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BA Athletics Club News Digest 6th June 2016

Events:

  • Wednesday 8th June - Parkway mile* 18:00 and BAAC AGM 20:00 (see below)
  • Monday 13th June - Track&Field Grand Prix - 800m and long jump - Hillingdon track* from 18:00
  • Monday 20th June Vets League Battersea 18:30 / 22nd June Rosenheim Ewell Court 18:45

New members and potential members of all fitness levels and abilities are welcome at all of these events.  The full diary of club featured events is on the club website at: http://www.barunner.org.uk/Event Diary.shtml.

*Club Event Map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z31P-sSECWno.kIIgdFzUuZAo&usp=sharing

Not for you, no longer interested?  remove me please.

Difficulty viewing this email?  Read it off the website instead - http://www.barunner.org.uk/News Latest.shtml. Running related gossip and chat: Facebook "BA Runner" (link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/636199849751546/).


British Airways Athletics Club AGM

A reminder that the club Annual General Meeting takes place this Wednesday at 8pm.  Please make every effort to attend this important meeting  - we will review the past year, and look forward to a year of challenge, as BA Clubs continues to struggle with its financial issues.

If you can get there by 6pm, come and compete in the traditional curtain-raiser, the Parkway Mile.  If you have an estimate of your time, please let Steve Newell (steve-newell@blueyonder.co.uk) have it beforehand.

Steve Hillier (club secretary)

Editorial [i.e. these are my views, not necessarily endorsed by the Committee]

I am writing this on Monday evening onboard a flight to Madrid BUT I do intend to be at the AGM on Wednesday.  The point of this editorial is to encourage you to make the same effort to attend the AGM and contribute on the evening or to find other ways to support the club over the following year.

I've been on the committee for about five years now and over that time the committee has been relatively stable - we used to have a "three year committee member rule" to ensure that committee members rotated round to different roles but frankly that hasn't seen necessary nor sensible over this time - but perhaps you disagree?  Some committee members have stood down and some new ones have volunteered to get involved and make valuable contributions. But the committee is largely the same as it was when I joined. And at this year's AGM most of the same faces will be offering to continue in their previous roles (including me).  But the club has changed over those years.  We had had declining membership but we've now addressed that - I won't say that membership is booming but we have stopped the decline. But as a consequence the membership profile of the club has changed.  We now have a number of new members who could be said to occupy two groups - there are those who have a strong BA connection but who are not based around the Heston/Heathrow area, and then there are those who are based around that area but who have little or no BA connection.  Most of our newer Associate Members come from those two groups and thus are not members of our parent BA Clubs (which creates one of the challenges we are faced with below).  In my view members from both of these groups should be warmly welcomed - and it would be great to see more of them able to join in more of our regular activities. But both groups are not well represented on the current committee. Now the key club roles, Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer, have to be filled by members who are also members of BA Clubs, and can only be voted in by members of BA Clubs.  But the views of all members are welcome and we would appreciate new members, including Associates, stepping forward to take up other Committee Roles (including the "without portfolio" role).

Over the next twelve months the Athletics Club is probably going to be faced with challenges for a number of reasons including:

  • We continue to be in disagreement with BA Clubs over our Associate members - if we followed the BA Club rules to the letter we could not have members who were not members of BA Clubs and also we could not host events like the Speedbird Ladies nor the Concorde Five in their current format, we could not attend WARR as club members, we could not enter teams into events like the Green Belt relay and we would probably have to make other concessions also.
  • BA Clubs continue to have uncertainty over its future.  Later on in this digest is an announcement by BA Clubs affecting the Club House we use.  Although our regular Wednesday evening does not appear to be directly threatened we would have to be naive to think that we will not become impacted sooner or later.  My personal view is that we should be supporting BA Clubs including to get more usage of the Imperial Collage facilities AND to increase membership of BA Clubs...but we should also position ourselves so that we have one foot on stable ground outside the domain of BA Clubs.
  • Thirdly there are changes happening at BA that are impacting those members of the club who work in IT on BA contracts.  This IT group has formed a significant proportion of club members and committee members from the time of the club's original founding in the early '80s. Some staff have already had their contracts terminated, others are in the process of being transferred, "tupied", to other companies and it is likely that all club BA IT members will be impacted by this over the next twelve months.  Change is inevitable but it is only the species that cannot adapt to change that will go extinct.

