Kilbarchan AAC Newsletter – January
Chairman’s’ Welcome
Hello and welcome to our new club newsletter which has a new name and header “The Athlete Zone”. In the last edition we had a competition to design a club banner for our newsletter. The winner was Megan Cowan from the girls’ endurance group. Megan’s drawing was taken and reproduced in a graphic package to result in the splendid banner above. As a reward for winning, our clubs’ Olympic 800m Star Jemma Reekie presented Megan with a club holdall embroidered with Megan’s initials MC together with a GB T-Shirt from the Tokyo Olympics, Nike leggings and cap, and a pin badge from the Tokyo Olympics.
Well done Megan!
This month’s edition contains news about fund raising with Tesco, a section on club events as well as some rule races in track relays.
Best wishes, Jason Pender, Club President
Tesco Fund Raising
The club is bidding for a cash boost from the Tesco Community Grants initiative. Tesco works with community charity Groundwork to run its community funding scheme, which sees grants of up to £1,500, £1,000 and £500 awarded to local community projects.
Three groups in every community have been shortlisted to receive the cash award and shoppers are being invited to head along to Tesco stores to vote for who they think should take away the top grant.
Kilbarchan is one of the groups on the shortlist.
The project is to purchase Kilbarchan AAC Sports Hall Kit.
You can vote NOW for the project in the following local Tesco stores:
Linwood, Paisley PA3 3DB Superstore
Tesco Express Garage, Renfrew Road, Paisley PA3 4EA
Paisley PA1 1QA Superstore.
At the checkout, please ask for a token and place the token in the appropriate box in the way out of the store. You can also pick up tokens if using the self-service check outs. Voting is open in the above stores in January, February and March.
Please support the club with this project.
Club Events
Around Christmas time we traditionally organise some club events. This year we hosted three events
Sunday 19th December 2021 Christmas Park Run (2.5km) for younger members.
On the day we had 62 runners covering the 2.5km run over the Linwood Park Run course. Medals this year were presented to all finishers with some spot prizes of selection boxes. This is also a useful indicator for team managers when selecting roads and cross country teams over the coming months.
Sunday 19th December 2021 Christmas 4.6 mile Handicap Race This race replaced the previous Quarrelton handicap Race run in Johnstone and replaced a two lap evening race with an afternoon road race starting and finishing in the ON-X track. The course was running round surrounding area covering 4.6 miles. There were eight runners attending on the day but we hope this will become a more popular event with any ability starting. It’s a handicap race based on your recent park run times so the slower get a head start on the faster runners. For all eight runners they all finished within 4 minutes of each other so the handicaps worked. First home and winner of the trophy was Michael McEwan in a net time of 27minutes 20 seconds.
Friday 31st December 2021 Donald Crawford Cup 10.6-mile handicap race
This was a 10.6-mile handicap race starting just outside Kilbarchan public park on High Street and finishing inside the park at the fountain monument. This is a handicap race, the slowest runner starting off first and the faster runners trying to catch those in front.
Congratulations to Donald Petrie who won in a net time of 1 hour 13 minutes and 19 seconds. Despite being 26 seconds slower than his predicted time, he ran the most sensible pace pulling in the slower runners and keeping in front of the chasers behind him. All finishers crossed the line within 4 minutes so a successful day for the handicapper.
Club Cross Country Championships
Next Club event will be the club cross country championships provisioning planned for 12 noon on Saturday 12th February 2022 (to be confirmed).
Scottish Athletics Events Calendar Cross Country
Full details of events organised by our governing body can be found on the Scottish Athletics web site under: EVENT
Saturday 5th February – Scottish Masters Cross Country Championships – Aberdeen
Saturday 12th February – Kilbarchan AAC Club Cross Country Championships – Linwood
Details to be confirmed
Saturday 26th February 2022 Scottish Cross Country Championships.
Future editions of the newsletter will give details of events and whether the club enters you or you have to enter as an individual. We’ll also look to put a guide together to help you how to do this.
Scottish Athletics Events Calendar Track and Field
Full details of events organised by our governing body can be found on the Scottish Athletics web site under: EVENT
In future editions of our newsletter we’ll flag a few of particular interest.
There is also a national indoor relay championship towards the end of January and again the club will be entering teams at all age group. During January we will be working towards this will some relay practice being carried out during training sessions. The coaches will be selecting athletes for this event the fastest athletes available to run on the day will be selected.
There are some individual competitions over the winter season that we would also encourage athletes to be entered for. These can be found on the Scottish Athletics website (Events – Scottish Athletics) and we have provided the link for some of these competitions below. Please note that the club does not enter your child for most of these events this would have to be done by you as a parent (some of the entries for these events are already open and spaces do go quickly). To enter your child for these events you must register and create and account on the Scottish Athletics portal and again I have attached the link (ClubServe Management System (sportserve.net)).
Sat 22nd January – 4J Scottish National Senior / U17 Championship – ClubServe (sportserve.net)
Sat 29th January – Scottish Indoor Relay Championships – ClubServe (sportserve.net) Club enters this event.
Sat 19th February – 4J Scottish National U15 Championship – ClubServe (sportserve.net)
Sun 20th February – 4J Scottish National U13 championship – ClubServe (sportserve.net)
Young Athletes Indoor League
This competition is organised to take place at the Emirates Indoor Arena in Glasgow (next door to Celtic Football Ground). The team manager is Richard Farquhar but he always needs parent helpers to chaperone athletes to their event on time. Teams are U13,U15,u17,u20 both male and female. Teams are selected based on discussions with coaches and checks on availability.
Next date is Sunday 16th January 2022
Club Kit and Vests
Donna Matthews holds our club kit and can meet and greet you most Thursdays 7pm to 7.30pm at the track in the portakabin.
Further details on the club website including contact details https://kilbarchanaac.org.uk/kit/
Coaching
The club is always looking for parents, athletes and other interested people to volunteer and work with the coaches with an aim to becoming a club coach or at least support them. The more coaches we have the greater the capacity we have to bringing athletes through. If you are interested in helping please contact our Club Development Officer Rupert Williams for further information.
Email via Bookings-KilbarchanAAC@outlook.com
Officiating / Volunteering
I hope to have a future article on how to become an athletic official or volunteer. Without our volunteers the sport wouldn’t exist.
