First full time Activator joins Run England team

Run England's first full time Regional Activator has recently been appointed to help get more people running in the Manchester area, and is joined by four more activators who have recently taken up roles at Run England.

Liam Browne has been running for 10 years and is currently a member of East Cheshire Harriers & Tameside Athletics Club. He is quite a runner and is aiming to run the London Marathon next year in under three hours, but has also coached running groups for six years with athletes aged from eight up to adult.

After studying for a degree in Health and Sports Studies at the University of Huddersfield, Liam previously worked as a Community Athletics Development Coach with Tameside Sports Development where he worked towards increasing participation and improving the profile of athletics.

Craig Blain, Run England Area Coordinator for the North of England, said: "Liam’s appointment is great news, he is the first full time activator we have and a great addition to the North team. Manchester will be Liam’s own area to focus on and he is excited at the prospect of getting people up and active as well as supporting new and existing Run England groups in the city."

Three new activators have started in the Midlands and South West. Sarah Sims recently took up her role as the new activator Wiltshire and Swindon. Sarah started running about 10 years ago and since then has worked through all the distances up to the marathon. She qualified as a Run England Group Leader last year and started her own group at Westbury which now has had over 100 members. Sarah is about to do the CiRF (Certificate in Running Fitness) qualification and says she enjoys the challenge of helping everyone to run.

Sarah McVeigh is the new activator for Northamptonshire. Sarah attended Nottingham Trent University where she studied for a degree in Sport, Leisure, Education and Psychology. She then started work at Northamptonshire Sport working on the Jog Northants and Run England programmes, prior to becoming an activator. There are currently 33 groups in Northamptonshire thanks to Sarah's hard work.

She has not always been a runner herself and used to play football until she discovered running two years ago. She has found it has been a lot more beneficial for her health and fitness and will run her first half marathon in September.

John Skevington is the new activator for Leicestershire and has vast experience in athletics and road running having been a member of Wreake Runners for 26 years. John is a level 3 coach and runs a group of junior athletes with a membership in excess of 100.

John is also a coach and coordinator for the Leicestershire Vision 2020 Athletics Network where he looks after the development of athletics and running for all 14 Network clubs. According to his wife John is either doing, watching, coaching, thinking or talking about running, which is wrong as he also like to watch the high jump!

Abbi McMullen is the latest activator for the South area, having recently started in her post covering Buckinghamshire, including Milton Keynes. Abbi is the Physical Activity Development Officer for Bucks Sport and is dedicating two days a week to being the activator for Buckinghamshire. Abbi has a wealth of experience to bring to the role as she has recruited many new Group Leaders and has supported the development of new running groups across the county over the last few years. She is heavily involved with the Bucks Sport Reactivate programme which is all about getting adults to try something new, so Run England fits in perfectly with this established county-wide programme.

Project leader Geoff Wightman said: "Existing Run England groups across the country will benefit from the help and support of our new activators, who will also play an important role in getting more people running in their areas, working alongside local clubs and organisations to increase and support the Run England membership and local groups in their respective areas.

"This is an exciting time for Run England and our new activators will be pivotal in offering more regional provisions to continue and improve on the work so far. Good luck to all the new activators in their new roles."

Contact details for Run England staff are available on the contact us section of this website.