Ahead of World Cerebral Palsy Day tomorrow, Club member Andy Tomlinson’s featured in this inspiring article in today’s Herald Scotland: Meet the inspiring novice runner with cerebral palsy whose next target is a marathon. [Andy] believes for someone with cerebral palsy, running does bring health benefits. he said: “Running has had multiple health benefits. I’m happier when I run so it’s improved my mental health. My muscle tone is much better as well when I run, I’m not as tight and less pain, apart from sprained ankle at the moment, and hopefully opens up a whole world to me – Covid permitting. … He added: “The best advice I’d give is join a local club they are plenty of amazing clubs. Running has also allowed me to talk to runners all over the world as well including runners with Cerebral Palsy that will be running Berlin 2021 like me. Running is inclusive: every age, body shape, pace, distance, paired running, race running, and wheelchair events.” … Stephanie Fraser, chief executive, of Cerebral Palsy Scotland, said: “Andy is an inspiration because he does not let his CP limit his aspirations and he participates fully in so many different things. Too often CP is seen as only a childhood condition and people are told what they can’t do, not supported to achieve what they want to.” Well done on your running Andy, and this superb article. We’re delighted to have you as a member, and looking forward to seeing you achieve and surpass your targets and goals, and continuing to inspire our members, and many others! Read the full article on The Herald Scotland Website: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18770410.meet-inspiring-novice-runner-cerebral-palsy-whose-next-target-marathon
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We’re extremely pleased to be able to report that club member Oscar Wild was recognised earlier this month with the ‘Achievement of the Month‘ award by the Sports Council for Glasgow. Oscar’s achievement was running regular virtual circuit classes on Zoom for members since lockdown first happened back in March. It’s been – and continues to be – immensely popular with members, and a hugely important part of the amazing response by members to the Coronavirus pandemic. Oscar’s also raised (so far!) over £450 for the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice, by encouraging participants who wanted to support his efforts to donate. Everybody at the club is delighted to see Oscar recognised for his hard work. 👏👏👏 Oscar said: “Tonight I had the honour of attending the Sports Council of Glasgow Awards presentation at Decathlon, Braehead. I was nominated by the club for doing the virtual circuit classes from the start of lockdown and using them as a way of raising money for the Prince and Princess of Wales hospice. Thanks to the club for the nomination and I am delighted to showcase the club and thank everyone who contributed to the charity fundraiser.” Many thanks to the Sports Council for Glasgow, and to Decathlon Glasgow. You can still contribute to Oscar’s fundraiser in support of the Prince and Princess of Wales hospice at: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/oscarwilde 💜💜💜
Delighted to report that we have been shortlisted for a National Award! The ‘Impact Club of the Year’ is a big annual club award from our Governing body Scottish Athletics. In a very contested field – there’s really so much going on in clubs right across the country – it’s brilliant to even be on the shortlist, particularly in a year of record nominations. The other clubs short-listed are Nairn AAC and Linlithgow AC. It’s a fantastic testament to the brilliant work by our members who have, right through the year (particularly during Coronavirus) been driving initiatives, pitching in to help, and supporting each other in person and virtually. Everybody at the club is proud to see us short-listed, so fingers very much crossed! The awards event is online on youtube, so subscribe to Scottish Athletics channel and mark the 10th October in your diaries! Well done again to everybody at the club for their hard work, and for making it such a special place! REVEALED! Club and coach short-lists for our 4J Studios Annual Awards
