Message from the Chair – Jun 2021

After a very difficult year, last week’s AGM at Café 8 was a more cheerful affair with Club members finally able to get together. Although Colin and Phil stepped down as chairman and vice-chairman after 5 years in the roles, we are delighted that they are both still very involved with AVOHK. As the new Chair, I am extremely grateful to Colin for agreeing to serve as Vice-Chair for a year and to Phil for stepping up as Race Director of the Reservoir Series.

Malcolm Phillips Virtual Race 2021

Having skipped a year in 2020, the ever-popular Malcolm Phillips Age-Graded race will return in 2021, this time in a virtual format. Further details will be emailed to members soon and you will also be able to check out information on the AVOHK website at www.avohk.org.

Mo Devlin

Many of you will have been concerned to have heard that Mo Devlin, a very active AVOHK member, had a serious accident last week while cycling. Mo’s partner, Janine has been keeping his many friends in the running community updated on his progress. The good news is that Mo has now been transferred out of the Intensive Care Unit and is now on the High Dependency Unit. I know that everyone will be very relieved to hear of Mo’s progress and we all wish him the very best for his recovery.

The Race Situation

Due to the ever-changing COVID restrictions, last season was one of race cancellations and disappointments. With the situation stabilising we are committed to doing everything that we can to make races happen. Our priority is to get runners running again! We have recently had some constructive communication from the Home Affairs Bureau (HAB) regarding the possibility of holding races in the near future. At the moment we don’t know what that might look like. It is likely that virtual races, time trial starts and limited fields may be a feature. It is also looking likely that vaccinations will be a key factor in allowing physical, as opposed to virtual, races to go ahead. If this is the case then we will also need to call on our members to volunteer at a race, whenever they can as we may have a limited pool of vaccinated volunteers to call upon. The HAB also indicated to us that permission is only likely to be granted for races to go ahead a few weeks in advance. I’m sure that you will appreciate the knock-on effect on the organisation of races. The usual souvenirs may not be in evidence this year as, again, our priority is to make races happen.

Happy running!

Elaine Hall
Chair