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Vegan Runners UK announce 50% Membership Fee Reduction & FREE period

January 2, 2016 0

Vegan Runners UK are pleased to announce that as of 1st January 2016 the annual membership fee has been halved from £12 to £6 for full adult members and proportionately less for other categories of membership (household, junior, concession etc.) This has been made possible by an unprecedented growth in membership numbers in recent years which has seen Vegan Runners grow to become one of the largest running clubs in the UK. At a time when most other costs associated with running are increasing this bold move by Vegan Runners bucks the upward trend, and is intended as a positive gesture at a time when many people are impacted by the climate of austerity. Furthermore, both new and existing members will not need to renew again until the end of March 2017, effectively giving them several extra month’s membership for FREE! Since its inception the club’s membership has increased steadily but has seen its numbers rise dramatically by over 65% during the last year to almost 400 members. This rapid increase, along with the anticipated continued growth, has enabled the club to revise its fee structure accordingly to now make joining even more accessible to everyone. It will also mean that more people will be able to buy the club’s ever popular range of kit and casual clothing, reserved specifically for members. Formed in 2004, the Vegan Runners club has the objectives of promoting veganism through sport, and providing a supportive community for vegan runners all over the UK. Membership is open to anyone who follows a vegan lifestyle and has an interest in furthering their running in a friendly and supportive environment. VRUK is a most unique running club, not only in that its membership is drawn from all corners of the country rather than just locally based, but also because all members share the same vegan values and lifestyles, beyond their basic interests in running. As with other running clubs many members of Vegan Runners choose to upgrade their membership to also include affiliation to England Athletics (for an extra £13), thus entitling them to discounts on race entry fees as well as appearing in race listings and race results as a member of ‘Vegan Runners’. “Whilst most of our members choose to include EA affiliation (‘first claim’) we do have some members who are ‘first claim’ with their local club and ‘second claim’ members of VRUK (not affiliated to EA), but all are equally welcome.” said Nicola Cowee, VRUK membership secretary. “A recent development within our club has been the emergence of autonomous groups of Vegan Runners setting up local ‘meet-up’ groups where there is sufficient interest and numbers. Currently there are 23 such groups so there could, or soon, be a group near you!” she added. Originally set up in the United Kingdom Vegan Runners now has affiliated organisations in many other countries around the world with an international Facebook following of over 7,000 and almost 1900 on the UK Vegan Runners site. VRUK is affiliated to England Athletics (EA), SEEA, ECCA and The Vegan Society.

London and Brighton Marathon places announced

December 29, 2015 0

Matthew Toy just announced the members who have been selected for positions in Brighton and London 2016 marathons. With 15 applicants for the 2 positions for the London marathon, it was a very challenging decision for the committee members to decide. Congratulations to John Marchant and Kim Wright! The Brighton marathon selection was much easier with only 2 people applying. Congrats to Caroline Betsworth and Barry Pearson for securing these. Best of luck to all 4 of you and everyone else who will be running these marathons……..eat a few bananas and you will smash it! 🙂

