Frontrunners Cork Running In Solidarity During Lockdown
I don't know about the rest of you, but a good few weeks ago if someone asked me: "How was your weekend?" or "What were you up to this weekend?", I would be contemplating for a few seconds before realising that I wasn't sure on what to reply...
Despite some extremely eventful times, life seemed so uneventful during quarantine. I had work, but I also didn't go out in town to hang out with friends nor did I travel to exciting new places. One thing I do remember talking about when people asked, was the running club!
Lessons from lockdown:
Frontrunners Cork had just chosen its new committee on the 9th of March 2020. As Ireland went into lockdown three days later, planned introductory meetings were re-scheduled to take place online and the uncertainty on how Frontrunners Cork could play a role for its runners during times of Covid-19 was the main discussion topic. We quickly cancelled all upcoming runs and made sure to communicate this on our online platforms.
Today, 4 months later we are very proud and happy with how we approached the lockdown period and with the engagement of our members during it. For myself, this was my second run as part of the club committee, and with the benefit and deficit of hindsight, I could provide lessons on the achievements and failures of the previous committee. Admittedly, for such an unprecedented situation, a lot of that knowledge I had was of little value. As with any new committee, a lot of ideas on approaches were discussed and implemented or rejected. Concerning lockdown, there was an oscillating shift between pessimism and optimism, but in the end, we discovered some approaches that worked. Here is how we went through lockdown and some lessons learned from it:
Working with limitations can allow for clarity and focused approaches. We were lucky to be a sports club where the activities can be carried out solo. As such, we thought of ways to motivate our members to complete their own runs while promoting the safety protocols laid out by the government.
Encouraging people to do own runs safely was one of the first suggestions we laid out. We were initially afraid of pushing our members to go rogue against government regulations, so we made sure to share information from gov.ie along the way. It is great looking back at the engagement we had and still have.
Sharing relevant information and from the right sources was important. Anyone with a social media profile will recall how easily misinformation was spread online. We luckily didn't have any misinformation shared amongst our members, but we were wary about sharing anything on Covid-19 or lockdown that wasn't from a government source. I am in some other Facebook groups where that was the case, and it did on some occasions cause division there.
We are also incredibly thankful to be part of a global network with other Frontrunners movements. As such, getting inspiration and checking in with other groups was invaluable. Glasgow Frontrunnners created a virtual run for Frontrunners clubs across UK and Ireland where members from other running clubs posted runs, they completed over the course of the 25th of June. It was a warm and humid day across all the Atlantic isles, but again our members went out and represented!
Keeping social media channels active. Investing time in social media can sometimes seem futile, especially when it feels like you are promoting to deaf ears. Evan Murphy, who is also the chairperson of the committee 2020, is incredibly Instagram-savvy and spent time putting content for stories up and posted regular content to maintain our presence online. Stories have greatly increased our engagement with new and present runners, and so have posts and content with positive and encouraging notes.
Staying in touch and listening to our runners allowed us to adapt via feedback and feelings of our members. We would sometimes forget that we in the committee were not removed from the group, but active members of it as well. Therefore, we recurringly shared feelings we had about the situation and how we ourselves would like to be communicated to during this period.
Zoom calls. I became so worn out from work-related or business development webinars, so I was hesitant when we started hosting Zoom calls for our members. My fear was that our members would be too exhausted from being on regular online business meetings, lectures and talks, and then heaven forbid: the freaking running club wants to do video calls! The Gay Project happily lent us their Zoom account to provide unlimited time for our sessions. I am happy to say that these calls were an important lifeline for us and many members, as such we have kept it going even after opening up for social runs. One legendary call went on to 5 AM Saturday morning, and there still seems to be something to talk about every time.
Planning for opening up was handled gradually and carefully. We were all eager to meet up again and as such, we discussed revising the structures of our runs. Saturday morning runs were moved to an early hour on the morning, our usual spot at The Lough was deemed too cramped and populated for our Monday runs, Kennedy Park became the perfect substitute location for new Monday runs, and registrations procedures were necessary for contact tracing and maintaining the safety of our members. We were also sure to advertise our expectations of social distancing between our runners and advocating the safety of those present.
Where is Frontrunners Cork heading?
We are now back in physical manifestation, not completely as before, but to some extend in better ways. At our last Monday run, we had a surprising large turn-out, and runners have openly expressed a new appreciation of the group after being away from it for so long.
For businesses and organisations, there is a valid fear in losing momentum that existed prior to lockdown. We had the same fear, but managed to stay on track and engaged with our members throughout, which I personally believe helped a lot. At our last run after opening up, we saw some new faces, and we hope to see more. Our aim is to continue providing a fun and friendly setting for LGBT+ people to meet and get together. I have grown new and important friendships from the group over the last 2 years and I see that others have done the same. We strive to remain a space where people meet for the craic, the safety, the competitiveness, the talent and encouragement.
A key goal is getting back to making ourselves more appealing to the other letters of the LGBT+ family. As the vast majority of our current runners are gay men, we hope to spend a lot of time inviting and initially getting more women to run with us regularly.
A major thing we are still proud of is that anyone can join us at any of our runs! Currently, to maintain safety and monitoring of the situation each runner has to register online prior to showing up for the runs. However, there are not costs in registration or showing up multiple times. This is made possible by Cork's LGBT community centre Gay Project and its staff who administer all the difficult stuff in the background and make sure that the committee can focus on growing, maintaining and promoting the club.
Why run?
Personally, running was a fantastic anchor point of sanity when I was barricading myself indoors this spring. I had just started a remote part-time role while finishing freelance projects, and starting a new job is always an anxious and exhausting experience for me. A run before and after work was often what I needed to set the mind right. Cork is also very friendly, and passing people with sufficient social distancing elicited a smile, a greeting and a nod from many people. Sharing the completions of runs with the group was great motivation to keep going.
I highly recommend anyone to find ways of staying active at home, in the park, on a pitch, alone or in groups. This is, of course, while respecting conditions as they are and while being mindful of others nearby.
I hope this piece has provided you with a bit of insight on how we managed to get by during times of lockdown, and why putting people first is a priority. We still accept new members and hope to do a Couch25K programme soon, when conditions allow it. Do not hesitate to reach out, and remember to look out for yourself and each other.
Frontrunners Cork
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