Challenge Running Volunteer Newsletter - December 2025

Welcome to the December 2025 and our very first edition of the Volunteer Newsletter.

This will be emailed out to all or previous competitors and volunteers on a monthly basis and will be full of volunteer specific info.

If you don't want to receive these you can opt out via the unsubscribe link at the bottom.

 Why Volunteer?

As a grassroots event company our volunteers are the very lifeblood of any event. Without them events would simply just not happen. It's fair to say that the number of low key events has dwindled over the last year or so. Event outfits are struggling to get competitor numbers and the number of volunteers required to keep these events alive. If you want to continue to have your local events please consider volunteering as a way to ensure their survival.

There are many reasons why people give up their time and skills to help out at events; many are runners themselves and want to give something back to the community. Others have supported runners in their family/friends group and have experience of how to crew and support. Some may be injured but still want to participate at some level - being a working part of the event alleviates the FOMO. And then there might be folk who want to see how the event operates and get a feel for it before committing to entering it...in short, there are many reasons why someone might volunteer but the crux of it is, you'll make a material difference to someone's race experience and feel amazing for it!

Benefits of Volunteering

Volunteer Points

Volunteers earn points for each hour they help and can use these to pay for future races up to 3 years from when they earn them. You can view the current volunteer points table here and see how many points are required for free entry to each event;

https://www.challenge-running.com/contents/3109-volunteers 

In order to convert your hard earned points into free/discounted entry please email us at;

Volunteers@challenge-running.com

and we'll create and email you back a discount code to be set against your entry.

Volunteer Event Plans & Comms

We produce unique event schedules for all our events that tell you exactly where and for how long you'll be 'on duty'. 

At our beautiful Backyard Ultra location, Thetford Forest, we set aside a large area away from the throng for our volunteers to set up camp. It has its own sanitary facility and we feed you too.

We factor in rest breaks and down time into the Volunteer event plans for all our multi day events which will be shared to you via the Event Whatsapp Group. You will also be kept up to speed via the Whatsapp chat group - ensuring you don't miss any vital information and it gives you the opportunity to ask any questions before and during the event.

Furthermore, if you have a preferred role, would like to be teamed up with friends/family we will do our best to accommodate that too. 

We want to ensure that you are at your best throughout, feel supported and that the experience is a great one for you too!

Trail Team opportunities

New for 2026 we are building a " Trail Team " of volunteers to check our routes during the year and just before races.

If you are unable to commit to helping out at the events themselves, maybe you are a local who regularly runs a section of one of our routes or you're recceing race routes ahead of race day, or perhaps you want a more 'active' role helping out then this would be a great way to earn volunteer points to get significant discounts off any of our future races.

Please see the Trail Team section of the website for more info and how to get involved. We have already started getting volunteers for these roles which is great to see.

https://www.challenge-running.com/contents/3257-trail-team

Shout out to local Running Clubs...

We'd love to get more clubs involved in volunteering at our events; we will give whoever volunteers at the event the usual points but also for each checkpoint location staffed by a club we will donate a few places for that years event for the club to use or to raffle off, or give to runners they choose, whichever they want.

If you are a club member and think you can get a team together to take over a checkpoint at an event we want to hear from you. We are more than happy to have you bring your club banners and branding to promote your club at the checkpoint and if you have runners competing in the race it's such an uplifting way to support them!

Volunteer Feedback 

We very much welcome and encourage a critical assessment of how our Volunteers found their time at our events. We want to hear the good, the bad and the ugly so we send out requests to everyone who had a hand in the event and aim to make meaningful changes to improve future events.

Our Races 

The current race schedule for which we require volunteers in 2026 is ;

Peddars Way Ultra - 1st February 2026

https://www.challenge-running.com/e/peddars-way-ultra-11027  

St Peters Way Ultra - 22nd February 2026 

https://www.challenge-running.com/e/st-peters-way-ultra-10996

Thames Ring Series - 22nd to 26th April 2026

https://www.challenge-running.com/e/thames-ring-series-11289

Suffolk Backyard Ultra Festival - 6th June to ??? 

https://www.challenge-running.com/e/suffolk-back-yard-ultra-festival-11504

Thetford Backyard Ultra Festival - 12th September to ???

https://www.challenge-running.com/e/thetford-back-yard-ultra-festival-11505

Stort 30 - 25th October 2026

https://www.challenge-running.com/e/stort30-10280  

and brand new for 2026;

St Edmunds Way Ultra - 5th December 2026

https://www.challenge-running.com/e/st-edmund-way-ultra-13957

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So if you'd like to come along and help out at one of our events please fill out the Volunteer form on our online Volunteering Page by clicking the link below -

https://www.challenge-running.com/contents/3109-volunteers

Finally as we near the end of another fantastic year of hosting some memorable events we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and we hope to see you all in the New Year...

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