Vegan Runners Virtual Race Winners

November 28, 2015 0

… celebrating World Vegan Day 1st November 2015 Congratulations to the prize winners of the Vegan Runners Virtual Race! BEST PHOTO – Rachael Chadwick and Paul Kerry PRIZE a mixed case of tasty British products from Hodmedod’s BEST FANCY DRESS – Tracy Guild, Super Vegan Girl PRIZE a box of mixed raw chocolate snacks from the Raw Chocolate Company BEST SELFIE – Laura Sturgeon PRIZE a mixed box of crisps and popcorn from Ten Acre Crisps BEST SELFIE WITH ANIMAL – Elaine Banks with her rescue hen PRIZE VX tote bag BEST RUNNING COMPANION – Louise Wit for running with an inflatable dinosaur PRIZE VX tote bag BEST SPOOKY PHOTO – Hannah Johns PRIZE 1 years 2nd claim membership of Vegan Runners UK BEST “I AM A VEGAN RUNNER” PHOTO – Laura Conway PRIZE a vegan running book BEST GPS DRAWING – Jennifer Zechlin PRIZE a mixed box of crisps and popcorn from Ten Acre Crisps OLDEST PARTICIPANT – Mick Smith PRIZE a selection of Sweet Freedom products YOUNGEST PARTICIPANT – Esme Nickerson (7 years old) PRIZE a Vegan Tuck Box FASTEST HALF (FEMALE) – Denise Robertson 1:52:26 a selection of Sweet Freedom products FASTEST HALF (MALE) – Patrick Babb 1:43:42 PRIZE a selection of Sweet Freedom products SECOND FASTEST HALF (MALE) – Flavien Bascoul 1:43:43 PRIZE socks and pants from BAM Bamboo Clothing FASTEST 10K (FEMALE) – Clare Coombes 49:27 PRIZE a beauty box from The Vegan Kind FASTEST 10K (MALE) – Paul Edwards 49:38 PRIZE Bake at home cake mix from The Vegan Cakery YOUNGEST FIRST 10K – Tallulah Lebon aged 14 PRIZE a lifestyle box from The Vegan Kind FASTEST 5K (FEMALE) – Elaine Banks 26:11 PRIZE a detoxifying face & body mask and a hand balm from Heavenly Organics FASTEST 5K (MALE) – Matthew Jones 21:18 PRIZE a voucher to spend at El Piano THE LONGEST DISTANCE RUN – Guy Riddell 60 miles in 13:21:55 PRIZE socks and pants for BAM Bamboo Clothing THE BEST GROUP RUN FACILITATOR – Fiona McClenaghan (Humble Highlanders) PRIZE Sheese (vegan cheese) from Bute Island The total raised for Tower Hill Stables animal sanctuary was a fantastic £1227.49. Winter is a particularly expensive time of year for sanctuary so if you would like to continue to support Tower Hill please have a look at their website www.towerhillstables.com for details on how you can do this. Thanks to Vegan Runners UK’s Nicola Cowee for organising the Virtual Race! See all the photos Download full results pdf

Cassiobury Parkrun with Cake

October 20, 2015 0

An important announcement from Hortencia McKechnie for vegan cake runners & eaters in the South East! ‘Hello everyone. For those in the South East/ Three Counties/ London region. On the 7th of November Cassiobury Parkrun (Watford) is going to have more of a vegan flavour. We will be baking cakes and (hopefully) there will be a fair few of us to show the omnis that we’re actually lovely, fit, cake-munching individuals. If anyone would like to come along as a runner/steward it would be great. I will be there and I will be baking!’ http://www.parkrun.org.uk/cassiobury/

London Hyde Park Meet-up

October 18, 2015 0

It sounds like Saturday’s London Vegan Runners meet-up in Hyde Park went well, good to see members were wearing their vests rather than imitating the style sense of the big chap on the podium 😉 The next meet-up is planned for 21st November, it sounds like there may be cake but only after a bit of hill work! The best way to keep up to date with what the London crew has planned is to join their Vegan Runners UK London Meetup Facebook group or to contact Matthew Toy.  

