News Item

Committee Mid-Year Review and Update to the IMRA Community

Saturday July 13 - Miriam Maher

We’re just past the mid-year point now in our calendar of fixtures and events so I thought I’d provide a mid-year review of IMRA activities and achievements so far in 2024.

First off, some statistics: So far, we have delivered 83 races this year across 19 counties, covered by the Leinster, Munster, Southeast Leinster and West leagues. 3,887 people have registered with IMRA so far this year. The gender split of that membership is 1,236 female (32%) and 2651 male (68%). In the races held so far, 2,447 females (30%) and 5,730 (70%) males participated. A couple recent races have had an 50/50 gender split in participation. 782 (20%) of the current IMRA membership have volunteered a total of 1,637 times so far this year.

The statistics paint an exciting picture of a vibrant and active series of races and events across the country in our established regions and developing regions. Those races, mid-week, or at the weekends, have provided all those that took part with the chance to get away from it all, switch off and enjoy the company of our unique running community. Whether you’re winning the race, your own mini battles in the race, just getting around, having the craic volunteering or enjoying the post-race pub grub and chats, it’s a special environment.

The new races this year have been great successes, kudos to all those involved. A special shout out to Lillian Deegan for being a one-woman powerhouse of support all week for those on the coast2coast relay and race.

Not one single aspect of anything that has been delivered or achieved so far this year would have been possible without the crucial factor that enables IMRA to continue, 44 years on, delivering days, evenings and nights of unique and unforgettable mountain running and racing experiences. That factor, of course, is the entire reliance on the goodwill and generosity of our volunteer members. We often talk of IMRA being volunteer led, that might suggest that we led others to deliver on our activities. However, all that we do, is done by ourselves. We endlessly rely on a multitude of race day teams, specialist subgroups, the executive committee, regional committees, league directors, and various other quiet contributors to deliver on the races on our calendar and the associated activities with our organisation. So, as you can see from the stats, that’s 20% of the IMRA membership keeping the show on the road so far this year.

Each race requires advance planning, route planning, course marking, core roles of first aid and laptop operator in place, enough course marshals out on the route and enough volunteers to enable registration and finish line to be carried out smoothly and most importantly for us, safely, each and every time. This is our priority focus, and we are proud of our record in this respect, but we never get complacent about it either.

A hugely significant aspect of the advance preparation for any race is the need to have approved access, usually based on permits from state bodies like the National Parks Wildlife Service, Collite and just as often, from private landowners who give us access to their lands for our races based on indemnity letters issued by our insurers. This is an area that has become increasingly regulated with often onerous levels of administration. We understand and fully support the environmental needs of the various stakeholders and continued to work in an effective partnership with all of them. Liam Vines, our races co-ordinator, has dealt extremely well this year with this ever developing and evolving set of requirements.

While the races are IMRA’s core activity, our way of enabling access to the mountains through an organised race event, we have been busy in many other ways and activities so far this year.

In February, we formed two new subgroups. These groups were prompted by the feedback from the IMRA members opinion survey conducted in October of last year. The communications subgroup has looked at new or better ways to communicate about IMRA activities. We have made increased and more frequent use of the news items section of the website, highlighting particular events. We have been working with Run Republic on regular race report articles and other noteworthy events. Kate Flynn continues to manage our social media platforms on Instagram and Facebook and her stories and posts are always well worth a read. The audience reach for the social media accounts continues to grow, with the IMRA Munster and IMRA West social media accounts all adding to the excellent coverage of IMRA online. You can never communicate enough, and we are constantly keeping this under review.

The second new subgroup has looked at accessibility, sustainability and inclusivity within IMRA. A very clear indicator of the work from this group already has been the strong emphasis on urging the IMRA membership to consider carpooling where at all possible to IMRA races. We’ll continue with this focus, while understanding the challenges at times to carpool. It’s a tricky balance but we will continue to promote the benefits of carpooling.

Following the very successful tree planting/carbon offset days in both Leinster and Munster at the start of the year, the group is currently considering options for the use of this year’s carbon offset fund. Along with the sustainability focus, the group continues to explore and encourage ways in which IMRA can increase accessibility and inclusivity for our races and events.

Inclusivity and accessibility are at the heart of the welcoming nature of the IMRA community. IMRA members Andy Keeling and Alice Clancy, from early this year, have regularly held kit donation collections at the races. These kit donations have been passed onto the Trail Criú running group located in Wicklow and that practice will continue at upcoming races. IMRA is more than happy to facilitate these collections and we thank Alice and Andy for their ongoing focus on this area. Andy and Alice also organise carpooling for those who don’t have access to cars themselves, providing lifts themselves and facilitating lifts with others within IMRA. They co-ordinate a lot of this with Trail Criú. Many races, particularly in Munster, have had a long-established practice of having a short kiddies race before the main races. In April, the west league’s series of meet and runs for women, championed by Turlough Conway, were very well attended and undoubtedly helped show the benefits of trail running to a wider group. In June, Peter O’Farrell’s Bike and Bus Low Carbon Race received great feedback. Also in June, the range of inclusive races at Wobbly bridge organised by Niamh O'Ceallaigh were a huge hit. IMRA Munster are collecting unwanted, but good condition, sports footwear at reeks weekend this weekend. We will be having a ‘second time around’ sportswear pop up event at the Trooperstown race in August.

