View from the Chair – September 2020

Late summer is usually the culmination of busy track and field season with the finals of the young athletes’ competitions. While we’ve had to make do without those, it was great to be at the C&C competition on the 6th September and see the enjoyment on the athletes’ faces.

The British Championships held in Manchester on the first weekend of September had three athletes wearing C&C colours: Marc Scott, Holly Archer and Samuel Clarke. Well done to these athletes for getting there after a difficult training season and especially to Marc who won the 5,000m by a mile  … well, not quite a mile. The club now has another athlete with a national title! Great news.

In July and August, there was a lot of hard work behind the scenes to get training groups back onto the track. It was great to see groups starting to train in August though we’re very aware of the pent up demand from all parts of the club. There have been hoops to jump through for everyone but I hope you’ll agree it’s been worth it.

Further efforts are being made to increase the capacity by introducing pre-activity health questionnaires – this will allow each coach to have more than 5 athletes at each session which will help a lot. We are also expanding our track use on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings for endurance runners. More details on this will be forthcoming during September.

Finally, I’m really pleased to tell you that Richard Lyle kindly stepped up to the Operations Officer role advertised in early September. This position will make a real difference to the operations of the club and help a few things run more smoothly.

All the best,

Keith Clarke

Chair