We're coming back! Hip Hip Hooray!
parkrun International have announced that all New Zealand parkrun's will restart on Saturday 4 July. This is so exciting. We are the first country in the world to be able to reopen our parkrun events. We are so lucky to live in this fabulous country at the 'bottom of the world', with our ginormous moat and our team of 5 million! Well done everyone.
We look forward to seeing you all back ready to pick up where you left off on 14 March - the last parkrun event we held. That is so long ago, and so much has happened in that time - there will be many lockdown stories of both the good times and the hard times. The chance to get out and reconnect with your parkrun family will be such a great moment for many of you. So welcome back one and all, we are rearing to go.
However, things will be a little bit different. We are required by parkrun HQ to wash the finish tokens each week after our event, to avoid the transmission of any potentially infectious diseases. This instruction has prompted us to also have a look at our finish line processes and we have decided that we should be minimising the number of touch surfaces, such as our scanning tables and the card box. Therefore, from Saturday 4 July, and going forwards, we are taking away our scanning tables and all finishers will be funnelled through a finishing chute, given a finish token, and have this scanned by our barcode scanning volunteers before they leave the chute area.
We also can no longer maintain our card box where we have allowed participants to keep a spare copy of their personal barcode. From Saturday 4 July, we will be falling into line with the parkrun policy - No barcode No result - so please remember to bring your barcode.
There are lots of options for you so that you always have your personal barcode at parkrun - print out some extra barcodes and keep in your car/s, keep one in your phone wallet, look at the 'shop' tab on our website and purchase a wristband or keytag barcode. You can do this, after all, not many people forget to bring their running shoes, you just need to find a system that works for you so that you remember your barcode. For the first couple of weeks we will have someone with the cardbox, who can give you back your spare barcode prior to the race if you would like this.
We hope you are as excited as we are for the Saturday 4 July start of Barry Curtis parkrun. Lets start the countdown........