Blackburn Road Runners innovate reducing costs for members

In our last Club Support newsletter, we asked clubs to let us know if they had any good practice news that we could share with other clubs.

Blackburn Road Runners was one of the respondants and Club Chair John Clucas told us about what they have done to help their members and prospective members in reducing or removing costs to assist in their running journey.

Perhaps your clubs feels like they might be able to implement some of these great ideas?

The club have negotiated with some race providers in the following ways:

• To get entry discounts and some free places in return for the club supporting their event in numbers.
• Support members being official pacers and so getting free race places.
• Asking members who are not running at races to become marshals so getting income that can be used to support race entries and other costs.

The club are also active in seeking funding from local authorities and England Athletics to support the retention of members and reducing costs - such as their annual club membership fee which has been frozen again for the 4th year. This also enables the club to use fund reserves to pay entry fees to some races.

As well as cost saving, these initiatives sometimes have the added benefit of making a sustainability impact:

• The club highlight all members who are attending a specific race so they can consider car share.
• Setting up Project reRun where used running clothing, running shoes and other items such as hi vis are collected so that members can be offered this for free rather then having to buy from new.

Pictured below is the Project Rerun merchandise offered out to members at a recent club training night.