Update, 25th September – Our latest plan (#5!) has exciting news! We’re back to groups of 15! Access our full plan here: BRR_ Coronavirus Club plan and members info #5_ Late September 2020 Changes announced earlier this week meant this update could return us to training with groups of 15, as Glasgow specific guidance was brought in line with the rest of Scotland. There’s also now a route for members to bring informal groups into the club’s auspices. Interested members should get in touch with the Board or Lead Coaches to discuss the steps required. Full details on the club forum. Update, 5th September – Because of updated guidance for Glasgow area clubs, issued by Scottish Athletics on 4th September we have issued an updated coronavirus plan, which you can read in full here. This currently supersedes the plan detailed below. Original announcement (28th August) follows We’re pleased to today publish our newly updated plan for our continued resumption of group training, after our successful trial in August. Our updated club plan uses the recently updated framework from Scottish Athletics, allowing groups of up to 15 members to implement a ‘training bubble’ at organised club sessions. It builds on our successful trial in August, with groups continuing to meet in separate locations by training group, members booking sessions and a declaration prior to attendance. We’re also very excited to be planning to resume welcoming new members along to the club, to try us out for a while to see if they’d like to join us. We’ve had a waiting list for a little while now who we’ve already started reaching out to, and hope to begin inviting them to our expanded sessions in early-September after our new plan has settled in. If you’re interested in finding out more about our club and what it can offer, please check out our website, then drop a note to info@bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk and we’ll look to add you to the waiting list, and book you in. We are again hugely grateful to the Coronavirus sub-group, led by Emer (who took time-out from a much deserved holiday to update our plan), and presented it to our coronavirus group and coaches this week. Many thanks to everybody involved at the club who helped with that review/approval process. Many thanks, once again, to Scottish Athletics for their framework, support and guidance: it has been invaluable in helping our volunteer coaches and Trustees to put this together. Download the club plan here: BRR_Coronavirus Club plan and members info_ August 2020
We’re delighted to publish our plan to return to group training in August, using the framework provided to us by Scottish Athletics. We are starting carefully, with a series of trial sessions available for current members to book via our website, with sessions starting on 3rd and 5th August. We will be reviewing these events, but are hopeful we’ll be in a position to increase the number of sessions we are able to offer if it goes well, later in the month. We are grateful to the Coronavirus sub-group, led by Emer, who has worked hard to draw up this plan, supported by our lead coaches and Board of Trustees, as well as our wider group leads and coaches. Many thanks to Scottish Athletics for their framework, support and guidance: it has been invaluable in helping our volunteer coaches and Trustees to put this together. We’ll also continue to engage in virtual events: We’ve consistently been the largest club by participation at all of the Scottish Athletics virtual events so far, and a closely run thing to just miss out on largest UK club at the recent British Masters 5k relay challenge. We’re also delighted many members are organising informal sessions amongst themselves, carefully observing guidelines when they do. We’ve been getting together virtually with lots of group videos. Lots more detail on our ‘The club during Coronavirus’ page. We look forward to sharing more news in the coming weeks. Whilst we’re prioritising our existing membership just now, if you’re interested in joining the club as soon as we’re able to welcome new members to our sessions, do please get in touch with us via membership@bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk Download the club plan here: BRR_ Coronavirus Club plan and members info.pdf
We’re delighted to invite club members to an online meeting and Q&A, on July 27th at 6.30pm, where we’ll present the club plan to – we hope – start a small trial resumption of group training in August. Members can find access details/agenda on the members’ forum: https://forum.bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk/t/club-meeting-ahead-of-a-proposed-trial-resumption-of-group-training-july-27th-6-30pm/3687 For members who can’t make it, or for non-members, the meeting should also be live-streamed and available for review, via our youtube channel (although commenting/Q&A won’t be possible here)
The club is delighted to welcome Robert McEwan, Jane Wild and Oscar Wild as our new Honorary Lifetime members, after unanimous support from members at our 2020 AGM. They have all made a huge and lasting impact at the club over its 20 year history. A summary of their valuable contributions can be found on our Honorary Lifetime member page. Many congratulations to Robert, Jane and Oscar, and thank you for your hard work for the club, our members, and our local community over the years.
