New resource to help race organisers

England Athletics have launched a new online tool for race organisers to ensure that opportunities for people to take part in running events continue to be available.

The new website, which helps race organisers in planning for their event, can be accessed by road race organisers in England via the Race Directors’ Portal on runbritain.com where they apply for a race licence.

The new resource enables race organisers to type in key information and primarily use ‘click and drag’ features on a map to mark the race route, a range of facilities and aspects such as road closures or diversions on a map. The website then automatically produces a range of reports and maps for the race organiser to help them with their own planning. A number of the reports automatically generated are of the type and format required by people such as land owners or local authorities.

England Athletics Board member and National Councillor Nigel Rowe said: “The demands on road race organisers in England from legislation and local bodies have increased markedly over recent years. We wanted to produce a resource to help our race organisers in delivering their events as this in turn supports them in providing the valuable service that they offer to the road running community.

“This new system means that after marking information on a map and typing in a few items of key information many of the reports and maps a race organiser are going to need are all produced for them to download and supply to the relevant people. Whether this is producing a safety plan or traffic plan for local bodies, or putting together information for each of the marshals we trust that this website will make race organising easier and help them to focus on providing really good events for their runners.”

The ‘click and grab’ functions on the map mean the race organiser can then access download resources including:

• Course Map
• Facilities Map (including details such as registration and enquiries tents, toilets, mile or kilometre markers, first aid areas, water stations)
• Traffic Management Map
• Instructions for marshals
• Marshal report
• Reports for land owners and local authorities
• Health Reports
• Safety plans

Race organisers are also able to then create new events based on details of events they have previously created so that they can quickly move to being able to produce all these resources for new events.

The system also enables race organisers to monitor aspects of the organisation of their event such as its status with regards to having the approval of land owners and/ or local authorities.

Nigel added: “This year we have also cut the price of road and multi-terrain race licences in England to £25 for clubs. It is very important to us to support the road running community in England and to ensure our clubs, athletes, coaches and event organisers are well supported.”

Chris Jones, Chief Executive of England Athletics, said: “Supporting the road running community within the affiliated sport is a hugely important part of seeing athletics making proper provision for existing runners and reaching out to new participants. We know the challenges faced by those people within our clubs who are involved in organising road races.

“Work such as this to help reduce the burden upon them with regards producing information for marshals and participants, evidencing the provision they have in place to comply with the relevant standards, and in meeting the requirements of local authorities, land owners and other local partners is very important to enable road running to continue to grow and flourish.”

The England Athletics Race Organiser website is available via the runbritain Race Directors’ Portal at www.runbritain.com/rdp.