N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S , C / O G O S F O R T H L E I S U R E C E N T R E , R E G E N T F A R M R O A D , N E W C A S T L E U P O N T Y N E , N E 3 3 H D . R E G I S T E R E D C H A R I T Y N U M B E R : 1 1 8 9 4 3 8
W W W . N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S . C O . U K
Kris Bailey
It's that time again for us to look back on the NFR year. As you can see from the following report we've had a bumper year of activity. Our regular weekly sessions are seeing ever growing numbers, and I hope we are delivering what you want from the club. Obviously I want to thank you all for participating so enthusiastically, our club is nothing without it's members.
We have had a revamp of our social media presence, thanks to the efforts of Steven and David, we even have a tiktok channel...! This is starting to see a surge of new members and we are regularly being asked by other Frontrunner clubs tips and tricks. I look forward to see where we go next!
Following member feedback we have revamped our club kit, and there has been a wave of rainbow vests being seen across the North East (and further afield) in a wide range of races. It has been great to see so many of you achieving your personal running goals.
Northern Pride may have ended up a washout, but we didn't let the rain dampen our spirits and our annual LGBT5K continues to be the highlight of the local running calendar (I might be slightly biased of course). Once again we managed to raise a sizeable donation for our chosen charity Rainbow Homes from this year's race entry fees.
After 5 years on the committee, and 3 years as Chair, I have decided to have a rest.... I am grateful to all the committee members over the years, along with the Coaches, Leaders, other volunteers and all of you, who contribute to making NFR the friendliest running club around.
I wish the new committee every success, and I look forward to the next few years.
TREASURER'S REPORT
Patrice Siou
As another year comes to a close, I am pleased to share with you our closing financial status for 2022-23.
We ended our financial year with £21,359 in the bank. This being some £3,450 lower than at the close last year. However, I am happy to confirm that this still meets our aim of holding 12 months running costs in reserve.
Our income for the year of £17,988 is a mere £291 lower than last year. Income from the LGBT5K represented 58% of the total income,
During the year we also held a very successful fundraising evening, which along with other fundraising brought us a total of £2,568 additional income. The remainder of our income came from membership fees and the sale of running kit.
The corresponding expenditure for the year was £21,812, an increase of £2,730 compared to the previous year. A large proportion of this increase can be attributed to the purchase of our new revised running kit. As usual the largest proportion of our expenditure was for the costs of hosting the LGBT5K running festival and UK Athletics membership fees. Other expenditure relate to the normal running costs paid to GLL, Gosforth Academy and equipment storage costs. In addition to this, we continued to support the creation of new LIRFs and CIRFs, entries to the Harrier League and travel subsidies to Frontrunner Grand Prix events
As at the year end we had two significant items not yet accounted for as follows: · A donation of £1,679 for LGBT5K sponsorship which was received in September 2023.
· Our donation to Rainbow Home of £2,250 fro the LGBT5K proceeds which has been paid in October 2023
Every year brings along its own challenges and this year the cost of living crisis had a major impact on the costs of hosting the LGBT5K. We saw costs increase across the board from all suppliers. Therefore, we have to give special thanks to Newcastle Building Society, David Gray Solicitors and Luxe England for their generous sponsorship of the LGBT5K running festival.
We also thank all our members for using Easy Fundraising for their purchases. This is a free and easy way of raising funds for the club as you make your routine purchases online.
W W W . N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S . C O . U K
M EMBERSHIP REPORT Hannah Fitzpatrick
It's been great to see the club maintain its membership levels over the last year. At the time of writing this report, NFR has 134 members (a slight increase on numbers at the time of last year’s AGM). We have also seen a small increase in the number of members joining NFR as an England Athletics Second Claim Club.
Membership renewals took place in April, and this year we had 112 members renew- exactly the same figure as the year before! In the last few months we’ve had a real boost of new members joining, and thanks goes to David and Steven for their work this year in recruiting new runners!
The club also had it’s 400th ever member join in April- it’s fantastic to think about how many people have benefited from the club since it began. It’s also great to see so many members volunteering to support the club as coaches, run leaders, welfare officers, helping at the lgbt5k and in so many other roles. Thank you to everyone who continues to volunteer – your help is vital to meet our charity’s aims!
