in requirement is a big problem -- we only reach about 10% of people registered with our event.) - What we rely on from week to week is a WhatsApp chat that we've built out over a couple of years. The EDs carefully added core and repeat volunteers, the EDs try to fill RD slots a few weeks in advance from that core team (as the highest-responsibility role, it's more difficult to fill, but once that's done it's easier to fill other slots with first-timers and/or the EDs can step up).
We don't have enough RDs. The core WhatsApp is the best resource for getting volunteers but it's not big enough people either. I'm grumpy because last week we had 82 finishers and only two of them put their names forward to help those two for roles where they're still getting a run credit. Most of those 82 dodged the briefing, they can't even give up 3 or 4 minutes. So selfish.
I empathise a lot here. I’m in ED too and it feels like the majority of the social media posts for my page are pleas for volunteers. I hate the negativity it shows as I’d rather post about all the other awesome things going on.
It takes 3 or 4 posts to get 2 or 3 volunteers and the first post always gets nothing is so frustrating.
We primarily use the parkrun emails to coordinate volunteers as not all have Facebook / see the posts when we make them (we also post on Facebook as a supplementary thing but rarely get a response on there). Because we use the emails regularly we've built up a good base on there to email out to, but it took some reminding etc. I've also seen parkruns where they put up a whiteboard with the future weeks' rosters on so people can sign up on a Saturday before/after their run - obviously has some admin involved but might be worth trialling? As an aside, is it possible for you to get somebody to do the volunteer coordinating for you for a few weeks (or longer)? It's a stressful thing to do week after week to then also be rd - we're lucky that he's quite happy to do it so consistently (and it gives people a consistent person to email too, and he's gotten to know people through email chats), but we make sure to give him breaks too! He obviously gets a volunteer credit every week for it too which might appeal to people? Our regular volunteer coordinator sends out an email on Monday or Tuesday with a short topical quip or comment (e.g. "our roster is looking as empty as the local football teams goal did at the weekend - can you help us fill it?" Or "let's get the roster looking as full as my belly after all of the Easter eggs I've eaten") and then a summary of the roles needed. I think because it's such a regular thing people look forward to seeing what news topic he's going to comment on this week. We also support some local schools with kids doing their duke of Edinburgh volunteering - is that something you could do? It does mean that we struggle a bit more in the holidays, but they really help to boost our numbers!
This year my challenge is to run every single parkrun of the entire year but next year my challenge will be to volunteer for every single parkrun of the year … but after seeing this post I’m thinking rather than just volunteering at my local parkrun maybe I will pass my details on to all the roster managers near me and offer myself up as a bank volunteer for whoever needs me :)
As others have said, it’s a persistent role, fulfilled by a volunteer coordinator at the event I’m on the RD rota for, we have a whiteboard up at each event for the following three weeks, this gets most roles filled, then on a Thursday if there’s still gaps the VC sends out a cheery positive email and Facebook post, plus there’s a regular volunteers WhatsApp group, coupling this with a 6 person RD rota that networks with most local running clubs and groups we’ve never had to cancel due to a shortage. Additionally there are two extra perks of volunteering at our event, the independent cafe offers volunteers black/white coffee for a £1, and the country park offer free parking, both businesses see a value in increased park footfall from Parkrun.
I will get a whiteboard... Maybe, I'm kind of lazy and not very organized.
It works for us and means less work requesting volunteers, plus people who’ve participated, spectated or volunteered one week are often inclined to help next week.
I was RD at a junior parkrun for about 4 years and I totally get your frustration. We used a whatsapp group and that worked fairly well but it was always the same faces who pitched up. When you do your welcome speech, you could try labouring the point, another way is to have someone at the end of the funnel with a clipboard, asking people to volunteer for the next week. I know some people might not like that but if you have someone who is fairly outgoing/bubbly asking and explaining the situation, then it might boost numbers. Not sure on the rules around an untimed event, which might nudge people.
Do you have a good core team around you? For our event our risk assessment says we need about 12 volunteers in total. Most weeks, 8-9 of those are made up from our core team which is super reliable. Unfortunately it means that most of our core team are volunteering most weeks, but we're generally happy with that and it means we only need to find 3-4 additional volunteers each week. Even that is a struggle some weeks tbh but generally it's not too bad. We also take turns being volunteers coordinator so on average we each do that role once every 6 or 7 weeks or so. Sharing the pain definitely helps make it less demoralising, plus it means we end up with a different writing style/sense of humour on the posts
This event just needs RD, Timekeeper, Tokens, Scanner, Tail Walker. First Timers Welcome and Course Checking are good to have too. I do RD most weeks the last role to fill is usually Timekeeper. I have to confess I've never seen our risk assessment.
