The Victoria Dock 5k parkrun is located in London and the organisers have just announced that the event is closing due to a lack of volunteers.
They write... "It is with a heavy heart that we share the news that Victoria Dock parkrun has shut down.
Over more than 7 years, our little parkrun-that-isn’t-in-a-park has been proud to welcome over 20,000 runners, joggers and parkwalkers to the dock area. Together we’ve celebrated countless PBs, milestones, first-timers, alphabet challenges completed, friendships formed and Saturday mornings made better – whatever the weather.
This would never have been possible without our amazing community. Thank you to our original core team who brought Victoria Dock parkrun to life, and to all our Event Directors over the years who gave so much time, care and energy to keep the event going week after week.
Most of all, we want to say a huge thank you to our volunteers. To those who volunteered regularly, repeatedly, and reliably – you are the reason Victoria Dock parkrun lasted as long as it did. To those who stepped up occasionally or even just once, your support truly mattered and helped make each event happen.
Like all parkrun events, Victoria Dock has always relied entirely on volunteers. Sadly, despite our best efforts, we’ve reached a point where we no longer have enough volunteers to continue the event sustainably. This has been the deciding factor in our decision to close.
We hope everyone reading this continues to support the wider parkrun community – whether by walking, running, cheering, or volunteering. Volunteering really is fundamental to parkrun, and even offering help occasionally can make a huge difference."
I had a look at the numbers and this is what it looks like for their 272 events...
The numbers seem to be reasonably good so it's a surprise to see that they had so much difficulty in getting volunteers.
As for reasons, some on Facebook suggested that a lot of people taking part were tourists, some were just visiting to tick the letter 'V' off their alphabet list.
I suspect though the primary reason was that not enough local participants were volunteering and the core team were just tired of the struggle to get people every week.
It's a timely reminder that ALL parkruns needs volunteers, The suggested ratio is that you volunteer once for every 10 parkruns completed.
Addendum: Nick Sankey left this comment on Facebook... "Look at the map: river to the south and west, airport to the east, convention centre to the north-east, and hotels plus DLR tracks to the north. It’s a very boxed-in location.
It was set up by someone from the Silvertown Partnership charity and the local church, not a running group. While parkrun aims to be inclusive, in reality it tends to skew middle-class — and there are very few middle-class households nearby. Anyone coming from further away would pass at least one other parkrun.
The stats show well over half the runners were first-timers at Victoria Dock, so it actually did well to last as long as it did. Once the Millennium Mills redevelopment happens there might be enough local population to try again, but that’s probably 10+ years off."
