Pinner Village Gardens junior parkrun has now begun!

The long-awaited Pinner Village Gardens junior parkrun has now begun 5 years after it was first discussed at a meeting of the Friends of Pinner Village Gardens committee. At last! It took extensive planning, several meetings, fundraising and a major pandemic interruption but here we are.


As a reminder, the event takes place every Sunday morning at 9 am, it’s a 2km course for children between the ages of 4 and 14 though accompanying adults can take part but will not have a time recorded. So far (as of 28th February), three official events have taken place with growing numbers of children and adults taking part. The small organising team of local community members have been working hard at getting the event ready for our children to enjoy in a safe environment and each week spend several hours in preparation.


The organising team recognise the event has also been made possible due to the effort and generosity of so many people, particularly that of the committee and members of the Friends of Pinner Village Gardens, local community groups and businesses.


It was the Friends of Pinner Village Gardens who went about raising the majority of the £4,000 needed to establish the event. A huge thanks go out to Antonia Saviddes and Jaykishan Vala for their amazing fundraising efforts. Major donations came from the Friends of Pinner Village GardensPinner AssociationShanly FoundationCheeky Chums, PMC PinnerCarters ChemistsIdeal Fish BarPaige and PetrookSmart GuysAnana Health and BeautyHappy Day Hallmark and Diamond Hair Design as well as several individuals who made vital contributions.


As the event continues to attract new participants, it has become clear the junior parkrun is becoming a true community and social gathering as well as providing fun and health benefits for our children. So please do come along and join in, bring your children or just come along for the fun, perhaps help out by volunteering!


The Pinner Village Gardens junior parkrun website link is below. Check it out for further information, results and volunteering opportunities: .https://www.parkrun.org.uk/pinnervillagegardens-juniors/


Also the Facebook page for regular updates: https://www.facebook.com/Pinner-Village-Gardens-junior-parkrun-108549525081564

Junior Parkrun Update

As we’re sure you’ll already know, we are seeking to bring a Junior Parkrun to Pinner Village Gardens. This is a weekly run for children aged between four to fourteen across a 2-kilometre route set out in the park. With thanks to those generous donations, the startup fund of £4,000 was raised to enable this to take place.

To reflect the imminent status of the start of the parkrun, we have added a specific page to our menu which can be seen here. This will be updated with the current status of the project, and right now we’re encouraging those who have not already done so, to sign up to take part at:

https://www.parkrun.org.uk/register/

Initially, we will run a small scale pilot event to test our equipment, course suitability and most importantly………. our preparation! If successful, we plan to go live the following week.

We’ll publicise the start date on social media and personal communications. We’ll also keep the Junior Parkrun details in our event calendar which can be found here.

We are currently creating a list of fantastic volunteers who are happy to help out on the occasional Sunday. Our parkrun needs 14 volunteers each week to enable it to operate. If you feel you could spare an hour of your time, please do contact either:

Glyn Watkins – glynwatkins11@gmail.com

Emma Rackham – emma.rackham@parkrun.com

We hope to see you at the Junior Parkruns once they begin!

The Children’s Fun Run 2021

It was so pleasing to see everyone this morning for our inaugural Children’s Fun Run to support the foundation of the Pinner Junior Parkrun. We had a huge number of attendees, who were all just as excited as we were to see everyone out and enjoying the park.

For those who took part, please download your participation certificate from here: https://www.pinnervillagegardens.org.uk/fun-run-certificate/

We were even lucky with the weather, as there were only a few spots of rain as the runners set off around the two-kilometre course. A huge thank you to everyone who attended, as well as the ongoing support of running club Metros and the Pinner Rotary Club who lent us the equipment to put on today’s event.

It was also great to hear feedback from parents who were keen for us to start up the Junior Parkrun so that we can do this every Sunday. We are thankful for their donations at the event, and a few suggested that we put out a donation link. So if you’d like to donate to the efforts to bring a Parkrun to Pinner Village Gardens, then you can do so via PayPal with this button: