Junior Road Race Championships

I'd like to congratulate the young athletes who ran in the championships at the weekend. Michelle has detailed the results and I have now looked at them closely. Athletics is arranged on different levels - club, county, district and National being the obvious ones. We all, senior and junior know our place in the club and are always striving to improve it and know where we finished in the Country Cross Country Championship. I looked at the road results to see where our runners finished relative to others from Dunbartonshire and was very encouraged. Among the girls, Rachel was second Dunbartonshire athlete to finish, Roisin was fourth (three Victoria Park members) but is first year in the age group I think, and Claire was third. These are all good results - you won't do well at District level - the next step up - if you can't do it at county. Conor Ewing was first Dunbartonshire runner in the Under 15 Boys race and Peter Bowman was second County finisher in the Under 20 Men's race.
Others ran well and although it is true that all athletes should have a go at most events up to the age of about 16 before specialising we had some running encouragingly at the weekend who might well becaome sprinters, throwers or jumpers, the club is not blessed with large numbers to back them up. I only noted one team out - I may have missed another - but we need more than that. In the indoor league the Under 15 team that did so well only had two members and the Under 20 Men had three. There really should be some sort of recruiting campaign - posters to schools and in libraries and sports centres, visits by senior committee members, some event or events for the younger age groups to make a mark in the Burgh. For several years there have been requests for a young athletes race in conjunction with the Dunky Wright but another year has passed without one (although some other clubs have taken up the idea - Nigel Barge for instance), the schools championship has gone to the DALAP for organisation and we have not even organised a single one off event for them. Surely some one can even do a series of posters for the schools, sports centres, libraries, etc?
If something is being done, that I don't know about, to tackle the recruitment of athletes, then apologies for the above!