A great opportunity to broaden the awareness of your club, extend participation and forge greater links in the local community.
Tri-Sudbury held their first #RunandTalk event on the 26th September, to coincide with the run up to World Mental Health Day. They organised a 3.5 mile run and a 1 mile walk to make it an accessible event. Each had leaders and tail runners/walkers with the aim to get people running and talking with individuals that they may not necessarily know. The focus of the event was on the encouragement of the social side rather than how fast people could run. As a club they have nominated 4 Mental Health Champions to help within the club.
TRISudbury pride themselves on a great reputation for inclusivity in addition to being a really friendly and supportive club. Earlier this year TRISudbury got involved with their first #RunAndTalk programme organised by England Athletics and supported by the mental health charity Mind. The aim was about improving mental well-being through running, to help remove the stigma and raise awareness of mental health issues.
The event was also a way to reach out to the community to dispel myths around joining a Triathlon Club and for people to see what they are about. Through the event, Tri-Sudbury, forged great links with local organisations including Suffolk Mind and Active Suffolk who helped in promoting the event.
The event was an amazing success, around 50 people taking part. ‘As a club, we were really blown away by how many people came along. There was a great mix of club members, members friends and family, those from local running clubs and also people who had no club connections who had come along on their own to take part. We received some great feedback and there was certainly a real buzz about the event.’
On the back of the success of the event, Tri Sudbury will be doing regular monthly RunAndTalk sessions. These will be held on the same evening as their social run. In this way they have lots of club members about and can encourage those taking part to join in with other club activities.
The next official event will be for the national campaign around Time to Talk day in February. In this TriSudbury will offer a multi-sport option to give people a non-competitive taster of what they do. The club strongly encourage those who are interested to get involved and organise events within their own clubs.
