Craig Batterham writes:
Wednesday 28th December is a weird time of year. That no-man’s land between Christmas and New Year. Being away from London visiting the parents has let me just head into the countryside and forests of Dorset and Hampshire and just run for fun. It also gave me time to reflect on the last twelve months with the club and my own volunteering.
It was at the Osterley Winter 10k earlier this month that an Eagle came up to me and told me that I shouldn’t volunteer so much, more out of concern it seemed than anything else. Then after finishing the race another Eagle commented that they saw me everywhere. At the Christmas party I was again told that I do too much and asked if I felt I was being supported enough
To put it all in my own perspective, I try to volunteer at Monday’s club run alternating with Godfrey as Run Leader because it suits my other commitments and I enjoy the club runs. This is only two or three times a month and easy to do if I’m going to be there anyway. (Happy to step aside though if anyone else wants to jump up on the bench. ) Tail running seems to have more volunteers now but thankfully not quite enough so you will all continue to get my excellent jokes and stories on Facebook.
Standing on the bench and going to every track and hills sessions in the first four months in the club led me to look into getting my LiRF so I could give back to the club that had already given me so much by joining the coaching team. I started the course in the December of 2021 and qualified in the January or February of this year. Since then I have tried to lead at least two sessions each month.
So, an average month would see me volunteering four times. That doesn’t feel like too much to me, but everyone has different commitments and lives so I appreciate that this may seem like a lot to others.
There are so many other ways that you can get involved and volunteer with the Eagles than I do, Juniors; Beginners; Committee Member; Race Committee, Marshals.
The list goes on.
The volunteering I have done over the last twelve months allowed me to get 15 of the 18 point minimum I needed to qualify for the Marathon Ballot. So if you’ve got your eye on entering the ballot for next year then helping out with the club is a great way of doing it.
Training for London starts on Monday so we can go back to talking about the running then.