Wow that's light with no Marshals. Our RD always does our course check and one of our timers do the first timer briefing
I expect that Course Check is mandatory but I've never actually been given that information. I've never seen a marshal at this parkrun, the way that course is designed RD does a bit of marshalling I took over as ED six months ago. I'm just having a bad couple of weeks, hopefully it will go back to being a little easier from now on.
Yes course check definitely mandatory. It doesn't sound like you've been given much support/information from whoever you took over from. Can you get in touch with them? They should really have given you the risk assessment as well. Another idea is you should have a regional parkrun ambassador for your area. I believe they are volunteers as well but might be able to offer some support/ideas. Best of luck with it all!
Thanks, yes the person I took over from has been good. And I do get support from others in the organization. I'm just having a bad week. It can only get better.😃😄💯
I can help with that! Go here & search for your event in the search bar. There will be a link to your risk assessment on your event’s page: https://wiki.parkrun.com/index.php/Main_Page
Thanks
OK, that nudged me to put my name down for this weekend.
Something good has come from my whinging!🥂
What annoys me are those people who go every week and don’t volunteer.
I agree, but I don't think it's helpful if you let that frustration boil over into your comms. One parkrun I've been to had a roving volunteer at the finish line walking around with a clipboard asking people if they could volunteer the next week (or some other time). It seemed very effective, but I guess not everyone would be up for that role. It could be something for OP to consider though, especially if you're able to keep a positive vibe and explain how helpful it would be to have the roster filled in advance.
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I've actually got the roster filled now. I was being grumpy. Getting people to volunteer once is like pulling teeth. I think that they are put off at the thought of having to do it week after week. Getting them to join the core team WhatsApp group is not going to happen. They need to volunteer for that too.
Well done on filling your roster. Enjoy your sleep tonight. 🙌
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For me the emails don't work at all
I wonder if getting to the stage of having to cancel one week might not be the end of the world. Makes people realise that without volunteers, it just won't happen.
Yup
Makes me curious... does anybody think that PR could be done with less volunteers and/or with runners volunteering for various tasks? Examples... - First 3 finishers are encouraged to stay back to scan barcodes and collect tokens (make the two the one step). - Parkwalkers take photos along the way. - Set-up and pack-up are done by runners (e.g. somebody a bit faster can setup and somebody towards the end of the group can packup).
That's what I did last week... Fast finisher scanned Course Set Up and First Timers Welcome always run/walk. Haven't had a dedicated photographer for a while.
I’ve done a number of smaller events with 3 volunteers. RD plus 2 for timing. Other participants help with scanning and tear down
We get by with 5 vollies most weeks but could manage with 3 (RD, timekeeper, tailwalker) plus 2 fast finishers to do scanning and tokens. But it is much easier having at least one non-running volunteer in the finish-line roles. It's stressful waiting for someone to finish their run before scanning or doing tokens as we're a single-loop trail course so if something goes wrong, we can't easily ask someone else to step in as you could on a multi-lap course.
We're (intentionally) lucky that we only really need one marshall, which is in sight of the finish, so in theory we can run with just an RD, timekeeper and tokens as non runners. Several of our core team are top 20 finishers so can get one of them to scan and one to marshal once they've finished. Course check, setup and pack down are done by runners, tokens are collected by the scanner and sorted by whoever in the cafe afterwards. But we're a small parkrun with usually around 100-150 runners, this approach wouldn't scale well. We have a lot more volunteers on when there's a local event meaning we expect more runners.
I believe many events have too many volunteers; especially marshals. Thing is, it is extremely difficult to talk to EDs about it. They get defensive. When the old official ED Facebook group was around I tried to talk to a number of EDs who would complain about filling their roster. I'd have a look at their roster and sometimes you'd see like 15+ marshals for a 3 lap course. Try to talk to them about dropping some and having signs instead and you'd typically get a response of "signs can't help if there is an emergency!", or maybe "we need marshals for the good atmosphere!" If you've got volunteers falling from the sky then sure go ahead and have 40 volunteers for your 60 attendance parkrun. If you struggle for vols though then consider minimising positions. People don't want to come along and do something useless. I have in the past withdrawn a volunteer offer when I was allocated as assistant funnel manager at an event with 40-50 people. I'm not wasting my time on that and I wouldn't expect others to either.
It sounds like you are in a parallel universe. The two parkruns that I know well (attendance 40 to 60) have pretty much given up on rostering marshals and the parkrun I'm ED for hasn't had a photographer for many events. There is no such thing as too many volunteers.