Many thanks to the many members who joined us for our 2020 AGM, the very first one we’ve ever held virtually. We had at great turnout, and with all our content available to view on our YouTube channel, we’re delighted by the engagement and interest shown by club members into our governance. We hope by being open about our governance process, and outcomes, it’ll even interest and engage more of our members, and even a few potential members. A few of our presentations were pre-recorded, and we are delighted to share these with you here if you wanted to watch them. They’re also embedded below. Club President Richard Leyton’s report and club update is here (and embedded below), which contains a fantastic section with our lead coach Gerry, and Team Manager Leanne looking back over the last year of club training and racing, and gives a real taste of what the club has got up to. The ‘Bella Twists’ highlight reel is here (and embedded below), and we’ve shared it on our public social media – We hope it captures the enthusiasm club members have shown for continuing with club activities, just differently, right through the lockdown. If you like it, do please give it a like or better yet, an onward share. The Financial update from treasurer Kenny Crawford is here. There’s detail too in our Trustees’ Annual Report. If you want to watch the entire AGM(!), you can catch the full live stream recording here. Our previous annual reports are all available via bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk/charity/ A few key takeaways to report from the motions that were discussed, and voted on: The membership supports, in principle, a change of training venue: As the President’s report detailed, this is something we’d been working on for some time, which will hopefully continue when restrictions allow. The membership, and club, fully endorses and supports the Run Equal campaign. Whilst gender equality in Scottish running events is well ahead of the UK, there are still unequal events (National Masters XC, and some county events as of 2019/20 season). We’ll be making more public statements about that in due course, and to encourage other clubs in Scotland to take a similar stand. Club members supported continuing the membership fee freeze (and longer-term deferral for impacted members), which the Board will keep under review pending a resumption of training/substantive costs. The fees themselves remain unchanged from last year. Members approved three new Honorary Lifetime Members, in Jane Wild, Oscar Wild and Robert McEwan, who have been important members in the development of the club. We’ll be posting a separate news item to welcome them officially as Honorary Lifetime Members. Thanks again to all our members, and we’d encourage them to get in touch with us on any point. Whilst the AGM is an important point in the year, club Governance is a continual process and really depends on members getting involved and helping out where they can: the Board can only do so much. Plus the club is […]
Club members should now have received formal notification of the club’s rearranged 2020 Annual General Meeting. We are hosting it virtual (using Zoom) on Thursday, 18th June, 2020. If you haven’t received the email, please check your membership, or contact the membership secretary – or another Trustee – if you’re uncertain. There is full copy of the agenda, and background to the AGM, on the club members’ forum. For background, a full copy of the 2018-19 Trustees’ Annual Report and accounts is available, and (with addresses redacted) is available our website. In summary, as well as a few standard AGM items, such as the financial update from the Treasurer, and the President’s report, the Board are proposing some important motions for members to review, discuss and consider, and cast their vote on: Reviewing and confirming our annual membership fees. This was scheduled to happen in any event, but the advent of the Coronavirus crisis means we wish to fully confirm with members. Supporting, in principle, relocation to a new training base within Bellahouston park Supporting and endorsing the Run Equal campaign, with a view to campaigning for full equality of gender at cross-country races. The Board proposes the club adopts the suggested Run Equal motions. Outlining the past and present relationship the club has with the Renfrewshire AAA, and how that may work in future. Supporting the efforts of the Board to engage with, and help creation of, a cross-country League in the West District of Scotland. Reviewing and approving the Board’s nominations for members to receive the title of “Honorary Lifetime member“ Review any member submitted motions that are received (together with two seconders) on or before the 15th March, 2020 Reviewing and appointing the Board of Trustees We’re hosting this virtually due to the Coronavirus crisis. We are endeavouring to use practices from our own experiences from working-from-home, but we really want to make sure this works both as a formal meeting we need to host as part of our charitable status, but also as a fun way to come together. Members who are unable to attend, but wish to be recorded in the Apologies, should contact the club secretary. The Board look forward to welcoming members on the 18th April to engage with this important annual event for the club.
The Glasgow Times recently had a great article about our virtual challenge participation success, and social media efforts! Do check it out if you missed it. Find it at: https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/18472139.bellahouston-road-runners-race-difference/
🥳Congratulations and a huge well done to all our Bellas who took on the Scottish Athletics Virtual Challenge – The one mile time trial – which took place from 8th – 11th May. 🤩 We were again the largest club by participation! A whopping 77 Road Runners took to the streets over the weekend to see how fast they could record one mile and there were fantastic performances all round 💜👏 We say it every time but it’s really hard racing yourself – amazing effort from EVERYONE!🤩 💜Among a host of great performances, our ladies masters team finished 2nd in their category with our other teams just outside the placings. Awesome job Bellas!! Not only has it been a busy weekend of running, we’ve all had a busy weekend getting on with our housework 😜. Some of our talented members got together to create a fun video of everyone doing their household chores. We really can’t wait until lockdown is lifted so we can ‘Break Free’ !!! 💜 Enjoy!! 🤩🎥 🧹 🧼 🎶💜
