With the reopening of 12 events in Tasmania last Saturday, we saw over 5,000 different people walk, jog, run, or volunteer across 45 parkrun events worldwide. Although this represents only 2% of events, 5,000 participants is a significant milestone that took us five-and-a-half years to achieve the first time around.
Sadly, due to increased restrictions in response to growing infections, last Friday we took the decision to postpone our planned return in Poland. Whilst disappointing, and despite it being technically possible for parkrun to return within government guidelines, we know that this was the right decision in the circumstances. In the meantime, we will continue to monitor the situation there, and look for an opportunity to return as soon as it is appropriate to do so.
This weekend we’re looking forward to welcoming back parkrun in Japan, and we continue to work closely with the health department in Western Australia regarding our planned return this coming Saturday now that their easing of restrictions has been pushed back.
Looking further ahead we continue to make positive progress in other parts of the world, with the expected return of parkrun events in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) on 31 October, along with events in Guernsey and the Isle of Man.
It’s been heart-warming to see so many parkrunners keeping the community spirit of their local parkrun alive by participating in our (not)parkrun campaign, finding the motivation to be physically active and encouraging others to do so too.
Over 70,000 parkrunners have now logged more than 500,000 (not)parkruns, including nearly 6,000 people who have not yet completed a parkrun. All of which is particularly encouraging and demonstrates to us that parkrun has an important role to play in the health and wellbeing of the population now and in the future.
With every week that passes we are making progress, with more opportunities for people to parkrun, or (not)parkrun, in more locations around the world.
Thanks for your continued support.
Tom Williams
Chief Operating Officer
parkrun Global
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