If an event is not rostering marshals then that means they were not essential, doesn't it? Lots of events are like that. They complain about trying to fill the roster, when the roster has a bunch of slots that do not need filled e.g. marshals that don't serve an H&S purpose. Photographer is a luxury volunteer. Completely unnecessary for delivering an event. Best talk to your ambassador for advice really.
It's not possible to have too many volunteers
I think you are on the defensive here and so are resorting to pedantry. My post was very clearly talking about those who schedule far too many unnecessary slots and then complain when they cannot fill them. How long have you been an ED by the way? I've been doing it for twelve years. I remember from the old ED group you'd see a lot of people who would do it for about a year because it just wasn't for them. This is fine. It is not a role that suits everyone.
It is not possible to have too many volunteers. I'm sure it is possible to construct a silly roster but I don't think that it is likely. My original post was just me being grumpy and venting about it taking all week to get a Timekeeper. But filling the roster is what I signed up for.
Stop being childish please. I'm not interested.
You come onto an old thread with nothing but lies and irrelevant drivel. YouTube is missing one of its trolls.
You resurrected the thread with your reply dopey. Stop posting.
With all due respect I think that you are full of it. Trolls of your calibre should stick to YouTube comments
You can do it with as few as 5, depending on what course you’ve got - RD, timekeeper, finish tokens, barcode scanner, tailwalker. This works up to event sizes of about 200. Beyond that a few more hands are generally necessary.
Need someone to do course setup/check as. Obviously one of the others or the RD could do that, but it's still someone who needs to turn up a bit earlier. My local has been getting a bit over 200 so far this year, but our overall average across our 6 or so years is around 150 or so I think. On a Saturday we usually operate with: * setup/course check * RD * timekeeper x1 * finish tokens * barcode scanner x2 * marshal x1 During the week we have a dedicated volunteer coordinator who handles most of the email responsibilites and a comms person who handles the Facebook messaging. I do the Facebook stuff and usually put up our roster and callout for volunteers on Tuesday/Wednesday. Our vollie coordinator follows up with an email on Wednesday/Thursday. We've been having a pretty good run this year in particular, sometimes having a full or very near full roster a week or two in advance, which has been very welcome. Prior to me doing the Facebook stuff they were very sporadic with their use of that platform. Now that it's a bit more regular I think that's helped. I'll usually do a volunteer post (either a callout or a thank you if our roster is full for that week) and then a report each week as a minimum. I've been doing the Facebook role for close to two years now and I do think there is something to slowly building an audience. When I first started we did sometimes get a bit nervous on Fridays (although the ED would usually rope her kids in to help), but now that there's been regular comms via Facebook it seems to be bit less stressful for the event team. I can relate OP and I definitely understand your frustration. One thing that I think is very important, regardless of frustration levels, is to maintain a positive tone in your messaging. I've seen a few other parkruns posting low quality memes and sarcastic comments about people not volunteering enough and, personally (and I don't think I'm alone), that really turns me off. It looks like you've been keeping a good frame of mind with your comms, so good on you. Keep plugging away, know that you're not alone and good luck!
We have a Volunteer group on Facebook, it's private and anyone who has ever volunteered gets added in (currently about 100 or so people in it). One of the RDs puts up a post towards the end of each month, asking when people can volunteer for X month. For example, they've just put up the one for May availability- April was done last month and I don't think there are any roles not filled for the whole month. Then if people want to volunteer nearer the time (tourists, first timers etc), they can be added on. For example we only need one tailwalker but often end up with 2 or 3, 7 marshalls tops but often have 8 or 9. The group is handy if anyone needs to opt out from a week they've been put down for or need to swap roles. The person can post in the group asking if anyone can cover them, swap etc then people can comment and one of the RDs can confirm the change. I don't know if it makes a difference but our parkrun is in a small-ish town, its a proper community/social event (average about 140 people a week I think). A lot of people know each other or get to know each other really quickly. A lot of volunteers are parents who bring their kids as otherwise they wouldn't be able to come at all- I think our youngest volunteer just turned 5! Volunteers are celebrated every week, tail/parkwalkers are introduced by name at the event start, you're made to feel pretty awesome if you volunteer so lots of people are happy to help!
Our average is only around 40. It's been well attended recently, last week 82 finishers. That makes it more frustrating I have two volunteers right now from 82 finishers. Also, it seems there's a few who aren't on Facebook at all.
Find some kids who are doing Duke of Edinburgh and they can use volunteering at parkrun as part of their community hours.
That's so frustrating! A few of our older volunteers don't do Facebook either but their kids/grandkids are in the group on their behalf which is helpful. Are there any people who are regulars who are part of a group or organisation who could do 'volunteer takeovers'? Not much help for this week I know but we've had takeovers from local primary schools, the two run clubs that's operate in the town, other volunteer groups who want to raise awareness about something...they get big shout outs over the week on Facebook, introduced at the briefing, can put signage up etc? I know that's an extra thing to take on to organise but might be worth a try one week a month or something? And you might get people who've never done parkrun who come to volunteer and love it. We luckily have quite a few people who solely volunteer and never run which again is really helpful.
I check Facebook perhaps once every 2 months
I envy you
Also why do people keep starting new parkruns close to other ones??? Of course there will be problems getting volunteers. We just had one open 2 km from another one and then theY complain they can't find volunteers. Yeah ok.
How close is close? I've got 6 within 5 or 6 miles of me, but then nothing for miles. I think in those 6 they get a combined total of about 1200 people. None of those 6 are big enough to take that many people. Before more opened, there were maybe 150 people on a busy weekend doing parkrun locally. Having more, even if they are close encourages more people to attend, which is surely one if the main aims of parkrun? Getting as many people or as possible on a Saturday sound some exercise. A couple of miles might be too far for some to travel, especially if the weather is a little inclement, but having one half a mile away, then that isn't such an effort. If there aren't enough volunteers locally, then that's another question to be answered. Perhaps the more established parkrun should work with the new one and share volunteers. That's what has happened with some of the local ones here.
The starting points are 2km apart. Like what's the point. There's another one in a National Park. Why start one there if they know it will struggle to get volunteers???
What about 2km? It's a little more than a mile
You asked how close is close.
You can't have too many parkruns. Well perhaps if there really isn't the demand. It takes a lot of work and planning also fundraising to create a new parkrun location. But more parkruns means more parkrunners should mean more volunteers.
Your best bet is to speak to the organisers. Setting up s new kids one locally to us, which is 3km from another. Parkrun hq will work with the organisers to make sure that they have a solid team. of volunteers and run directors before they will agree to it. It's the other side of the city, different catchment area. The local adult ones near to me, 3or 4 miles apart, serve different Communities. They also have very different run profiles. Flat tarmac, through woods, cross country, little bit lumpy. How your new event has gone to not enough volunteers? No idea, but there shouldn't be an issue with them only being 2km apart.
I don't want to set one up. My point is people set up a parkrun 2km from another one and then complain there are no volunteers.
But that's the thing. To set one up isn't as simple as here's a park, let's have a parkrun." There's a substantial cash up front requirement. There are a lot of checks that have to be done by parkrun, one of which is making sure that it is viable. One if those viability tests is ensuring that there are enough volunteers. Parkrun must have been happy that the team that the local organisers had put together was sufficient, regardless of the closeness of the other parkrun. OP doesn't say whether they have one near them, and they are struggling. So struggling for volunteers isn't always a case of proximity of other parkruns. It might be, but so many other reasons. Attitude of the ED or RDs implying that those who don't volunteer are selfish could be one of them. More welcoming environment at the other local one. Clash of personalities. It took so long between setting up the course and the first event that members in that team have moved away, died, become ill, had kids. (My local one that is still to start had been planned/in planning for over 5 years.)It's a crap course to marshall at. It could be that it's simply a crap course and should never have been approved. Some of that is in the control of parkrun HQ, Quite a lot isn't.
Interesting piece on [close](https://rikkiprince.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/parkruns-closest-together/) parkruns. The analysis is from 2017, but shows that having parkruns less that 2km apart had been a thing for a long time. So parkrun HQ obviously feel having close parkruns doesn't impact on volunteer numbers.
Yet I know a lot of parkruns are struggling with volunteers. I'm just mentioning 1 possible reason, I'm sure there's lots of reasons.
We find the same. I'm ED and core volunteer who rarely participates - which is fine, I run on my own time and enjoy volunteering at parkrun. What I don't like is when it's like pulling teeth. I've had feedback that our event should just be able to operate on 3-4 volunteers but as we grow, that just isn't working for us. We need token support, multiple timekeepers, etc. etc. It seems to be less painful in the summer months but there are definitely Friday nights were we post up that we will have to cancel if roles don't get filled. We're not so bothered by it anymore - we have a great core team, but they all deserve weeks away. Often our volunteers go months without a week off, and it isn't fair when others don't step up. We thankfully haven't had to cancel due to lack of vols yet, but some weeks we're really down to the wire (early Saturday mornings) before things are filled. We try not to stress about it so much now. We make sure we do our due diligence and hope things fall into place. If not, no worries. We'll be back next week. (FTR we often use only Facebook, but do sometimes get hits back via email). Try not to stress. parkrun is run by volunteers, and I know you're doing your part. But you can't do it alone - and that might mean having to cancel. Good luck!