The committee have also been working on lots of projects over the last year, and one we were really proud of was updating our logo and club kit, to recognise the Pride Progress Flag and ensure inclusivity for the entire LGBTQ+ community. Well done to Stu for taking the lead on this, and everyone involved in the kit relaunch!
W W W . N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S . C O . U K
SOCIALS AND COMMUNICATIONS
Steven MacDonald and David Nevins
As incoming Socials & Communications leads, we wanted to ensure this was a fabulous and eventful year for members, which we hope has offered social events that have appealed to all. Regular opportunities for connection for members across the different rainbow run groups has been really important to us, and our regular post-Rainbow Run socials at the pub have we hoped offered a relaxed environment to meet members you may not typically run with, and offer an opportunity for members who are injured or are returning to running to stay connected with the club. Our Social Sunday runs have continued monthly with leaders co-ordinating runs from Exhibition Park to The Land of Oak and Iron out to the coast – a great opportunity for us to connect over a Sunday brunch afterwards.
Alongside our regular social events, we have held some other social events throughout this year. It kicked off with our Christmas night at Boulevard where we enjoyed the fabulous Christmas show by Danni Dee and the Broadway Dancers before we all enjoyed some drinks together. We started the new year off with a trip to Lane 7 bowling, where we had over 20 members come together in friendly competition – and we found out we had some talented bowlers in the club (not us, however!). Other events we’ve organised have included a trip to Junk Yard Golf and Myra Dubois at The Stand – both great fun!
W W W . N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S . C O . U K
Talking of trips, this year NFR were back on international waters post-COVID, with not one but two trips to tackle half-marathon events. First up in April we had over 25 members travel to Berlin to enjoy the Berlin HM. In September (but it could have been the middle of the Summer with the temperature), we had 16 members travel in September for the Copenhagen HM. We so enjoyed the opportunity to meet our sister club, Copenhagen Frontrunners, who made us feel so welcome for the whole weekend and we can’t wait to welcome to the North East in the future!
When we talk about trips and our sister Frontrunner clubs, we can’t forget the fun we had as we travelled to both Manchester and Glasgow for their events – It’s A Piece of Cake 10K and OUTRun. It has been really important for us that we support our sister Frontrunner club events, and we provided coach travel to Manchester and subsided travel to Glasgow. These are really important events in the Frontrunner calendar as we get to meet up with, create connections, and strengthen the UK Frontrunner family.
With our members travelling across the UK, we also had lots of visiting Frontrunner family at our LGBT5K and Pride events, including our Saturday Pride party at Prohibition that was more exclusive to get into than Berghain – who knew we were so popular? (must have been the fab buffet – or that people were wanting somewhere out of the torrential rain!). However, with all our successes that weekend, we still aren’t going to talk about that Sunday brunch again. We got to meet other members from the UK Frontrunner family, including Nottingham and Brighton Frontrunners, who joined us for a post-Great North Run social – though this time we think the torrential rain kept folks away (and stuck in South Shields!).
----- Start of picture text -----
tbc
----- End of picture text -----
W W W . N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S . C O . U K
This year following some feedback at the AGM, we have really focused on our social media presence – we hope you have noticed. We have increased our followers on all platforms, and we seem to regularly recruit new members via social media and from our visibility with the LGBT5K. We have also started to dabble with TikTok and Reels – we hope you’ve enjoyed these if you’ve seen them in your feed…
Finally, we wanted to thank you all for coming along and supporting our big fundraising event of the year – the quiz and raffle, that this year took place at the South Gosforth Social Club. Thank you to quizmaster Allen, to everyone who provided raffle prizes and just generally made it a really fabulous night. We raised £2200, which all goes towards the running of our club and meeting our charitable aims – so thank you again!
W W W . N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S . C O . U K
LGBT5K 2023
Jo Morrisey and Remy Bullimore
The mantra for arranging our annual LGBT+5k should probably be to expect the unexpected…. Following a comprehensive handover by Jocasta & David (2022 Organisers) we expected everything would run just like clockwork this year!
