Event director Kim Young said this was the first week where a local business got on board to help with volunteers.

“Raine and Horne filled our volunteer roster today,” she said. “Usually it’s parkrunners who take a week of running to volunteer, but today Raine and Horne got their staff together to fill our volunteer roster, and we’re hoping it’s the start of something with other businesses and sporting groups.”

Young said the process of getting the business on board was fairly simple.

“Adam Porterous (Raine and Horne’s licensee) is a regular parkrunner, so we discussed it with him,” she said. “Tracy Dennis has been a real driver behind trying to get our volunteer roster filled that way.”

Although Raine and Horne had a previous connection to parkrun, Young said parkrun would welcome any business who wanted to get on board.

“We’d love to see some sporting clubs get on board, we keep thinking about the local football and cricket clubs,” she said. “You don’t have to be sports related though, any kind of business can come and get involved.

“We usually try and get eight volunteers, because that way we can have an official photographer. Seven is the minimum though for a safe and well-organised run.”

Young said the event has a greater need for volunteers over the summer months, as numbers tend to grow dramatically over school holidays.

“Generally in winter our numbers drop to the low 30s,” she said. “Our record is 166 over the Christmas period, and we consistently get more than 70 people in December and January. At the moment there’s a little core group doing more than their fair share of volunteering, so we’d like to spread that loud out.