To think the National Trust should not let Park Run volunteers marshal the cars at a NT property

Better late than never!

Sounds ridiculous (and as I thought)!

[But I'm not clear on why she went to the old Main Car Park, when she was there to do the Park Run....? Although of course, the P/Runners are not, I suppose, obliged to park in the Paddocks, just generally directed/expected to.]

Well I guess that's progress....

Yes, this is the thing - 300+ people at different speeds on two lap 5k course.... I should imagine there would always be someone on that stretch between the start of the first and finish of the last, I am sure they cannot restrict access to the now Main car park (event field) for that whole period of time.

The parking on the Paddocks (the blue cross, and I imagine where the sign on the photo was pointing - and I agree, it gives the impression of being for PR only) would be - you would think - for the PR only, as they are otherwise pushing people further and further away from the places where they might spend money (let alone the other issues I was told about re. the re-configuration in the Turning Yard and Laundry Yard. People will only be going that way for the loos!) Talk about alienating the customer base....

Yes @MetaMette - your annotated map is great! And that is how I understand it to be happening - and what I was told yesterday and would seem to have been @ParkRunIdiots' experience. It looks to be the absolute antithesis of Parkrun and regular visitors NOT encountered one another; being forced to drive alongside the route, and across the route that the participants take to get to Bark Café and Start line - and of course the marshal(s) and PR spokesperson on here not helping.

The Clumber Spaniel show could only really take place in the Park I would say - very appropriate! I remember seeing it one time as well. They are lovely dogs and it is so nice that they have been rescued from near-extinction. They are a bit more solid than all the other spaniels I think - and my Mother's certainly was - the big soppy floppy boy 😍

@LighthouseTheme According to the clumber map at least, the park run car parking would be on the paddocks from your description (blue), what is now the main car park is cow pastures.(yellow). Conflict area in red. To turn in to the yellow car park you cross the park run route. Given that the NT can't even remember to open the barrier to the car park some days(and once people are queued up at the barrier there's not really space to turn around) the level of organisation to avoid this conflict is probably beyond them!

As an aside, they sometimes do clumber spaniel meet ups at clumber, we once encountered a group of about 40 as we were walking round the lake.

@ParkRunIdiots I do hope something comes of it, as there seems to very little joined-up thinking between the NT/Clumber Park, and the Parkrun folk. They need to know that they are having a negative effect on regular park visitors with this.

Thank you though for giving me a reason to go to the Park for the first time in ages! (Shan't be going on a Saturday morning though....) 🌲😍

Let us know any updates 🙂

No, that sounds about right. Very best of luck.

You were a lot braver than me! I wouldn't go near geese- Google the inside of their mouths if you want nightmares.

Separated with a rope and they still wouldn't let you drive. It's gone from ridiculous to full on farcical. Did you contact NT and Parkrun officials (hopefully with a screen shot of the race director's post)?

Hm, right - yes, all roped off, and a nice wide verge. Yes, I thought you would be coming from the opposite direction.
But, I suppose the conflict will keep happening as the people try to (are forced to) park up that way.

Geese! Better than guard dogs I've found... The geese were probably near to the size of the - brave - 8 year old you.
Great to deter people from walking down by the lake - green poop in the treads of shoes. Yuk!

Ooh I like Clumber spaniels- they look so solid as if they could go through ANYTHING. My boy liking being off lead is why I tend to be on the other side (if I can find anywhere that has not been extensively logged!) as round the house dogs are, quite rightly, on lead only. Plus the geese are terrifying and would eat him given the chance.

I'm not saying how long it takes me to get round the lake....

Haha - thank you @Binglebong - and, even though it looks like it, the bike is not electric; all pedal-powered!
Again, yeeears, ago, I would take my mother's dog for a walk around the route I took today (alongside the event field/car park); he would bob up and down through the ferns that are long gone, giving me an occasional sighting of his floppy face. We would do the whole lake, but I would probably not do it on foot now, so you are better than I am.

(He was an actual Clumber Spaniel, a breed brought back from the brink of extinction. My mother was very proud of him.)

