Who Can Be Involved with Preston Harriers?

Preston Harriers is an athletics club in Preston, Lancashire with a membership of around 500 people. That membership is not limited to competitive runners: it comprises senior athletes, junior athletes, coaches, officials and helpers. So if you are asking whether you could be part of the club, the answer is that there are several distinct roles to consider, and only some of them require you to be an athlete.

The five membership categories

The club describes its membership as made up of:

• Senior athletes — adult competitors.
• Junior athletes — younger competitors.
• Coaches — people who lead and develop athletes' training.
• Officials — people who make competitions happen and run correctly.
• Helpers — people who support the club's activities without necessarily coaching or officiating.

This matters because it means involvement is not an all-or-nothing decision about your own running ability. Someone who has no interest in competing, or who is past competing, can still be a coach, an official or a helper.

What the club actually does

The disciplines listed by the club are:

These are the activity areas the club covers. They are useful context for choosing a role: a helper at a fell race, for example, is supporting a very different event from a helper at a Sportshall indoor session. If you are considering a coaching or officiating role, it is worth knowing which of these areas you would be attached to.

How to judge which role might suit you

Work through these questions rather than assuming you need to be a runner:

1. Do you want to train and compete? If yes, the relevant question is whether you would join as a senior or junior athlete.
2. Do you want to stay involved in the sport without competing? Coaching, officiating and helping are the routes the club itself names.
3. Are you unsure which of the three non-athlete roles fits? The distinction is roughly: coaches work with athletes' development; officials support the running of competitions; helpers provide general support to club activities.

A concrete example

Suppose you are a parent who has no athletics background and no wish to compete. Under the club's own description of its membership, you are not limited to standing on the sidelines — you could be a helper. If instead you have competed yourself and want to pass on that experience, coaching is the category that matches. The club's membership structure is broad enough that the honest answer to "can I be involved?" is usually yes, with the real question being in what capacity.

What to check before deciding

The club's published description tells you the categories that exist, but not the requirements attached to each one — for example, whether coaching or officiating roles expect specific qualifications, or whether there are age thresholds for junior athletes. Those details are not covered in the material available here, so treat the categories above as the map of possible roles and confirm the entry conditions with the club directly before committing to one.