HPH Leader’s Resources

HPH LEADER INFO – ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW!

If you’re interesting in leading for HPH, here’s all the information you’ll need to do so. We are currently busy training a few new leaders and coaches, and will aim to have twice-yearly new leader training sessions. If you’d like to become a leader, please get in touch or look out for these sessions on Spond and on Facebook.

We also have a Facebook group, join our community if you’d like.

If you’d like to get officially trained, HPH can provide funding providing you’re happy to lead at least 13 session in 2 years, just let us know that you’re interested on hello@hydeparkharriers.co.uk – and we can discuss!

Information about the official ‘Leadership in Running Fitness’ Qualification through England Athletics can be found here but you can lead for HPH at any of our sessions without this qualification.

FYI, here’s a quick summary of how it all works:

• Fill in rota (as linked above)
• Spond team (Laura Garratt, Danny Clayton, Jonathan Spain, Richard Garratt) add you as the leader
• You can update your group in Spond if you want to, but no pressure – keep an eye on numbers and the wait list, because if there’s a high number, we can always ask for another leader
• Prepare the route for your group (if you need an idea for a route, we have a library here: https://www.hydeparkharriers.co.uk/routes/)
• Lead your group!
• Take a photo
• Lead some stretches if you feel comfortable to (there’s a stretching guide in the link above)
• Post to the @Hyde Park Harriers (members & friends) group
• Register attendance on Spond (instructions below).

Instructions to register attendance on Spond:

• after your run…
• click on the group you led
• scroll down to “register attendance”
• click on it
• untick anyone you know didn’t come
• click ok
• done!

Spond and Group Size Guidance for Leaders

As a general note, we really appreciate everyone’s time and efforts as volunteer leaders and we trust you to exercise your own judgement and common sense – the below hopefully provides a point of reference for this.

• As a leader, you will be added to the relevant Spond event. The Spond admin is largely dealt with via the club’s committee – if you have any queries regarding any aspect of this, please post in the HPH Group Leaders FB page or email hello@hydeparkharriers.com.
• As leader, you do not need to be a participant in the group yourself – in fact, please avoid putting yourself down as an attendee as this will take up a space in the group.
• If your group is oversubscribed, please feel free to comment prior to the Spond event occurring to remind participants to update the register if they can no longer attend. Additionally / alternatively, please feel free to appeal for a second leader of the group.
• Please check the register of your group via the Spond event at the beginning of the event. If you have a low number of participants, you can do a name check of those in attendance. If the group is large, it may be easier to just do a headcount.
• Please do keep a note of the numbers in your group and share them in the usual way on the club’s FB page so that we can keep track of the popularity of events and groups.
• If, at the time of the event, you have more participants than anticipated (i.e. because those on the waiting list have turned up anyway), you have several options:

1. If you are comfortable doing so, you may ask those who have not got confirmed Spond spaces to not join your group and instead do their own run (or join another group if it has space and the other leader is happy for them to do so).
2. If there are only one or two additional participants, you may proceed with the larger group but you should always consider whether this is safe and appropriate. Larger groups require more space on paths, take longer to cross roads and are more prone to splintering, so you may need to adapt your route and pace. Groups should not regularly exceed 20 participants (ideally, they would be no more than 15, but we allow for 20 on Spond on the assumption there will be “no-shows”).
3. You can appeal for an additional leader to split the group – such additional leader should ideally be someone who has led previously and understands what is required of them.
4. You can lead a session on a closed loop (e.g. around Woodhouse Moor or in the university campus) where the large numbers will be less of a problem.
5. You can cancel the group and advise all participants to do their own runs. Do be careful with this option to ensure that the participants do not shift to (and overwhelm) other groups.