We soon realised that this was perhaps a little optimistic when Northern Pride decided on a site boundary change which cut right across our 2022 route – so back to the drawing board it was. After some deliberation and route measuring (and trying to avoid the same route as Town Moor parkrun) we came up with a viable route option.
We got the route officially measured and completed the necessary registrations with UK Athletics. Then it was on with the business of agreeing access and permissions with a range of stakeholders including the Freemen and Urban Green.
Luckily we were able to secure the services of UK Timers and BookItZone again this year – they provided a great service with race entries, race numbers and timing.
We really appreciated the fantastic marketing and comms efforts to drive up interest and entries – thanks to Steven MacDonald and everyone else involved in managing our social media and comms this year to maximise the profile of the event – we managed to very nearly sell out!
However, again the unexpected – On the evening of the event, traffic issues for some participants due to closure of the Tyne Bridge and central motorway meant some late starts, along with unseasonably wet weather with heavy rain showers to contend with – UK Timers experienced technical issues with the timing mats – possibly due to the weather conditions or some other unknown factors, the Bangshees had water splashing off their drums, and we had to buy an emergency extra marquee at short notice to keep the finish zone goody bag area dryish.
Despite this, the event seemed to go down well with nearly 600 runners across kids 2k and main 5k races, all embracing the weather conditions and splashing their way around the Town Moor! We still had loads of fabulous fancy dress and big smiles all round. It just goes to show that us runners are a hardy bunch and not put off by the great British summer weather.
W W W . N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S . C O . U K
A huge thank you to all of the volunteers who make the event possible – all of our race marshalls, those who set up the course, packed the goody bags and provided additional donated items, coordinated volunteers, managed the kids race, looked after health and safety, compered the start line and gave out prizes afterwards, and the sometimes unsung heroes who packed all the soggy kit away afterwards, washed the hi-viz bibs, dried out wet flags and tents, and a myriad of other tasks. We really did all pull together – team NFR should be proud!
Finally, the event couldn’t have been a success without our sponsors – this year Newcastle Building Society sponsored the medals, Lux England sponsored race numbers, David Gray sponsored goody bags. This amazing support meant the event managed once again to generate a surplus over costs and we have been able to donate over £2000 to our chosen charity of the year - Rainbow Home - to help them continue their vitally important work to support LGBT+ asylum seekers.
W W W . N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S . C O . U K
GRAND PRIX
Stuart Forsyth
So this year was my first year on the Committee taking on the Grand Prix Lead, my main aim when taking on the role was to:
-
1.Encourage members to run together
-
2.Promote the club
-
3.Make it Affordable
-
4.Competitive by introducing the leaderboard
-
5.Easy to understand
We had a total of 26 races this year dotted all over the North East (and further afield) to try and at least have one race in the vicinity of each member from a wet and windy Blyth sands race to a sunny day trip to Manchester for the piece of cake 10K and a weekend to Glasgow for Outrun.
Points were awarded for competing, 3 points for free events and 6 points for paid events, the individual with the highest number of points at the end of the season was deemed the GP 2023 winner and awarded the winners hoodie and 9 runners up awarded a limited edition NFR snood.
Overall we had a great turnout for each event and had some great competitive banter going with the introduction of the leaderboard so well done to everyone who got involved.
W W W . N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S . C O . U K
TRAINING
Becky Windsor
What a great year it's been! We had several big races this year, for which unofficial training plans took place. In particular, members trained for the Berlin and Copenhagen half marathons, and the biggest half marathon in the world, the Great North Run. Over 40 members took part in at least one of these, and you should all be so proud.
I took on organising the fortnightly Run Development and Strength & Conditioning sessions following on from Stoddy and Stevie G, and a big thanks to them both for their time. Both of these sessions continue to be a vital part of improving speed and moving up a group at Rainbow Runs, so get yourself there! Organising and leading these sessions has been a pleasure so far, though I have made some questionable music choices during S&C...!
In April, we had a successful track session lead by Allen, Russell, Stevie G and Stoddy at Gateshead Stadium. It was a good chance for members to get their sprint on in some friendly competition, as well as practise good running form with running styles filmed and fed back.
