I’m Emily. I’m currently in my final year at Loughborough University studying Psychology. I live in the South West and I’m a member of Swindon Harriers. I’ve been involved in athletics firstly as an athlete and volunteer and more recently as a coach and official. I’m currently a coaching assistant and am working towards being a level 2A official as I’ve only taken my courses at the moment.

My main aim is to get an officiating qualification so I can help my club a lot more. I joined the YAG because I felt there were things in athletics that I wanted to have my say on and I felt that sometimes young people were not given enough opportunities to show they were capable to help. I’m excited to listen to the views of other young people and change athletics in this country for the better.

Emily’s Blog

Hi Everyone

Hope you are all doing well and enjoying the website. So it’s my first turn to write a blog and I thought I would tell you about my volunteering aims for the year!

I’ve been volunteering for a long time now, pretty much since my Dad could drag me along to events at my local athletics club. I love helping at big events my favourite being helping at half marathons – nothing beats the excitement and joy on people’s face when they cross that finish line. I’ve always enjoyed most forms of volunteering in athletics but I want to try something a bit different this year…

Since volunteering at the Paralympics and being lucky enough to have tickets to some sports, I was seriously inspired by the athletes there. It made me realise that although I’ve followed people like David Weir for years I am so oblivious to most of disability athletics. So my aim is to change that J

In December I volunteered at a local Disability Sportshall event for primary school children. I can honestly say it was one of the best days of volunteering I’ve ever done. It was exactly the same feeling I get on that half marathon finish line, people so happy to have achieved something and just being given the opportunity to do so.

Next month I will be volunteering at a disability cross country championships, something I naively didn’t even know existed! I can’t wait to see how the championships works and hopefully then suggest a similar event in my hometown. Someone at my local club has just secured several racing wheelchairs so hopefully there will be an opportunity to do some disability athletics coaching in the future too. I cannot wait J

We’d love to hear your aims…what are you hoping to do/learn more about this year?