Rebel Run Club: Celebrating making a difference in the local community

RunTogether groups up and down the country are having an incredible impact on their local communities every single day. Rebel Run Club’s impact in Humberside was recently recognised as they won the Active Award at the BBC Make a Difference Awards. We caught up with group founder, Anna, to find out what the award meant to them and the impact that the group has every week.

Creating a group where nobody gets left behind

Having been left behind by other run clubs in the past, Anna helped set up Rebel Run Club to make sure others didn’t have the same experience.

“We wanted to make a club where the emphasis was on being inclusive, free, and a group where emotional wellbeing was at the forefront of everything we did, with a clear “nobody gets left behind” promise.”

To make sure that they fulfil this promise the group have put lots of measures in place. Anna told us that these include:

• A free Couch to 5k programme for 50 runners every January, which always fills up.
• A tail runner at every run so no one gets left behind and looping is encouraged so everyone feels included.
• At least three leaders at each run so lots of support and encouragement is provided throughout.
• There is no minimum pace and everyone is welcome.
• There is funding available for those who can’t afford kit.
• Mental Health First Aiders are part of the leader group and regularly talk about their own mental health difficulties to remind people that it’s okay not to be okay and that there are people there to help.

Winning the Active Award has raised Rebel Run Club’s profile in the local area and given them the platform to talk about important issues and support more runners to overcome barriers and get involved. Anna explained,

“It’s opening lots of doors for us, with us being asked to speak on the radio a number of times about key issues, like women’s safety in outdoor sport during the winter in line with the national Let’s Lift the Curfew campaign, and promoting fundraising like Children in Need. We love that we are able to spread our support far and wide.”

Supporting the local community week in, week out

Rather than just creating another running group, Rebel Run Club wanted to have a positive impact on their runners and the wider community. Anna is proud of the community that they have created:

“I feel we have brought the community together with an accessible run club, where beginners are welcomed. We’ve helped people develop friendships and help to combat loneliness.

“It’s been incredible seeing people go from not being able to run 1 minute, to managing 5k. We’ve done three Couch to 5ks now and helped around 150 people. We encourage our c25k graduates to become run buddies and support the new cohort. This works so well as it increases the graduates confidence, but also offers the new runners support from people who have recently gone through the challenge they are experiencing.

“We felt that a run club had the power to be more and do more, by helping those in need in our community. For example, through plogging (jogging and picking litter) at all the local races, collecting for the food bank and donating to charities important to our community.”

The BBC Make a Difference Awards recognised this impact,

“Winning the Active Award for BBC Make a Difference Award was incredible! It gave us an opportunity to sit back and reflect on everything we’ve done- which is a lot! We just get out there every week, twice a week, supporting runners, and forget to pause and reflect on how much we’ve achieved. It was so lovely having the opportunity to do this. We are so incredibly proud.”

Getting started with RunTogether

Anna’s advice to anyone considering starting a RunTogether group is:

“I would say, just do it! We were scared it would be hard and time consuming, but the resources mean that it’s so easy to set up, and so safe. Being with RunTogether has given us the opportunity to create a run group which makes a difference, cares about our members and gives back to our community.”

The support and resources provided by RunTogether made it easy for Anna to set up Rebel Run Club, minimised the admin needed and enabled them to keep a record handy of all the important information.

“The booking on system is so quick and easy and gives us all the details we need, like emergency contacts and medical info. All leaders have the app on their phones and can access runner info at all times.

“We are normal people so had no idea how we’d manage all this information. We suggested excel spreadsheets, but the RunTogether resources meant that it was already sorted, looked professional, was easy to use, and totally free! As a voluntary group we have no money, so this free resource has been invaluable.”