W W W . N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S . C O . U K
We had several members successfully pass their LiRF courses and join the subgroup of NFR that make the club function; a big congratulations to Will, Helen and Michelle. The club relies on LiRFs and we're always looking for members to join the team.
In July 2023, Al Eccleston passed her CiRF course and joined Allen, Russell and Stevie G as coaches of the club. She has been working towards this for some time and we're thrilled to have her on board supporting members.
After 18 months of being the Training Lead, I am ready to pass the baton on for a fresh approach to the role. It's been a privilege to have been on the committee and see members progress into LiRFs, CiRFs and benefit from the organised sessions.
W W W . N E W C A S T L E F R O N T R U N N E R S . C O . U K
Newcastle Frontrunners - Financial Summary
For the year ending 31 August 2022
Charity No: 1189438
| 8/31/2021 | 8/31/2022 | Chg | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash in Bank | £25,975 | £24,810 | -£1,165 | |
| PretyCash | £67.40 | £0.00 | -£67.40 | |
| TOTAL | £26,043 | £24,810 | -£1,233 | |
Income
| Unrestricted Funds £ |
Restricted Funds £ |
TOTAL 2022 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Donatons and legacies | ||||
| Donatons* | £0 | £0 | ||
| Charitable actvites | £0 £0 |
|||
| Grants | £500 | £500 | ||
| Membership | £4,878 | £4,878 | ||
| Other TradingActvites | £5,378 £5,378 |
|||
| 5K Run entryfee | £7,387 | £7,387 | ||
| 5K Run Sponsorship | £4,299 | £4,299 | ||
| Fundraising | £563 | £563 | ||
| Sale of runningkit | £352 | £352 | ||
| Other income | £300 | £300 | ||
| £12,900 £12,900 |
||||
| Total Income | £18,279 £18,279 |
Compiled by: Patrice Siou 9
pruchase
Expenditure
| RaisingFunds | |
| Costs incurred hostng5k Run | |
| Costs incurred forprizes & awards 5K Run | |
| Other expenditure includingrunningkit | |
| Charitable Actvites Direct Costs |
|
| UKA Registraton | |
| Events & Courses | |
| Training | |
| Small Donatons | |
| Travel | |
| Meetngs | |
| Support Costs | |
| Marketng | |
| Depreciaton | |
| £20,702 | Professional fees |
| Governance costs | |
| Independent examiners fees for reportngon the accounts | |
| AGM | |
| Total Expenditure |
9/5/2022
| Comments | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 donation to Rain In 2022, club invested 2022 LiRF training was Kenton, GLL & Storage Wix & IFR subs |
|||||
| £180 | £180 | £0 | |||
| £359 | £359 | -£282 | |||
| £0 | £0 | £0 | |||
2021 donation to Rainb In 2022, club invested £
2022 LiRF training was Kenton, GLL & Storage
bow Home £1,000
£1,757 in replenishing club kit stock
£1,145 & Christmas party £761
e
Newcastle Frontrunners - Financial Summary
For the year ending 31 August 2022
Charity No: 1189438
| 2021-22 Best View | 2021-22 Best View | 2021-22 Best View | 2021-22 Best View |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8/31/2021 | 8/31/2022 | Chg | |
| Cash in Bank | £25,975 | £24,810 | -£1,165 |
| PretyCash | £67.40 | £0.00 | -£67 |
| TOTAL | £26,043 | £24,810 | -£1,233 |
Stock 2022
| Stock 2022 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sports Equipment £ |
Other Equipment £ |
Total £ | |||
| Balance brought forward | £1,460 | £1,337 | £2,797 | ||
| Additons | £788 | £788 | |||
| Balance Carried Forward | £2,248 | £1,486 | £3,585 | ||
| Carried Forward | £2,023 | £1,337 | £3,227 |
2022 Best View
| Stock | ||
|---|---|---|
| Balance Carried Forward | £2,797 | |
| Additons | £788 | |
| TOTAL | £3,585 | |
| Depreciaton | -£359 | |
| Balance carried forward £3,227 |