Help shape the future of England Athletics membership

As part of our commitment to continuing to grow our sport, England Athletics is exploring the possibility of adding to the current membership offer, to ensure that we are appealing to everyone with an interest in running and athletics. A proposed addition to this offering is a membership package designed for those who are not currently part of a running club.

We are seeking the views and feedback of everyone in the sport as we assess this proposal. This includes existing England Athletics members, clubs, coaches, officials, run leaders and non-club runners.

Taking on board the views of clubs will help us to design a membership package to work alongside our current offerings, allow us to invest more money back into the sport – including club services – and result in a greater number of people discovering and developing a love of running.

Foreword from Clive Poyner, members elected England Athletics Non-executive Director

"After two years as a members elected England Athletics Board Director, it has become clearly apparent to me that to try and move our sport forward we need to address two key critical areas which are preventing growth and development opportunities for our sport. Firstly, we are constrained by annual income and secondly, by the number of volunteers across the sport.

So, for the last nine months a small working group has been exploring options both internally and externally. With some ideas on the table, we now want your thoughts to see if they are viable and can help overcome these challenges.

In brief, we would like to tap into the four million or so runners that are not members of clubs and create a non-club membership subscription to England Athletics.

What would the aims of this be?

1. The additional income would be used to enhance the offering to our clubs and their member athletes.

2. By exposing the non-club membership athletes to the England Athletics structures and pathway marketing, it is hoped that they may join existing clubs, Run Together groups may affiliate and ultimately, they may wish to volunteer in some way. If just 0.2% of this potential pool end up volunteering, we will have 10,000 additional pairs of hands helping our sport move forward.

To progress this, we are asking you for your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions to ensure that if this new strategy is launched it delivers on its potential benefits. As such, we have a range of research approaches that we will share over the coming months, with a view to launch this new strategy in early 2025, giving us time to include your feedback in the plans.

Addressing these two key constraints of income and volunteer growth are so imperative that I am fully supportive of trying to find a workable solution for this strategy.

Thank you for your time and valuable input.

Clive Poyner"

We know that there are challenges and barriers to some runners joining a club environment, and we hope that tailoring a suitable membership package will offer runners the chance to experience benefits associated with membership, become part of our community and, ultimately explore their options to join a club.

We would be grateful if you could share your views and feedback by completing a short survey. The survey should take no more than 10 minutes to complete.