This was our 3rd successful Community Mission, helping at Junior parkrun on the Town Moor, Newcastle.

They always let us know that they really appreciate our help to fill their volunteer roster (which can be quite empty at times) although the friendly Volunteer co-ordinator (We were impressed that she always remembers our names!) joked that can we try and bring some better weather with us! (So far we've had gales, thick fog, cold and more strong winds)

Andrew and Amy were there first at Exhibition Park, shortly followed by myself (Charlotte) running along behind. Andrew had signed up to marshal, Amy was tail runner and I was to be barcode scanning at the finish. It really was blowing gales and absolutely freezing but thankfully we managed to shelter before we walked over to our different positions (all well explained before the start).

There were just over 90 young runners , running with their grown ups which is absolutely amazing considering the weather conditions. There is a free and friendly competition at the start between the volunteers, that if you guess correctly, or are the nearest to, the number of finishers, you win a free coffee at the end (I think we definitely all underestimated!)

We all really enjoyed ourselves as it is such a well organised and fun event. Afterwards we went to warm up and chat over well deserved hot drinks

In our conversation, we discovered that Andrew is actually a qualified Table Tennis Umpire (that will definitely come in useful for the Social tomorrow night!), Amy's Dad was awarded a medal for napkin folding and I thought I would add that I have a Coaching qualification in Dodgeball. Inspired by the napkin folding, Andrew and Amy had great delight in attempting to fold their own napkins.

We will be back to help Junior parkrun on 19th May (it should be warmer by then!) I really hope that we can get a large group together and fill their roster. I will aim to book a table nearby for anyone interested afterwards to enjoy catching up over Brunch