Good news: The first workshops have been delivered!
The implementation phase of I RUN CLEAN is now in full swing and our two smallest partner countries, Estonia and Bulgaria, are leading the way in the initial month of action by staging the project’s first official athlete workshops.
Kerttu Jänes and Anette Kotta were surprised and challenged when they were greeted by no less than 55 young athletes as they arrived at a training centre in the central Estonian village of Kääriku on 13 May. Kerttu, who admitted to being nervous on the drive from Tallinn, reported that she and Anette were able to adapt to the circumstances, that she was surprised at the participants’ high levels of interest and engagement and that she “loved the whole experience” of delivering the workshop to the bigger than anticipated group. She added that the curriculum was clear and straight-forward and that the icebreaker line-up exercise in the Starting Line section of the workshop was a particular hit with the participants as well as the experienced coaches who watched and it helped to get the proceedings off to a positive start. Kerttu and Anette were supported on the day by the Estonian federation’s Kristel Berendsen.
Maya Karamarinova has reported that ambassadors Ivan Zlatev and Alexander Tsekov delivered Bulgaria’s first workshop using the official curriculum and PowerPoint for 19 athletes at the Vasil Levski Stadium in Sofia on 31 May. The workshop was promoted by emails to clubs in the city and word of mouth. According to Maya, who attended the session to support the ambassadors, the athletes enjoyed the work and found it useful. She said the QR code registration and survey system were much appreciated. All of the participants received completion certificates specially produced by the Bulgarian athletics federation for the occasion.
Attention ambassadors! So that the lives of Andrea and Monica are more enjoyable, please make sure that all your participants do the pre- and post-workshop surveys.
Also, to make Cyril happy, be sure to complete the workshop report form available in the Project Team Area of the website.
And finally, to keep Bill from complaining too much, be sure to post social media messages and photos about every workshop you do (for Instagram and Twitter tag your posts “I Run Clean” and use #I Run Clean). Thank you.
Workshop PowerPoints
We can report that work on the video for the coaches workshop is continuing, but the end is finally coming into sight. The basic material has been received from Jenny Meadows and now Andrea and Monica need to check, edit and upload the final version to YouTube. Our aim is to get this done asap as we know some coaches workshops are planned for the middle of June. We will keep you informed as we progress.
After the first two athlete workshops it was noticed that Slide 21 of the PowerPoint had the quotes from another video that we decided not to use rather than those from Kelly Sotherton, who stars in the video we are now using. The change has been made and now version 2.1 of the athlete workshop ppt is available in the Project Team Area.
Attention ambassadors! Please make sure that the new quotes are translated and added the slides you use in your next workshop.
More good news: May figures show e-learning platform numbers growing fast
The I RUN CLEAN e-learning platform registered 1,310 new users from across Europe and 1,214 people received their I Run Clean diplomas in May. This was up from the already great numbers of 1,192 new users and 1,061 diplomas in April and it follows the platform’s strongest-ever quarter of growth in the first three months of 2022.
Altogether, for the six partner countries in our project 342 new users joined and 3 diplomas were awarded in the month of May.
Since the start of our project more than 20,000 users across Europe have been added and more than 18,800 I Run Clean diplomas have been awarded.
Attention ambassadors! Please never miss a chance to promote www.irunclean.org and the e-learning platform to anyone and everyone. Thank you for your support in helping us convince the European Commission of the value of I RUN CLEAN.
Even more good news: International Athletic Foundation to support I RUN CLEAN with cash
The International Athletic Foundation has approved an application for financial support of the I RUN CLEAN project.
The Monaco-based foundation, which was set up by World Athletics more than 35 years ago to promote the world-wide development of our sport, awarded a grant of US $50,000. The grant is in recognition of the good work the whole project team is doing in the important fight for clean sport.
Congratulations and thanks to everyone on the project!
The foundation’s grant will be used for the creation of new I RUN CLEAN e-learning modules aimed at athlete support personnel.
Project extension
At last week’s teleconference meeting of the I RUN CLEAN project management team it was announced that the agency managing the Erasmus+ programme on behalf of the European Commission has agreed to an extended deadline for our project. We now have two extra months and must complete by the end of February 2023.
Although this does not change our current timeline for completing the test workshops or our planned finalisation meeting with the ambassadors, it does allow extra time for completing the impact research work and the drafting of the final reports.