A challenging year...but challenges are there to be overcome.  Please do your best to attend on Wednesday, or find other ways to offer your input to keep this club thriving! 

Roderick Hoffman


Concorde Five Mile Road Race Sunday 5th June 2016 Results and thanks

Selective results:

Place Time Name Team Race Age Category No Place Winners
1 00:28:55 FELL, Steve   SM 213 1 Men Open 1st
2 00:29:03 JELLY, Phil Windle Valley SM 226 2 Men Open 2nd
3 00:29:38 BOUCHER, Michael Aldershot Farnham & District SM 246 3 Men Open 3rd
4 00:29:40 NORRIS, Stephen Thames Valley Harriers MV40 81 4 Men Vet 1st
5 00:30:07 COX, David Woodford Green MV60 242 5 Men Vet 2nd
6 00:30:12 MANNION, Peter Windle Valley MV50 224 6 Men V50 1st MV50 record
8 00:31:15 KENCROFT, Mark Ealing, Southall & Middlesex MV40 209 8 Men Vet 3rd
10 00:31:46 URWIN-MANN, Sarah Reading Road Runners LV45 99 10 Ladies Open 1st Ladies V45 record
13 00:32:14 HAYLOCK, Colin British Airways MV40 250 13 BA Men 1st
15 00:32:19 KELLY, Chris British Airways MV50 240 15  
19 00:35:15 O'DONOGHUE, Lydia West Four Harriers SL 183 19 Ladies Open 2nd
22 00:36:42 DOBBS, Zoe Hillingdon AC LV45 83 22 Ladies Vet 1st
23 00:36:57 BARCLAY, Julie British Airways LV45 181 23 Ladies V45 1st BA Ladies 1st BA Ladies record
25 00:37:00 TAYLOR, Graham British Airways MV50 215 25  
27 00:37:25 DAVIDSON, Sharon Purple Patch Runners LV35 249 27 Ladies Vet 2nd
30 00:38:46 SPENCER, Melanie Hillingdon AC LV35 189 30 Ladies Open 3rd
32 00:39:41 ANNABLE, Lindsey Dulwich Runners LV45 237 32 Ladies Vet 3rd
37 00:40:24 COCKRAM, Ian Air Products Flyers MV40 88 37  
40 00:41:16 WATT, Paul British Airways MV50 182 40  
42 00:41:40 FUDGE, Paula Windle Valley LV55 196 42 Ladies V55 1st
52 00:43:57 CRICHTON, Stuart   MV60 185 52 Men V60 1st
54 00:44:30 WARREN, Pete Ranelagh Harriers MV70 186 54 Men V70 1st
56 00:44:37 DUGGAN, David   MV50 85 56  
59 00:45:52 MODAHER, Jasvir British Airways MV50 225 59  
66 00:46:45 McCABE, Trish British Airways LV35 199 66  
76 00:49:52 MUNDEN, Christine Thames Valley Harriers LV45 80 76  
77 00:51:37 OTTO, Petra Thorney Running Club LV55 79 77  

There were 86 recorded finishers (one DSQ).  Full results on the website: http://www.barunner.org.uk/Event_Concorde.shtml

The men's team winner was Windle Valley followed by Thames Valley Harriers and The Metropolitan Police.  The British Airways Team was fourth (of six).  In the ladies Hillingdon beat Windle Valley with no other teams having the three finishers required.

There were eleven children in the kids race and the fastest, George Urwin-Mann (I've seen that surname before somewhere), completed the 1k course in 4:01.  Note that had George kept going at that pace for 5 miles he would have been finishing the main race alongside Chris Kelly!

Thanks

The Concorde Five is very much a team effort and some of the activities that go on to make it happen I know little about.  The following is not complete and apologies to everyone whose efforts have not been fully credited.

