We have a goal that there will be a parkrun in every village, town or city that wants one. We are excited at the prospect of there being more than one parkrun in your location. We believe that it is everyone’s right to get up on a Saturday and run in a 5km timed event without paying for the pleasure.

We are working diligently to get councils and parks authorities to understand the nature of parkrun. We want them to understand that parkrun delivers all the health and fitness benefits that they also prescribe. These events address a host of other concerns by which these organisations are measured. This process is becoming easier as parkrun catches on.

So, what do we need then? The single most important thing that we need is for an individual to come forward and to lead the charge to bring a parkrun to their neighborhood. We work with these folks to provide all the know how to make an event a possibility. Starting with the establishment of a course to the creation of a team of volunteers, we provide all the knowledge to make this a possibility.

Setting up a parkrun event costs us about £5,000. This includes all the equipment costs, the additional web and hosting costs and all the internal costs required to create the event. We look to the councils, NHS, and other commercial bodies to fund 50% of the start-up costs for each event. parkrun events are sustained through our sponsorship model.

Our experience shows that we can get a new event up an running in about 6 weeks from the start of your enquiry depending on many variables. We also know that within 12 weeks of starting a parkrun, you will have over 50 volunteers to call on. This will mean that you can have at least four fully functional teams running the event, ensuring that volunteers do not have to over commit to the event. We do not expect our volunteers to be in attendance at every week.

We have developed a "parkrun in a box" which allows for the rapid development of a new event.

It all sounds too easy! Well, if you don’t believe us, then you can contact any of the existing event directors for direct feedback from them on how they started their event. We don’t promise that starting an event will be simple but we do promise that it will change your life.

If you are interested in starting a parkrun event, please get in touch with anita@parkrun.com