18/10/2026
Yesterday morning, one of our regular volunteers, Kate, spotted a gap on the roster for a Report Writer and came over to offer to fill it. What a star! Such a kind gesture and hugely appreciated! š§”
Kate was also one of our Timekeepers yesterday and has included a great little insight into what timekeeping involves. A massive thank you, Kate!
ā”ļø How wonderful was it to be back on the Prom today in the beautiful sunshine. I am sure like me, many of you, either as a runner or a volunteer, missed your parkrun fix last Saturday. To avoid future cancellations due to a lack of volunteers, you know what to do, volunteer and do it early. If youāve never volunteered before, there are lots of different roles, why not try a few over the course of the year and find out what your favourite volunteer role is.
A group of 10 runners caught a train in Hertfordshire at 6am to be with us today and to make up the 798 who enjoyed a sunny Hove Prom parkrun. I hope the 10 intrepid early risers and the 27 first time park runners enjoyed their parkrun. There were an amazing 111 PBs today, congratulations to all those who achieved one.
There were a number of milestones achieved today. Maya Cadman, Megan Andrews, Chad OāReilly, Michael Button, Tamara Altimimi and Kate Lerston all finished their 25th Parkrun. 50 was achieved by Philip Papasavvas, Marina Biaudet and George Gunton. Kolton Frey Croft and Matt Barratt ran their 100th parkrun and Robin Ranful and Laura Furse have clocked up 250 parkruns each. Wilfred Barnham has now volunteered on 25 occasions.
Today there were an incredible 93 volunteers, 26 of them were volunteering for the first time. Todayās headlining club, the GoodGym, bought 13 of the volunteers along and 11 members of Run the Lanes also volunteered. Hove Prom are always happy to work with clubs whatever size they are.
I was one of the timekeepers today, timekeepers spend the first 15 minutes or so cheering all the participants on and shouting out first lap times. We then we have our concentration faces on as we tap the app on our phones as each runner, walker and wheeler finishes. Once the bulk of the participants have finished, we have time to encourage and congratulate the remaining participants which is lovely after a period of intense focus for us. Thank you to all today for moving through the funnel quickly, we only had one very short period where the funnel backed up. When the funnel backs up the timekeepers have to walk up the line of the finishers outside the funnel and as well as tapping each finisher on the app, we are shouting out saying to stay in line and that we are timing finishers as they join the line. There is another challenge for timekeepers when the funnel backs up, as the line is absorbed into the funnel we have to walk backwards as well as tapping runners in! Does timekeeping always work seamlessly, of course not, phones can misbehave, tapping fingers may not keep up when large bunches of finishers come through together, raindrops can hit the screen and get recorded as a finisher ā you name it, it has happened to a timekeeper!
To ensure the results are accurate there are 2 timekeepers and a time checker. The time checker works with one of the timekeepers and records the name and finish time of a number of finishers and the results processor volunteer uses that information to ensure the results are correctly aligned up with finishers bar codes and tokens.
Prior to volunteering, I had never considered the process that was involved in getting my parkrun time, it really is quite an exercise that involves a lot of volunteers.
If youād like to volunteer over the coming weeks, please email us [email protected] or comment here š§”
