Membership Record
While we're still celebrating another successful year on the track and on the roads. Only one year on from reaching a total membership of 600, the highest in our history, we’ve now reached a new high of 650 members. Traditionally our members have been recruited from local schools with our 600th member (Martin Ferrie) joining as an eight year old.
This year we decided to target a new group, the parents. We were aware that parents were dropping their kids off at the Stadium and going for a run. Many of the parents we spoke to thought that a club of our stature wouldn’t be interested in them. Nothing could be further from the truth. While we’ve been very successful at bringing young track athletes through to compete at the highest level we haven’t had the same success in bringing in and retaining older Road runners/joggers.
We advertised through our website and social media and found about 40 of our members or parents wanted to be involved in a new joggers network or Road running group. 14 of those expressing an interest also wanted to be jog leaders. The club paid for the 14 volunteers to attend a Jog Leaders course and by the 22nd of May this year, we had a new road running group leaving Scotstoun at 7pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Our inaugural run attracted 30 jog leaders and road runners.
We can now offer the best leadership and coaching from some very experienced volunteers for only £25 per year. Best of all, you can come along for a month for free before deciding on joining. That’s fantastic value, when you consider some groups are charging £3.50p per session.
At this moment, the group is open to everyone 4 nights a week and the session plan reflects the level of runners that attend. Whether you’re aiming to get under 30 minutes for a 10k or starting out with a couch to 5k fitness program, we’ve got enthusiastic leaders ready to help.
You shouldn’t be put off by our history and reputation for success, we didn’t get there by not being open to all and willing to work hard at everything we do.
A measure of the club’s success this year was the 45 medals won by our track and field athletes who competed at the Scottish Championships in August, reaching 650 members was another and next year we expect to report on the number of new road runners who have exceeded their expectations and achieved their own personal goals.
It was no coincidence that the 650th member to join this year was a 45 year old male who has just joined the Road Running group.
Glasgow Life have taken a keen interest in our success and only today sent out a media release which will hopefully be picked up by some of the local papers. The event coincided with the supply of new hi vis shirts and jackets for our Jog Leaders. As you can see from the attached pictures, it was a great success.
