parkrun thread
2 lurkers |
488 watchers
Sep 2020
3:43pm, 25 Sep 2020
631 posts
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Spideog
It's less of an issue now, but there was good reason early on for them to be very nervous at the start of lockdown that there would be people congregating at parkrun location at 9am for unofficial runs and giving parkrun a bad name of not respecting the lockdown. Now it seems that people want parkrun to organise an unofficial parkrun event at parkrun locations, but do it without too many people and not being under the parkrun banner, but for it to be under the parkrun banner so that they can claim free tshirts. Did Boris Johnson just join parkrun HQ staff or something. 
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Sep 2020
3:50pm, 25 Sep 2020
12,107 posts
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larkim
DOn't get me wrong, I do think they over-egg the pudding in terms of the benefits that they ascribe to parkrun, and they clearly do that because some of the funding that they utilise to put parkrun on is linked to wider health benefits than simply running. But they do seem to get an undue amount of knocking; is that the usual Britishness of knocking something that has become successful? |
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Sep 2020
3:56pm, 25 Sep 2020
634 posts
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Spideog
parkrun HQ deserve criticism on many things, but I don't think their handling of the attempt to return is one of them... except they should possibly have focused on some other further away and smaller countries in Europe first to test the waters.
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Sep 2020
4:13pm, 25 Sep 2020
8,481 posts
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jda
I just don't like the pig-headed stubborn idiocy of it all.
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Sep 2020
4:18pm, 25 Sep 2020
288 posts
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cerid
Spideog, it's about platform, reach, relevance and putting "Oh we would do anything to help these people" into action. I can reach maybe 400 people but only if they are already in a group that I'm in, and where it would be off topic for all of them. parkrun will happily email everyone once a week to buy a Contra t-shirt, not unreasonable for them to email everyone with what I suggested. I have suggested this to them, but they refuse. Don't come attacking me for not doing what I am no position to do. I know you're determined to defend their every action, that's clear, but I cannot achieve what they can and the willing inaction on their part is hypocritical. |
Sep 2020
4:20pm, 25 Sep 2020
716 posts
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Non-runner
True, parkrun is constituted as a charity, but like other charities it must be under enormous financial pressure as it’s main source of income (sponsorship?) is probably drying up as sponsors get not much exposure for their investment. Hence the desire to get back to normal operation. I do feel for other charities whose income is derived largely from events, and a lot of them running events. MacMillan has just made a tranche of redundancies I hear.
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Sep 2020
4:22pm, 25 Sep 2020
12,109 posts
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larkim
No sense that you're being a bit harsh? Maybe they got the tone wrong, but a single minded dedication to getting themselves back up and running to try to instill confidence that it would be effectively delivered was quite essential. Caveating any annoucements too heavily with ifs and buts and maybes wouldn't have seemed to me to be a good strategy? They did get two things massively wrong - timing (and I can forgive them that) and landowner consent conversations (that does seem quite ludicrous; it's one thing getting DCMS on your side, it's another thinking that that alone would have been enough to persuade every council, Forestry COmmission, National Trust etc that there was "nothing to see here"). |
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Sep 2020
4:23pm, 25 Sep 2020
8,482 posts
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jda
There's absolutely no reason why they should obstinately refuse to do anything at all unless it can be "normal operation". I defy anyone on this thread to find any single charity in the UK that is back to normal operation. We are all operating under abnormal conditions in every aspect of our lives, and refusing to even attempt to find a solution that might involve the tiniest bit of flexibility in their thinking is just obtuse.
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Sep 2020
4:25pm, 25 Sep 2020
12,110 posts
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larkim
@NR - absolutely no doubt that money is important as it is to every organisation that has running costs. Their offices won't pay for themselves, the livelihoods of their staff won't pay for themselves, and their sponsors will in some areas be challenged for funds themselves. But no shame in that at all. If parkrun have to make redundant their HO staff, getting things back to normal next spring will be a challenge! (My "being a bit harsh" question was to @jda, by the way!) |
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Sep 2020
4:27pm, 25 Sep 2020
289 posts
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cerid
They’ll do what they want and that I would be ok with. Accompanying it with “oh if only we could do something” while refusing to do anything is what I find so galling.
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