Time for another update! We’re hoping to make these rollups of what members, and the club, have been up to a regular thing whilst we’re in this strange lockdown situation. Members should now have received the full May 2020 update in their mailboxes, and it’s also published on our club members’ forum. The last month or so has been really busy for the club, with lots of ideas and inspiration and it’s hard to know where to start! Club member Alan Digweed has been a force of nature with his hosted Facebook Live video quizzes. An amazing achievement that was loads of fun to take part in. Alan, and fellow Bella Marty Campbell put together this amazing video on ‘Running Etiqette’. If you’ve not seen it yet, you’re in for a treat! (It’s also embedded below) We were the biggest club by participation at the Easter Weekend Scottish Athletics Virtual relays. A fun selfie compilation brought a smile to everybody’s face! One of seven photographs is the featured image here, you can see them all on our event write-up, and on the members’ forum. We won the overall title (and seven 1st places in total!) in the Scottish Athletics 15 minute challenge. Here’s our writeup! The ‘bella twist’ was an amazing shoe relay video right across the club, which Laura Henderson did a brilliant job of coordinating. (It’s also embedded below). Many thanks to everybody who took part! Scottish Athletics published the online version of their articles about our 20th anniversary, which you can read here, together with some lovely words by Bryan Burnett about the benefits of being in a running club. Over on our members’ facebook group, Gordon Goldie has been running an amazing series of “Meet the Bella” interviews, which we’re all absolutely loving, finding out so much about our fellow Bellas, and enjoying some pics from our younger years (and one or two fun hairstyle choices!). Oscar continues to run his brilliant three-times weekly Zoom virtual fitness classes. We’re looking to start a club social get together in the next wee while, details will be published soon! Our coaches, led by Gerry Scullion, continue to inspire and motivate our members with regular training schedules, tips and suggestions, over on our Whatsapp announcement group. Don’t forget, we’ve the Scottish Athletics Virtual 1 mile time trial challenge (8th-11th May), as well as our Strava virtual segments in our club championship to take part in (following the currently applicable rules about travel, social distancing etc!) Just to finish on a personal note to encourage you all to be kind to yourself, and do what feels best for you. If you’re inspired to train, that’s fantastic, but like many, I’ve really struggled to find consistency or a routine, so just getting a run done, or achieving a personal goal through the day, is every bit as important and to be celebrated. I’ve resolved to take it day by day, week by week, and really relish the amazing things that I’m […]
💜Congratulations and well done to the whopping 69 Bellas who took part in the Scottish Athletics 15 minute challenge at the end of April.💜 There was a lot of buzz over on the forum, Facebook and strava pages and it was great to see so much encouragement and support given to all our members taking part!!! It’s hard racing against yourself, however that didn’t stop everyone giving it their all…. There were some amazing times recorded across the board! 🙌 A special shout out to our amazing Bella’s 🤩Grant Murphy and Cat MacDonald who covered the furthest individual distance for the club! 👏 💜 But…. Teamwork makes the dream work 💜 and as a result Bellahouston Road Runners scooped 1st place overall for the overall club distance recorded, as well as firsts for Senior Men and Senior Women 🤩 Full details on the Scottish Athletics website: 15-Minute Virtual Challenge brings in over 1100 solo runs With the full result breakdown now available too, we achieved the following ‘podium’ positions: All club members total distance: 1st 🥇 U17 and over total distance: 1st🥇 Senior Men total distance: 1st🥇 Senior Women total distance: 1st🥇 Masters Men (40) total distance: 1st🥇 Masters Women (40) total distance: 1st🥇 Masters Men (45) total distance: 1st🥇 Masters Men (65) total distance: 2nd🥈 Masters Women (55) total distance: 3rd 🥉 With an honourable shout out for 4th in Masters Men (50) total distance too. Well done to everybody who took part, to all the clubs that competed! Just a fantastic success and achievement for every club member to feel proud of! Of course, we didn’t stop there! With huge thanks to Laura Henderson for coordinating, club members got together virtually to create this fantastic video. We hope you enjoy it!
Club coach Oscar Wild has been hosting lockdown workouts three times every week of the lockdown on the club’s Zoom account. We’re delighted they’re proving popular, and continuing for the foreseeable future! Meeting details are posted to our member’s-only facebook group. Oscar’s regular attendees were keen to find a way to support Oscar’s efforts, and he suggested donations to the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice – a charity close to his heart, and one the club is delighted to have supported at our annual 10k. If you’d like to support the fund raiser, pop over and contribute on the Just Giving page, setup by regular attendee Roz https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/oscarwilde/ Thanks to everybody who has contributed so far, and look forward to seeing you at a forthcoming session!
We celebrated our 20th anniversary back in January, and Scottish Athletics put together a lovely piece to mark the occasion for the early 2020 issue of PB magazine. Delighted to say it’s now available online, and brings back some really happy memories of a great birthday party. Hope you enjoy the piece, and the story of the club over our first two decades, and what we’ve been up to – and hope to get up to in the future! Purple patch now stretches to 20 years . . . Many thanks to Stuart Miller for the article, all at Scottish Athletics, Gordon Goldie for the amazing pictures, and everybody who’s been involved with the club over the years!