07 Feb 2018
A day in the life of a Run Leader...
There aren't many times that any of the crew miss a parkrun day, but some of us have missed the last two!
Megan and Sharon decided last year that they wanted to give something back to TRF so after a bit of chatting amongst the group they picked a date & attended their Leadership in Running Fitness (LiRF) course. Megan said "I liked the discussions about recovery and how adaptation only happens when you include recovery rather than go full out all the time". Sharon has been supporting the Tuesday Overton sessions for a few weeks and Megan led her first session last night! This is the start of their Run Leader journey. One thing you may not know about this starting point is that the LiRF does cost around £160 to do. So not only have they given up a parkrun, a whole Saturday, spent a day learning and, as Megan pointed out they even had to provide their own food....it cost them for the pleasure of looking after the future of TRF! Well done both of you, and thank you for taking your time to do this for us.
The following week Andrea, Hazel, Megan and I got up early for a drive to Birmingham University to the Team Spirit Conference. The conference was held by England Athletics linked with the Spirit of 2012.
The day started with a quiz and it didn't take long for me to be centre stage as I got down to the final three out of over 200, unfortunatley missing out at the last hurdle. Donna Fraser (Olympic Athlete) hosted the event so we made sure we had a selfie with her! We also got chance to see Denise Larrad who won the 2017 BBC Get Inspired Unsung Hero award at the Sports Personality of the Year 2017 ceremony. Denise is also a RunTogether group leader, maybe we could be winners next year!
During the day the four of us attended different workshops including Fundraising, Mindfulness and Building Personal Resilience and Managing Stress. We took the opportunity to hang out with other RunTogether groups such as Ossy Joggers. This was great for sharing ideas. From this we have decided to review our survey again in the coming months and may even look at some awards at our Christmas do later this year!
There were loads of opportunities to chat with some of the team from England Athletics and RunTogether too. I took the chance to speak to some of the EA team about future courses. Some of you may remember Dan and Matt who joined us last April for a run. Dan showed us some new things that are coming for 2018, we think you'll love them....we do! Oh, plus they said they'll come back soon and this time it's their turn to bring cake!
Andrea said "I liked the psychological stuff from Mandy Rutter -
Our mental/emotional wellbeing tends to be cyclical. When we're "down" we have to find a way to bring ourselves back up, be that with exercise, yoga, volunteering, hugs - whatever makes you feel good. But when we're "up" we think we're ok so we might stop doing the good stuff. Then our next down comes. If we carried on doing the good stuff our next down wouldn't be so deep. Makes sense to me...
Another thing I took away from the sessions was to be empathetic. If someone has been off with you, don't immediately take offence - think about why they were like that - what's going on in their life to make them like that".
The final session of the day was by Mark from The Art of Brilliance. Hazel said "I liked what he said about being happy. It takes effort but the rewards are immense. Don’t be a “Mood Hoover” sucking the positivity out of everything.
And the famous quote from Henry Ford never grows old “If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right”. Be more positive about your abilities, focus on what you CAN do, not what you CAN’T.
Overall what I took away -
Don’t be afraid to be a micro-volunteer. You may not want or be able to take on a big role but there will always be something that you can do, just a small one off task which will still have an impact on the person/organisation you’re volunteering for.
I liked the idea of creating a 'To Be' list rather than a 'To Do' list. However I do have one final thing currently on my to do list....to say thank you for giving up another parkrun day and joining me at the conference and thank you to all the Run Leaders for TRF. I know it's not as easy as rocking up at 17:55 to take a register & going on a run. There are sessions to plan, speaking to new people in advance, planning routes that will suit a range of abilities, continuing your own learning & development to ensure sessions are fun & full of purpose, all on top of having a life outside of TRF. So always on my to be list is....to be eternally grateful for having the best team of Run Leaders a girl could ask for :-)
Nat
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