Volunteers for VRUK stall in Manchester

September 30, 2015 0

Vegan Runners UK will be returning to the Sachas Hotel, centre of Manchester on 17 October, a venue where we were present in April 2013 and there was a huge turnout from the public. On this occasion as you may know, the festival has been spread over four venues with the main stall holders at the central venue at the hotel. For details visit www.northernveganfestival.com. The festival is open 10am – 6pm. Peter Simpson our stallholder and clothing secretary will be travelling up from Milton Keynes by train on the Friday and planning to stay at the nearby YHA as in 2013. Last time he struggled on the stall by himself as there were few members in the region, now that has changed over the past year or so, he will be hoping a few of you will be keen to help. Peter will be behind the stall for most of the festival, he just needs the occasional quick break. He doesn’t want to take up too much of your time at the festival as you would naturally wish to look around, attend talks, films, socialise, etc. If you wish to help let Peter know via the website contact form (Clothing or Festival Stalls) and it would be helpful if you could select a timeslot e.g. 11am – 1pm, 1pm – 3pm, 3pm – 5pm or the hour preferred. The busy times such as lunch period / early afternoon are when we need the most cover i.e. 12pm – 3pm or possibly 11am – 4pm. The festival is on from 10am – 6pm and Peter will be setting up as early as possible subject to arrival time from the YHA. The quantity of club stock will be limited due tro travel by public transport. The club will also only be selling the clothing to new or existing members due to the club’s policy change in May this year. If you have any personal orders for the stall please inform Peter in advance, although there is no guarantee they will be in stock prior to the event. Currently we are out of stock of medium green and large black hoodies. Some sale items are no longer in stock i.e. youth black hoodie, medium premium cotton t-shirt, large black sweatshirt and men’s lycra 6” large black shorts. The festival stall is an opportunity to build-up the local group, currently we do not have an official local contact as far as I am aware. There will be the usual opportunity to build-up a mailing list from the stall, some will be from outside the region and I will respond to the new contacts after the festival, focussing mostly on the contacts in the Greater Manchester region. Parkruns are a good starting point for members and contacts, many of you will be running parkruns, some on the day of the festival. If you have ideas where members can meet for training in Manchester or nearby on a more regular basis do let Peter know in advance. If volunteering on the stall is not for you but you plan to attend, Peter and other volunteers will obviously be pleased to meet you at the stall. Lots of members visited the earlier stall at the Leeds ‘Great Yorkshire Festival’ in June including one or two on this list. If your have club kit, it would useful to wear it on the day to help us meet-up. We would not suggest just wearing shorts and vest! Peter Simpson VRUK Stallholder

Volunteers for VRUK stall at Leeds

May 22, 2015 0

The club will be returning for the 2nd Great Yorkshire Vegan Festival at Leeds Town Hall on 13 June (open 10am – 6pm), for information visit www.yorkshireveganfestival.com. We need some volunteers to allow others to take a break as necessary. Volunteers only need to commit themselves to 1 or 2 hours. We will aim to have two members on the stall for most of the day. If you are interested please e-mail Peter on [email]veganrunners@talktalk.net[/email] . We also suggest that members wear club kit to the festival if appropriate. We do have the new logo t-shirt available to order (form on website) or buy on the day. Peter

Volunteers Needed for V3K

May 20, 2015 0

Urgent!!!! Volunteers urgently needed for V3K Ultra, the vegan mountain ultra race, 13th June 2015 Snowdonia We are sad to report that we are below safety critical numbers for volunteers at this year’s race and urgently need to recruit more people. V3K Ultra is in its 4th year and has over 160 runners registered this year, folk are travelling from USA, China, New Zealand South Africa and all over Europe to take part. Folk go vegan for the day and some for the month as do all our volunteers. We support people in the months coming up to the race to help with their diet. So you can see that people make a  more than usual commitment to this race. We need people on the hills, in the valleys and at the finish where we serve free vegan food for runners and spectators. In return they will get amazing food, we will find folk somewhere to stay, they’ll get a great tshirt and of course be part of one of the most amazing races in the world (we think). V3K Ultra is in the Skyrunning series, a world renowned series of mountain races. Please contact us on [email]info@vegan-welsh-3000s.co.uk[/email] for more information. Thank you for your continued support Kirsch Bowker Race Director – V3K Skyrunning UK Facebook vegan-welsh-3000s.co.uk

Northern England Meet-up

April 12, 2015 0

Phil Davies reports back on a cracking Northern VRUK meet-up: Thirteen Vegan Runners UK members and family members from across the North of England got together on Saturday 11th April for a social run and vegan feast in Kildwick near Skipton. It was a great get-together with people travelling from Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool and the Lake District. Six of us went on a scenic run across Farnhill Moor then on the Leeds & Liverpool canal towpath, while the others (and three dogs) went for a walk by the canal. Then we had a huge feast of all the food everybody had brought with them which lasted several hours! We’re planning more social events in the Peak District and Lake District soon. VRUK North of England members will get details by email. If you’re not yet a member of VRUK,  join up now if you’d like to come.

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