Tuesday the 3rd of November, 2026
Ambassadoring
As parkrun COO, I found myself at the ‘top’ of a gigantic weekly organisational chart, with tens of thousands of weekly volunteers, thousands of events, and a load of amazing staff, spread all around the world.
It was, of course, the most incredible experience and something that I still think about and learn lessons from every single day. And there were many times where I needed to make a decision myself that impacted thousands and potentially, over the long term, millions of people. Things like starting in a new country (or not) often fell squarely at my feet, and the right answer didn’t sit at the end of a series of committee meetings or long process to achieve consensus. In fact, there was no such thing as the right answer. Rather, the way forward was a manifestation of gut feelings, intuition, and an understanding of our why.
At the same time, in any organisation with significant scale and reach, we need to recognise that local people’s understanding of their communities is unparalleled and cannot be shortcut, disregarded, or ignored. In fact, taking things even further, it needs to form the foundation of all the decisions we make.
And that’s the real challenge.
Balancing your senior team’s ability to see the bigger picture from the centre of the organisation, with local understanding of culture, challenges, and needs.
Go too local and you lose the benefits associated with scale and experience.
Go too central and you lose touch with the very communities you’re looking to support.
And that’s where the parkrun Ambassadors come in.
Tim Cooke, Scottish parkrun Ambassador, 2023
In the very earliest days of parkrun everyone knew everyone and things seemed relatively simple. But as we grew, those connections strained and our ability to build strong relationships with events and local communities weakened.
One such example would be when we were trying to get Whitley Bay parkrun started back in 2012, and as the UK Country Manager and a northerly staff member it landed on my desk to make that happen. Despite my best efforts to persuade the council of the benefits of hosting a parkrun, and many trips up and down the A19 from Leeds, I was unable to achieve permission.
On one occasion, however, I was unable to attend an important meeting, and asked one of our local north east volunteer event directors, Alister Robson, to go in my place.
Alister, of course, managed to unlock landowner permission within a single meeting, and I learned an important lesson.
Although we didn’t know it at the time, the parkrun Ambassador programme was about to be born into existence, with the first ever UK Ambassador Conference following in May 2013. And today the global parkrun Ambassador programme numbers many hundreds of brilliant people, across all the countries in which parkrun operates.
Without those amazing people, it would not be possible to balance central and local knowledge.
And without balancing central and local knowledge, parkrun wouldn’t work.
Comment
Keeping in touch with the real parts of your organisation is critical to achieving your goals. These are the bits where the magic happens and where decisions you make in a meeting or a spreadsheet have real world implications and consequences.
Where organisations go wrong, it can so often be traced back to a disconnect between HQ and the front line. And as organisations grow and reach significant scale, this connection becomes more and more strained.
As much as it can seem that you’re too in the weeds or too focused on the minutiae of local delivery, there was never a time in my parkrun journey where I regretted time spent getting to know the people who my decisions would impact.
In fact, many years ago I had a friend who was the number two at a very well-known UK bank. And the first thing he did when he was appointed to this unbelievably senior and strategic role in an incredibly important business, was to go and spend his first week working in a junior role in one of their local branches.
I was inspired by that and tried to take a similar approach to my own leadership journey, spending as much of my time as possible with the communities and people I aimed to serve.
It’s worth asking yourself, could you better connect with the people impacted by your actions?
Tom Williams
Co-Founder, Participate World
participateworld.org
The Participate Playbook newsletter reflects Tom Williams' personal experience and recollections from his time at parkrun. It is not an official parkrun position or record, and any errors are unintentional. Tom writes as an independent consultant through Participate World Limited, and neither he nor the company are affiliated with, employed by, or representatives of parkrun Global or any of its group companies.