A lot of these initiatives came from IMRA members willing to come up with practical solutions and innovations and then deliver on them, themselves. These initiatives have increased accessibility to a wider group to take part in IMRA races and this is hugely welcomed by all of us. Massive well done to all involved.

The work of these two new subgroups continues and we expect more initiatives from both over the remaining months of this year.

These two groups are only the new subgroups. The committee is significantly supported by the work done by other long-standing subgroups. These are the technical subgroup, the high-performance subgroup and the junior development subgroup. These groups, made up of a mixture of committee members and IMRA members with specific expertise. The technical group continually works on fixes, enhancements and upgrades to the IMRA website and systems of operation. There is a list, it is long and the subgroup, in conjunction with the committee, continually prioritises and reprioritises what is being worked on. The work on the new chip timing hardware system, recently rolled out, has been incalculable. Special thanks to Eoin Keith and Conor O’Farrell for their work on this project. The costs involved have been modest, the time of those involved quite literally has been priceless. These are the hidden hours that aren’t visible, the rest of us just see the outcome at the races. We are very fortunate to have that level of expertise available to us from IMRA members who give of their time and efforts freely and obviously without any payment.

The high-performance (HP) subgroup not only selects and then sends teams to participate in international events, but they also carry out a wide and extensive range of administrative planning and co-ordination tasks in advance of the trips. We have had three successful and memorable trips for teams to Brittany, France, Annecy, France and Montana Palentina, Spain so far this year. Our HP talent pool continues to grow. That can be seen from the bigger fields at the trials held and the fact that we have been able to select full teams for all race distances at the international events for this year. Robbie Williams and Elizabeth Wheeler continue to do incredible work with the senior and junior high-performance groups. The junior development subgroup actively works on new ways to engage with junior athletes, encouraging them on to the hills, not just for HP trials but to encourage them to run and race on the hills. The aim is to foster a lifelong interest and enjoyment in running and racing on the hills. Its noteworthy that the junior development squad and trials show a very encouraging increase in female participation with a 50/50 gender split at that last set of trials held. Without IMRA’s support of the high-performance programme, our talented athletes would not get to represent on the international stage as there is no comparable focus within Athletes Ireland, this is delegated to IMRA. We receive a small financial contribution and the provision of international kit from AI, and we enjoy a good and collaborative relationship with AI. However, it is the IMRA community that ultimately supports and funds these trips.

Other areas of activity have included the delivery of first aid training for the SEL region and RD training evenings. We updated our netiquette policy and appointed a new moderator, Laura Flynn. We live in a world of increasing levels of online commentary, and we are very mindful of the need to have acceptable standards in place for online, respectful discourse within the IMRA community. We continue to support regulated charities through specific race events, donating to charities that are often of personal relevance and significant importance to the IMRA membership.

Having listed off all the above, I come back to focus on the role of the many volunteers, at every level, that have made all this happen. I’d like to acknowledge the considerable effort made. While it’s generally well known, it’s worth spelling out what that means.

Every volunteer does what they do in their free time. For the vast majority that means their limited free time after busy working lives, personal lives and commitments, occasional health issues or sometimes when getting over injuries. IMRA events and activities are often worked on by these people when they are on holidays, when they are too busy, but still make time. This is the nature of a volunteer role and everyone who takes on their role does so by choice, so that’s also accepted. But if you want to get a brilliant, lightly written, but very accurate account of a volunteer experience, please check out David Power’s ‘view from the laptop’ forum post after the Prince William Seat race. https://imra.ie/forum/topic/id/6767

The stats quoted at the outset of this update paint a clear picture of an immense amount of ongoing work in simply delivering the races on the calendar. The executive committee meets monthly. We have an established practice of holding off on discussions on proposals and changes until we meet up, this aids effective and focussed discussions. Between now and the AGM in November, we have 3 more meetings. We will continue to review all proposals for changes, big or small, in that timeframe. We always acknowledge contact, and we also follow up once the matter has been discussed and a consensus reached on the committee. We welcome all proposals with the request that any proposal also comes with a proposed solution or way of delivery too. We will always evaluate any proposal against what impact that might have on an already heavy volunteer load.

Realistically there is daily contact between the many members of the committee, RDs and other IMRA volunteers on various matters to do with the races and other activities. However, we use the monthly meetings to review and consider overall issues or matters arising for discussion. Anyone can contact a member of the committee directly; our emails are on the website.

I have the pleasure of working with fellow committee members who approach all discussions with mutual respect and great humour, a perfect combination in my eyes. Looking forward to what the second half of this year brings us!

Miriam Maher
President
Executive Committee for IMRA

Photo Credit: John Shiels, Action Photography