After starting on the 30th of August 2014, the 5k parkrun on Bere Island in West Cork recently celebrated its third birthday! The chart above shows the weekly numbers for the last three years and it usually gets from 30 to 50 per week. During the Summer holiday season from late July to the end of August, there is a surge in numbers with an influx of tourists and visitors to the area.
In many ways, the Bere Island 5k parkrun has been an outstanding success and is a model for other parkruns around the country. For any parkrun to survive, there must be a supply of local runners and volunteers to support it. While that's taken as a given for parkruns in large population centres, it's hardly the case with an island off the coast of West Cork. I often look at the numbers taking part in Bere Island and think that if it can be done there then it can be done just about anywhere in the country.
As the chart shows, the numbers turn out even in the middle of Winter when the tourists are long gone. It really is a testament to the energy and effort of the islanders that they've manged to make a success of this event.
Some stats over the last 3 years...
Number of events: 164 (incl one offs)
Number of runners: 1,157
Number of runs: 7,815
Number of clubs: 104
Average number of runners per week: 47.7
Average number of runs per runner: 6.8
Biggest Attendance: 181
The Bere Island 5k parkrun is of course completely free and is organised by volunteers. It is held at 9:30am every Saturday morning. More info on their website... http://www.parkrun.ie/bereisland/
1 comment:
Hi, I was a little bit surprised that your stats for Bere Island parkrun seems to show one time that it did not run, can I clarify that Bere Island parkrun has never been cancelled, and indeed it runs on Christmas day and New Years day in addition to every Saturday of the year! http://www.parkrun.ie/bereisland/results/eventhistory/
Post a Comment