What a busy few weeks we have had! Our change petition has passed 24,000 signatures, and when combined with our Australian sister petition, we now have over 25,000 people standing united, asking for our course stats back. The Facebook group ‘parkrun – Bring Back the Stats!’ has increased to 800 members, and is proving to be an extremely powerful tool for us to collaborate in our efforts.
Despite disappointingly yet to receive a reply from parkrun to our last letter, our resolve only strengthens to have our case heard, and the voice of reason to win through. We continue to urge parkrun HQ to listen to our community and create a win-win outcome.
In the news
We have been delighted to see a long and detailed article published by The Telegraph today, covering the story from a broad range of angles:
How Parkrun record row ended up at the centre of culture wars (telegraph.co.uk)
(An accessible version is available to view here too)
The Irish Times have also published a fantastic opinion piece, calling for the return of the stats:
Ian O’Riordan: Come on parkrun, give them back their stats! – The Irish Times
The Telegraph has also published an article focussing on the tourism aspect:
Run Republic have covered our cause here:
Parkrun Community Rallies to Restore Beloved Running… | Run Republic
Developments
We now have a Strava group - a big thanks to Peter for getting this set up! This is available to join at:
https://www.strava.com/clubs/1228042
It is a great group for people to work together to show support and protest about these changes. Please do join the 2600+ and growing group if you use Strava. There are some pretty interesting Strava segments to run as well; see how you did on “The Big Bushy Bring Back the Stats segment” if you have made or plan to make a pilgrimage to Bushy Park.
Additionally, we have launched a set of ‘Bring Back the Stats!’ protest T-shirts, with the first orders arriving in the post today. The range includes T-shirts for men, women, and children, in a selection of colours. On the front is the call to ‘Bring Back the Stats!’, and on the back is the full list of the statistics that parkrun removed last month.
There is a basic cotton design, or you may wish to upgrade to a premium sports T-shirt. We are very excited to start wearing these at parkrun this weekend - spreading our message at events, and with the possibility of sharing selfies to social media afterwards. If you would like to have a look, the T-shirts are available to order at:
Bring Back the Stats| Marketplace Shop Designs | Complete Collection (tshirtstudio.com)
Other news
Although we have not had a reply to our last letter from HQ, one of our group did happen to bump into CEO Russ Jefferys at his local parkrun on Saturday, giving him an opportunity to share our views politely and respectfully. They exchanged views and agreed that they were not going to change each other’s minds. Although it was suggested that you cannot please all the people all the time, we would argue that this change is not pleasing anyone outside of HQ, as far as we can see.
As we continue to do everything we can in asking HQ to engage with us, to find a solution that works for everybody, it has been advertised that Parkrun HQ are visiting Epworth Equestrian parkrun in Lincolnshire on 6th April as part of their tour of the area. Joanne Sinton Hewitt and the team are visiting to run the course and to meet the volunteer team - and participants. This might be an opportunity for local parkrunners to wear their protest T-shirts and have a respectful dialogue with HQ on the issues - such opportunities seem hard to come by!
Thank you to all for your ongoing efforts and have a lovely Easter weekend.