parkrun DofE Volunteer Opportunities (Duke of Edinburgh Award)

The Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme presents great opportunities for young people in the UK to gain a range of experiences, one of which must be volunteering. It must be completed on a “regular and ongoing” basis for between 3 months (Bronze) & 12 months (Gold) and then signed off by the person who supervised or managed the volunteer activity.

Q: Can I use volunteering at parkrun as part of my DofE?

A: Yes. In 2015 parkrun became an official provider of DofE volunteer opportunities but is no longer part of that scheme. Thus you must liaise with the race director of your local parkrun to see if opportunities exist. Larger events like the parkrun at Bushy Park have a named individual as the DofE volunteer organisers but smaller parkruns may never have previously had any DofE volunteers.

parkrun only works because of all the volunteers, so young people can make a difference. If you helped at Bushy Park for example, on a good day you would be helping more than 2,000 people to stay active or achieve PBs. The ethos of DofE Volunteering is “ To inspire young people to make a meaningful contribution within their communities, influence change, and shape the world they want to live in.” I think parkrun entirely fits that aim. parkrun is community-based, it’s probably local to you, it’s impactful and unlike helping commercial races, it is for a charity and can be completed every weekend at a sensible time in the morning, requiring about 90 minutes of your time (8:30 to 10:00 ish).

If your local parkrun isn’t set to organise DofE volunteers, I reckon that’s a job for your mum or dad to take up 😉

Q: What does parkrun DofE volunteering entail?

A: From my family’s experience at Bushy Park, the kids took on different tasks each week. They did things like marshalling runners on the course, encouraging tired finishers, helping organize the finishers’ area, and handling & scanning barcodes. There was a good mix of tasks, and some of them were important and responsible. The roles that involve more senior tasks, like timekeeping and announcing, were handled by experienced adults. But you will definitely get to scan barcodes!

Anecdote: My daughter was recently very excited to scan Jake Wightman‘s barcode after he won parkrun (he is the 1500m World Champion).

Q: Do I have to do it every week?

A: It has to be “regular and ongoing”. But if you gave notice that you had to miss one or two Saturdays, I guess no one would mind. But you can’t treat it as an ad-hoc commitment if it’s raining as you have a potential responsibility towards thousands of other people.

For adults: Please realise that your kids will have some responsibility towards others and that if they mess around and hinder those running in some way then they won’t be popular! Just the sensible kids please.

[2024] Add parkrun barcode to Apple Watch or Garmin Forerunner/Fenix

Q: Can I use parkrun for the DofE activity section and the DofE Volunteering section?

A: Yes, I would have thought so but it would be very unlikely that you could participate and volunteer on the same day.

Q: Will I get cold and wet?

A: Quite possibly, yes. Dress sensibly. On the flip side, you might get a tan in the Spring and Summer.

Q: For my bronze DofE can I use volunteering at parkrun as my 6-month component

A: Yes that’s possible but liaise with the race director.

Q: What is the worst volunteering task?

A: The most dreaded task is for the person who takes the container full of scanned barcodes to be sorted. It sounds like an innocuous task but it involves bending down a lot and gives you VERY achy thighs after doing it for an hour.

Q: What is the best task?

A: It depends on the kind of person you are. Maybe you want to use a tech scanner on your mobile phone or maybe you like cheering people along. You get to do both and more besides

Q: How do I know my volunteering task?

A: Larger events will publish the volunteer roster the night before. For smaller events, you won’t find out until you turn up on Saturday morning.

Contact: Your local parkrun race director via the default email ie [eventname]@parkrun.com. DofE encourages children to make contact and arrange the volunteering by themselves.