  • Jaz Modaher who not only provides the helpers for the half-way and finish refreshments but he also provides the refreshments at no cost to BAAC (though this year we did get him to take off our hands five crates of bottled water that had somehow come back with us from the Vitality 10000 event last Monday).
  • Paul Knechtl who gets running numbers and discounted prize vouchers from APEX Sports and who returned from his holidays to immediately throw in a marshalling stint for the event.
  • Brian Forrester who booked the Pavilion and the coffees and bought the wine for the prizes and the flowers for Val Lambert and managed the store cupboard in which we keep all of our stock - the clock, signage, bibs etc.
  • Steve Newell who did half of the signage posting before the event and had also repainted the finish line earlier on in the week.
  • Ken Saunders who in his England Athletics Race Adjudicator role provides useful feedback to ensure the event is of the required standard.
  • Tom Rowley who I take for granted each year to make the kids race happen and be successful - and this year was no exception [I mean that it was successful...I did acknowledge him!].
  • Laurie Kelly who does all of the timing and finish recording - supported by Paul Brandon and others.
  • Alastair Heslop (and Maddy) who dealt with all of the pre-event registration activity, the on-the-day entries and results processing.
  • Steve Taylor who not only acted as Lead Cyclist but also shadowed Alastair so that he can take over those duties next year.
  • Steve Hillier who helped with the kids race and then as tail cyclist collected in many of the signs Steve Newell and I had spent two hours putting out [thanks to Steve and other team members collecting the signs I only found one carefully hidden "Caution Runners" sign that still needed to be retrieved after the event]
  • The St John team for being there just in case but who had very little to do all morning which is always a good thing.
  • The essential marshals including Kulbir Kaur, Ravleen Kaur, Gursewak Singh, Jagjit Singh, John Scaife, Benita Scaife, Neil Frediani, Joe Nolan, Nick Edge, Denis Foxley, Alan Anderson, Harry Wild, Laura Matthews, John Williams, Mark Taylor and John Taylor. And enough told me in advance that they would be there to enable me to release club members who wanted to run to do so.

Thanks also to Hounslow Highways* for the following transformation of the finish straight between 11:30 Saturday and 08:00 Sunday [I had been worried!]

Concorde Five Finish transformation

*and Steve Newell with a broom to clear away the glass and other remnants...though he also nearly lost us one of our signs because he had attached it to one of those barriers but then the council van turned up to take them away!

Feedback Request

Please send me your feedback - be it complementary or critical helpful.  Innovations this year were the Gazebo at the finish (thanks Jaz) and the laminated marshal guides (me - inspired by parkrun). And the distinctive blue "Race Director" top - not just a fashion accessory although all the best race/run directors are wearing them these days.  Please send me feedback on these and new ideas for next year.  Feedback from participants will be included in next week's digest.

Roderick Hoffman (roderick@rhoff.org.uk) (Concorde Five Race Director)

PS There is no rest for me - I received an email from runbritain on Sunday timed at 11:15 saying "Your race - Concorde 5M, Concorde 5M on Today at 10:30 - post race return forms are now due. "  At that moment there were still 28 competitors to finish!


Rosenheim Walton Results from 1st June 2016

Last Wednesday saw the second Rosenheim meeting of the season.  With Eddie unavailable, Tom Rowley took over Team Manager responsibilities, inspiring his youthful team to some PB performances.  The 2000m steeplechase was a task too far for most teams, so Steve Hillier led off the evening with the 800m, turning round at the finish line to jog back to the start of the 100m.  Steve went on to compete in a packed Long Jump competition.

Tony Barnwell stepped up to tackle the full weight 2kg discus for the first time this season, interrupting his throwing series to run a gutsy 400m.

Neil Frediani, meanwhile, started his competition in the 1500m with an outstanding PB, before jogging to the javelin runway for his first throw.  This was only a stopping off point on his way to the start of the 200m, which he followed up by completing his javelin series with two more throws.  Neil couldn't stay to hear his results - he had to get to Bushy Park for the sunset mile.

Full team results:

800m Steve Hillier 3:40.8
Discus Tony Barnwell 9.78m
100m Steve Hillier 17.0
400m Tony Barnwell 1:46.2
Long Jump Steve Hillier 3.10m
1500m Neil Frediani 6:20.5 PB
200m Neil Frediani tba
Javelin Neil Frediani 16.62m

