Rhiannon smashed her Silver Volunteering goals with Parkrun

For the past few months, Silver participant Rhiannon has become a regular fixture at Chasewater Parkrun.

She’s been volunteering at the free, weekly running event as part of the Volunteering section for her Silver DofE Award. She’s been volunteering alongside her mum, Karen, as she’s under 18.

Rhiannon, aged 15, said: “In February we turned up for our first volunteering session at 8:15 am to be greeted by David, the Race Director. Our role was to marshal by the open water swimming and then come back to the barcode scan area. We were shown the role and got to ask any questions. All the volunteers were very friendly and very welcoming.”

“A lot of the runners as they went past thanked us for volunteering which was great. Again, after their barcodes were scanned the runners thanked us. It was very rewarding. We have been every week since only missing a couple due to being away on holiday or if the event wasn’t on.”

“It has been great, most weeks our job has been to Marshall and barcode scanning, however some weeks we have had a change of role to timekeeper. I have now completed my DofE Silver, but I will continue to go – just maybe not every week as I’m not so keen on the early start every Saturday!”

“If anyone is thinking of volunteering either just to do something or volunteer as part of DofE, I would recommend it.”

“The Chasewater team are fab, we have a good giggle, and sometimes finish with an ice cream from the café.”