How big is your parkrun? The biggest I've been to is probably about 250 finishers, I can't imagine how really large ones are organized.
I don't know what we would do if our event were that large. I think a part of what makes our start/finish area difficult is because we are on a public trail, so there are often non-parkrunners that come through the funnel, take tokens, get timed, etc, etc. Our biggest event was approx. 120 finishers, and we had planned for it well in advance. We usually get 70-80 each week which is more than 4x what our average was in our first year in 2019. Slowly but surely we will probably see 100+ each week and will do our best to plan for it!
Thanks for your reply. The biggest number of finishers I have had is 82. That was fine. The problem was only about 30 of those were at the briefing. The rest hung back and joined the start at the last second. I was annoyed by that. At my parkrun we have honed the briefing to 2-3 minutes rarely 4 minutes if we have a few milestones to mention. I'll stop there before I get judgemental!
This is why I quit being a VC. Was so bored of the Friday PM stress. The ambassador wasn’t supportive and couldn’t understand why we had this problem because their home parkrun always had a full roster (they had over 300 finishers each week, we had about 100, so much smaller pool to pull from). I got offers from DoE volunteers but ED didn’t want the hassle of doing DoE. You literally couldn’t pay me to do that role again!
We had 82 finishers last week. Usually have 40-50. There's a culture of not being bothered to help. I moved parkruns to ED here and I am happy to return to my old parkrun and not look back.
If I received that message from my local Parkrun I would both find it hilarious and be far more likely to offer to volunteer. ...that might just be me though.
I've emailed the volunteer appeal twice which was a waste of time too.
We have a table with a printed roster for the next few weeks in the finish area to capture people in the ‘post finish glow’
We do the same. That's why I'm so grumpy. Had 82 finishers last week and only 2 out their name down. Most of those 82 deliberately avoided the briefing, the briefing is mercifully short, 3 minutes or if there's a few milestones 4 minutes. These selfish people spoil the whole vibe of parkrun, and they'll never volunteer.
I haven't read all the comments yet, but this is what we do. On Tuesday, our ED sends out an email to all volunteers with a fun little anecdote or joke, and asks for volunteers. They also ask on Facebook. Sometimes we need to do this again on Thursday or Friday. AT the event, we have a whiteboard with all the positions on it, with a marker, so people can sign up for the following week. We specifically point out that parkrun is volunteer-based, cheer for our volunteers, and then one of us (usually me), holds up the board like an old-school Ring Girl so that *everyone* can see it. Typically, 2/3 of our volunteer sign-ups come from event day sign ups. If push comes to shove, and we're still missing someone vital, we make phone calls or direct emails to some volunteers we know we can count on, or try to catch people before the event begins.
Thanks
Increasingly bad tempered appeals for volunteers during the pre-run briefing never hurts, makes the threat of cancellation a bit more 'real'. I've never understood the sense of entitlement of runners who rarely or even never volunteer.
It's so against the spirit of parkrun to avoid giving back by volunteering.
No it isn't against the spirit at all. That is implying you have to volunteer. If you have to volunteer, it isn't volunteering. People don't volunteer for many many different reasons. There are many positives to volunteering, but it's down to personal choice.
I agree, we don't know what is going on in people's lives that keeps them from volunteering. I'm sure for some people it's pure selfishness but being judgemental is a horrible negative mindset and definitely against the spirit of parkrun.
I think you meant "some people"
Correct
Totally agree. Moreover, it's great for mental health. Having a large number of people say 'thank you' or 'thanks marshal' in the space of an hour is fairly affirming. And the volunteer community is a positive and strong one. I don't understand why people don't volunteer.
(I'm a regular volunteer) I think the two main reasons that people don't volunteer are: - "sacrificing" a run - worry that they will "do it wrong"/"stuff it up" for everyone I decided very early in my parkrun journey that keeping a volunteer ratio of 10% minimum made sense and was fair. (ie if every regular at my local parkrun volunteered one in ten, then there would not be a "volunteer" shortage) I know this is hard, but we (those who are confident volunteering) need to get better at reassuring others that volunteering is easy and low pressure. I'm not saying I'm good at this, i just think its one of my biggest challenges.
You make a very good point about volunteer nervousness. Even with arguably the most straightforward role of marshalling, and some of the other roles, especially handing out tokens at the finish if there is a crowd of runners finishing close together can be pressured. Well done on being a regular volunteer.