Steve Hillier


Club parkrun results for Saturday 4th June 2016

4th June family & friends time parkrun commentary grade
Chris Evans 23:57 Bedfont Lakes run #146, 143rd at Bedfont 62%
Ian Cockram 26:34 Bedfont Lakes run #350 55%
Trish McCabe 27:32 Bedfont Lakes run #136, + pre-event set-up 55%
David Duggan 28:33 Bedfont Lakes run #150, +volunteer coordinator 54%
Caroline Cockram 44:45 Bedfont Lakes run #229 36%
Neil Frediani 29:43 Bury St Edmunds 1st run at Bury St Edmunds 54%
Ian Cunningham 23:15 Bushy Park run #246, 210th at Bushy 65%
Scott Davison 22:02 Crane Park run #165, 12th at Crane Park 64%
Ben Chaytow 23:56 Crane Park run #134, 112th at Crane Park 57%
Eddie Giles 26:24 Guernsey 1st run at Guernsey 65%
Monica Alonso 29:37 Guildford run #62, 55th at Guildford 56%
Helen Smith 30:31 Guildford run #24, 12th at Guildford 63%
Alan Anderson 32:26 Gunnersbury run #143, 191st at Gunsbury 66%
Steve Newell 32:45 Gunnersbury 33' pacer, 91st run at Gunsbury 55%
Kathryn Keenleyside 40:12 Gunnersbury run #9 47%
Piers Keenleyside 41:27 Gunnersbury run #133 38%
Denis Foxley 25:57 Harrow run #38 66%
Benita Scaife 30:48 Maidenhead run #39 63%
Sarah Gordon 35:22 Melton Mowbray course pb (club record) 53%
John Scaife 24:26 Mulbarton first run at Mulbarton 67%
Colin Russell 22:41 Oak Hill run #22 60%
Emily Warburton-Brown 27:42 Peckham Rye run #17 53%
Kevin Holland 29:49 Poole run #51 58%
Chris Kelly 21:19 Reading run #292 69%
Alan Friar 28:19 Reading run #200, 133rd at Reading 63%
Roderick Hoffman 26:56 Riddlesdown club course record, park #155 57%
Paul Watt 21:57 Rushmoor run #16 68%
Julie Barclay 22:09 Rushmoor run #73 78%
Steve Dodsworth 22:35 Sunderland parkrun pb, club course record 67%
Linda Dodsworth 43:24 Sunderland trailrunner (volunteer) 36%
Natalie Ruffell 20:24 Tooting Common F-3 73%
Alice Banks volunteer Maidenhead token sorting
Tom Rowley volunteer Woking marshal
Joe Nolan volunteer Black Park volunteer coordinator

This week started with a bank holiday and that may have encouraged a bit of tourism week.  Four new parks were added to our list on Saturday. 

John Scaife (24:26) makes family visits to Norwich from time to time and tries to fit in a run while he is there.  This weekend he was at Mulbarton.  Neil Frediani (29:43) was also in East Anglia and was our first ever runner at Bury St Edmunds.

Eddie Giles (26:24) visited Guernsey for the first time.  He was at the Jersey parkrun last October and his 25:40 there remains his Channel Isles pb.

Sarah Gordon (35:22) revisited Melton Mowbray where she had run once before she joined us.  That could become a familiar tale as she and several other recently joining members have back catalogues.

Monica Alonso(29:37) and Helen Smith (30:31) were at Guildford and warming up for WARR in Chicago already.  For Monica it was her first successfully recorded parkrun of the year.  Last week's hiccup cruelly drove home the difference between a personal barcode issued by a high-end supermarket chain and one from parkrun.  A lesson for us all.

Natalie Ruffell (20:24) improved her course pb and set a new club record at Tooting Common.   For Steve Dodsworth (22:35) at Sunderland it was parkrun pb.

Alan Friar (28:19) returned to Reading to make his 200th parkrun appearance.  Ian Cockram (26:34) was one of five members at Bedfont Lakes.  He has now reached 350.  Ian Cunningham is up to 246.

Roderick Hoffman (26:56) chose a good day to visit the cross country ramble at Riddlesdown for the first time and set a new club record.  For a course on top of the Downs it is really quite flat but can be muddy in the winter months.  [Roderick adds - yes, I deliberately chose the first parkrunday of summer to visit this course. However the view from the top of the Downs was, frankly, non-existent; low cloud obscured everything including at the start the finish line]

The parkrun at Little Stoke in Gloucestershire where the local council wanted to charge £1 (per runner per week) is now suspended indefinitely as no settlement could be negotiated.  The most likely outcome is a new run starting up a few miles away.