Hmm, yes - the guy I was talking to today (about Riding passes) at the Membership "shed" said that the new route that goes through where the Offices were (now the Lincoln Courtyard) was made possible by moving the staff car park to the main (now accessible) car park, as there are fewer staff*. He had been an employee for years then left and is now a volunteer.
(*He couldn't get anyone on the phone to answer the query I had.)

You are impressively energetic! I've given up trying to work out the locations as it is very rare I am that side of Limetree Avenue - only really if I want to go round the lake and my dog and I struggles a bit with it these days.

Sorry for hijacking your thread OP but it does all see to be connected - nonsensical decisions that pissoff their core supporters and volunteers, leading to less experienced people being in a position they are not ready for.

Edited for typo.

And before anyone tells me I have too much time on my hands, I had a lovely ride around the lake! Trip down Memory Lane 😍🤗😢

@Binglebong Wow - that's all very interesting - and depressing - to read.

I have been to Clumber, and there have been some/even more rather depressing changes; one of which is altering the route to the Shop, and not even signposting it very well, so it and other little businesses in the "Laundry Yard" are losing footfall by over 50%! Added to the change in the parking arrangements, and this really is a shooting themselves in the foot moment (the car park only changed this summer, so it's forgivable that no-one is really fully clear on it, if they haven't been for a while).

So - @ParkRunIdiots - I am actually a little bit more confused about where you were when you were prevented from passing through. I have established visually the barrier/signpost towards Accessible parking (and confirmed that no Blue Badge required, and generally, no-one (wo)manning it. Maybe that only happens for the PR .....
....however, I have now been told that the PR Parking is on what they call "The Pastures" [and is also, even today, marked Visitor Parking but with a pair of closed gates] and not the event field/previously overspill. So, straight after the Paypoint, the left turn (eventually to Hardwick) is for PR parking, and then a Right. (I think it used to have yurts on it or something). A footpath goes through from there to the Start etc near the Cricket Ground and Bark Café.

SO, while this may partially solve the PR parking question (that only I had I believe), the route of the Parkrun , and therefore people o foot, possibly assuming some kind of priority, will surely meet up with vehicles heading into the now "Main" car park (field) - which by the way has a very bumpy un-user-friendly first 50 yards, and I cannot imagine how bad this field will be in wet weather!

I think this spot will be the road to the car park, and also the PR route, does it look like where you got snarled up @ParkRunIdiots ?

To keep its houses open to the public, meanwhile, it is heavily reliant on the many volunteers who give their time unpaid. But the treatment of volunteers is another sore point.
Selling the past: the shop at Stourhead, Wiltshire CREDIT: Alamy“When I started, seven years ago, the volunteers were shown appreciation by the staff at the property,” says Nigel Plimmer, a volunteer at Shugborough. “We used to have a summer barbecue, with free food, and a Christmas meal. Both of these have ceased.” Of more concern, he says, is the “obvious reluctance” to pay volunteer expenses – for travel between someone’s home and the Trust property, and the like. “I claim my expenses approximately every six weeks and they are always £100-plus. When I started, they used to be approved within a couple of days. Over the past year, it has averaged three weeks, and twice it was more than four. This from one of the wealthiest charities in the country.”
Volunteer staff of many years’ standing, meanwhile, tell of their despair at the imposition of “convoluted, patronising and largely irrelevant (for volunteers) ‘mandatory learning’, which covers topics such as diversity training and institutional racism”, as Anne-Marie Jordan, who spent a decade volunteering at Ightham Mote, in Kent, puts it. Jordan gave up volunteering last November, after the Trust enforced the training, threatening those who refused with dismissal. “There was no common sense to it,” she says. “It was all politically correct – typical of HR these days. They seem to forget the current serious shortage of volunteers.”

This is from a much better article but it's behind a paywall. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/24/national-trust-crisis-dusty-houses-no-volunteers/

With regard to war on volunteers I couldn't find any good, accessible (for free) articles. This one is biased but at least admits it! Open in private tab to read for free. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-has-the-national-trust-just-started-a-war-with-its-members/