I've been working on getting a parkrun started in my local area, Pallara. In the background I've sourced the funding required for a defibrillator, computer, barcodes, scanners, flags & IT infrastructure. I've also gone to the community for input through my personal Facebook page and a running blog I write. I've also met with our local councillor to seek approval on the use of council facilities, although I still need to submit a request through the official channels.
It's been a slow process as I do this in between my normal work and extracurricular activities. But it felt like the idea was birthed into reality this morning for our first trial run.
I had 24 runners from the local area (including the event directors from the 2 closest parkruns), who were interested to see the course. I'm hoping that from these interested locals I can build my volunteer team, as I need at least 4 volunteers each Saturday to run the event.
Also parkrun is about community, and building community, so it's important that no one person or interested group has ownership of the event. So it was great to see a few different local suburbs represented and different running groups.
The feedback from the trial run was good, giving me some ideas to run the event more smoothly, and some important messages to give during the safety briefing.
I'm proud to have got the event to this stage where it is starting to take shape. I think my role now starts to be the "bus driver" with the community in the bus with me! I keep pushing it forward, but they're going to guide me as well and support me in the event of a flat tyre (problems).
Hopefully it continues to build from here into an event that benefits the community by providing an outlet for fitness and friendship every Saturday.