Italy and Sweden are the latest countries to adopt parkrun.

Steve Newell (steve-newell@blueyonder.co.uk)

Updated parkrun stats: www.barunner.org.uk/results/ba_parkrun_park_totals.xls

Steve Newell

Paul Sinton-Hewett visit on Tuesday July 5th

So would you like to find out more about parkrun?  The ins and outs and all abouts Little Stoke and new countries and attitudes towards tourists and dogs and children and so on?

Paul Sinton-Hewett, the founder of parkrun, will be visiting us at the British Airways Waterside Headquarters Harmondsworth on Tuesday July 5th.  This is currently set for a question and answer format meeting lasting from 11:30 to 12:30 - although I will push it back to 12 to 1 if the room becomes available.  I would like as many members as possible to attend this meeting including those who are not BA or who don't work at Waterside.  Please let me know if there is a good chance that you will be able to attend.  Also if you are coming from outside BA let me know if you'd like to join me and Paul after the meeting for a tour round the BA heritage museum (so that I can advise them of numbers).  This is a one-off arrangement and I'm keen that we have good attendance - so please let me know as soon as convenient.

Roderick (roderick.hoffman@ba.com)


Marathon Thanks

Jaz Modaher asked me to pass on his thanks to the BAAC for the Marathon place that he obtained through us and thought that we would like to know that through sponsorship and donations he was able to collect over £1,900 for UK Cancer Research.


Message to Members using Heston Site (from the Chairman of the Trustees of BA Clubs)

"I promised in my April Notice to Members to keep you informed on the changes needed to keep Heston viable for both ourselves and Imperial College.

Members Meeting 9 June 2016:  We plan to hold a members meeting at Heston on 9 June 2016 to update those present on changes necessary to the opening hours and the use of the site in general.  The meeting will be held in the main hall. It will be preceded by Drinks and nibbles at 17.30 with the formal meeting planned to commence at 18.30.

Reason for Change:  Following the transition year and a financial and usage review by Imperial it is apparent that the site is no longer financially viable, mainly due to poor attendance and high running costs.  This will be explained in more detail at the Members Meeting.

Summary of Changes:  The bar and a café style service will only be available on Wednesdays and Saturdays

  • The Clubhouse will be closed on the other days
  • Confirmed bookings will be honoured until 31 December 2016
  • BA Clubs will operate the sports hall, including the pavilion (not bar or catering) and the bowls green
  • Membership reception will relocate to the sports hall
  • BA Clubs, RSA and Touchdown will remain in the office
  • There will be no grass tennis courts
  • Little or no change to field sports and sports hall activities
  • Offsite sections are unaffected
  • Alternative venues are being sought for Clubhouse sections
  • QPR remain

Next Steps:  After the members meeting we will hold meetings with Sections, particularly those that currently use the Clubhouse.  Discussions are already underway for alternative venues.

Conclusion:  We have an Operating Licence that permits us to use the site and its facilities until at least 30 June 2021 and we are confident that we can manage these changes positively and maintain a base here at Heston."

Chairman of the Trustees


Caption Competition Results

Vitality 10000 marshals walking past Buckingham palace

  • Steve Newell: "I can't see the sign for 'Extra Large' !"
  • Steve Hillier: "I think I'm a medium, but Clara is still walking, so perhaps I'd better keep going"
  • John Scaife: "BA marshals begin to wonder whether they misunderstood this year's dress code as they head to the new race HQ for a briefing with race director Liz."
  • Petra Otto: "Damn! Wrong day, let's go and grab some breakfast instead."
  • Clara Tan: "Where is everybody?!"
  • Paul Brandon: "You sure that's the place that ordered lunch?"
  • Neil Frediani: "The other team (mugs) have another 20 mins to walk to their marshalling point so let’s go for brekkie with Liz."
  • Roderick Hoffman: "Members of the pro-Europe campaign strenuously deny that Europe is responsible for the perceived decline in standards at the Changing of the Guard ceremony"

And the winner is - everyone - with the usual prize of a free subscription to this digest.


Next Digest?

Results, news, pictures, feedback, jokes, stories - send it to us at news@barunner.org.uk.


Club website:

www.barunner.org.uk.


 

      

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