News Item

Volunteer prize requirements 2018

Monday June 11 - Kevin O'Riordan

You will most likely have noticed the recent problems with getting volunteers for races resulting in the cancellation of one race last week. It is with great regret that this had to happen but possibly long overdue in many ways. Should the need arise again we will have no hesitation in cancelling other races in the future.

IMRA is of course a volunteer run organisation and is entirely dependent on the goodwill of its members to assist in the running of events throughout the year. Put simply no volunteers = no races... Please volunteer well in advance of races rather than waiting until the Race Director is scrambling around desperately looking for more volunteers days before the event.

A worrying statistic is that we now have more members than ever before and growing year on year and recent changes to registration and online entry systems mean that we actually require less volunteers that ever before but seem to struggle more than ever to fill race roles.

We are introducing a number of changes to annual prizes and Club 100 Tshirts with immediate effect. Hopefully this will recognise those who volunteer more frequently, open up the pool of prizes to more people and also in some ways punish those who run race after race with little of no volunteering history.

Starting in 2018, the Committee has decided to change to an overall annual prize rather than a summer league prize. Any runner who has completed any 10 races in the IMRA calendar, other than MMRA events, and two non-running volunteering roles will be eligible for the prize. This will hopefully make it fairer for all members to have a chance to get IMRA prizes rather than limiting this to those who can regularly make the Wednesday evening races. As MMRA events have their own annual prizes, they will not be counted towards the necessary 10 races.

In addition as previously advised the CLUB 100 shirt will be only be available to IMRA members who have run 100 races while also contributing at least 10 non-running volunteer roles. This is in line with minimum volunteering guidelines. It is quite shocking to look through the list of those on or near 100 races who have not done what should be considered the minimum requirement.

Hopefully these changes will encourage a few more to step forward but be warned that we will have no problem cancelling races if there is not the required number of volunteers registered for an event.

I would ask that all members take a moment to review and reflect on their level of volunteering to date. This information is readily available on your my IMRA Profile. For anyone new to the organisation and wondering where or how they can volunteer you will find this information on
https://www.imra.ie/volunteering/ and can volunteer for an event on every event page.

Thanks to all volunteers for your contribution to date!

The Committee