Trail Treader

Perhaps we should start with RRRUK’s practice of pre-emptively or immediately blocking people on Xitter who dare to disagree with its position, before posting questions challenging those very people to respond—when, of course, they cannot. Rather an interesting approach to open discussion. And RRRUK has been actively recruiting members, encouraging supporters to spread its message and using parkrun participation as a vehicle for promoting its campaign. Yet when another club encourages people to affiliate and share its support for parkrun’s existing arrangements, that apparently becomes unacceptable political campaigning. There is a legitimate distinction between individuals expressing support for a campaign and official parkrun event teams endorsing one. But that distinction applies equally to both sides. And “quality not quantity”? That’s rather amusing, Janet, considering that RRRUK originally made quantity the centrepiece of its campaign, setting ambitious targets of 1,750, then 1,000, then 750 members. Having fallen substantially short of those ambitions, we’re now treated to repeated recruitment appeals in pursuit of rather arbitrary numerical milestones, including palindromes and a suitably spooky 666 for Halloween. It’s a little late to suggest that quantity doesn’t matter when the campaign you support has spent so much effort trying to make it matter.

This rather gives the game away. If the position is “you will never convince me”, then this is no longer about asking what policy best serves parkrun’s purpose, culture and participants. The conclusion is fixed in advance; parkrun is simply the battleground for a prior ideological commitment. At least Claire is candid enough to show that this is a crusade to impose a fixed ideological position, not an open inquiry into what policy best serves parkrun. It’s a shame others still dress the same predetermined conclusion up as neutral questions of “fairness” and “accuracy”.