In The Chair: President Carmel
Members: 15
Guests: Andrew Watson
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Andrew Watson – parkrun
Andrew hailed from Manly and did Agriculture at Uni. While at Uni he met wife Sandra. He visited Sandra in Wamoon when she did prac. work on an orchard there in mid-Summer. Then and there he vowed never to live in this hot region. Despite this, he ended up as a Plant Pathologist with the department of Agriculture at Yanco in 1983 and has been here ever since.
He and Sandra had four children some of whom still live in the area. One of Andrew’s jobs was to import the hazelnuts trees for the Ferrero operation, and he is so disappointed that the operation has failed.
After retirement, he once took part in a parkrun at Airlie Beach and decided it would be a good idea to try to start one in Leeton. This was no easy task as they had to find a course which could not use roads and find $7000 to create the event. This was done with the help from Leeton Council, the Murrumbidgee Health District and private contributions (mainly from Andrew). A risk assessment is needed and there must be a de-fib machine which needs to be checked each Saturday.
The Leeton parkrun is called the Leeton Sport and Recreation Precinct parkrun. It is one of 500 in Australia (2000 worldwide in 22 Countries - but not France - and 5 continents) and is held each Saturday from 8am. It is a 5km course (precisely measured). There are about 50 participants each week. The important thing about the parkrun is that there is no money; no committee; no winners and losers; no judgement. Participants can be a competitive as they wish – run, walk or amble is OK. They must register and get a unique barcode that can be used for any parkrun, worldwide. Following the parkrun each Saturday the participants adjourn for Coffee at the local cafés.
The parkrun is good for tourism – people come from all over just to take part. Some try to take part in each one in the State, others want to do one for each letter of the alphabet. Some Grey Nomads go to a district just to take part in the event. Andrew showed a picture of the ‘Viking’ who tries to go to every parkrun.
There is a problem to source volunteers. There needs to be a timekeeper, barcode recorder, follower, and some marshals. Andrew is trying to source volunteers from all over. He often mows the course, sometimes blows of the rubbish and follows the course before the event. He also maintains a Facebook page (although he is not a great lover of Facebook). This demonstrates his commitment to the event. Andrew also acknowledged the support of many others in setting up and ensuring the success of the Leeton event.
Some statistics for the Leeton parkrun: Events: 158, Finishers: 1041, Finishes: 5981, Volunteers: 202, PBs: 883, Average finish time: 00:39:36, Groups: 81.
Andrew was thanked on behalf of the club by Laurie Lewin.
