Saturday 7th March 2020
Report written by John Hayes
I arrived at the same time as Ben, just as Tousif was getting a briefing from the run director. We were all set to scan, so we made sure we were all ready to use our phones to scan in later. After a quick selfie at the start line, we walked to our position by the stocks, which we presume are there for people cutting corners. We watched as the front runners came through at a furious pace and cheered the efforts of everyone doing their parkrun. As Ben had not done this volunteer role before, he was relieved that the first person to come through to us went straight to him. He was pleased to see that it was a very simple process and then we were soon into the flow of scanning as almost 500 people came through. It was interesting to see the wide variety of ways that people had their barcode printed, and the equally varied positions on the body that some had them applied. Additionally, it was bizarre to note that the app found it quite difficult to scan the very professionally printed silicone wristbands but had no problem at all with faded, folded or crumpled pieces of paper. We had hoped to talk to some of the finishing runners about GoodGym in Walsall but it was so busy that we had to concentrate on wishing them well in a red shirt and hoping that they go and find out more. After realising how much battery the app had used up, we all went our own way for a bit of football, family time, and in my case, an 18 mile run for some fun!
Sun 8th Mar 2020 at 12:38pm
Love love love this pun
Sun 8th Mar 2020 at 4:08pm
Haha! Thank you, I peaked early on Saturday. Had two puns ready before even setting off for Walsall!