Welcome to Parkour UK’s update for the months of May & June 2023. Take a look at some of the news that has happened within the organisation over the last few months.
In May & June, we said goodbye to a few members of the Parkour UK staff team.
Kieran, who worked in our Membership Lead role, has left Parkour UK after an exciting work opportunity opened up for him.
Kieran previously worked in our workforce role and has been a valuable member of Parkour UK ever since he started.
Thank you for all your hard work over the years, Kieran. We wish you and your business the best of luck in the future!
In June, we also said goodbye to Chris Grant, Parkour UK’s head of development, who is taking a career break to focus on being a new parent
Chris has played a key role in the growth of Parkour UK over the last 2 and 1⁄2 years and we would like to thank Chris for his dedication, hard work, and positive impact on the parkour community.
In early June, we ran our summer cohort for our Level 2 coaching qualification. This started with the online section of the course, which went really well. Their face-to-face section of the course starts in July.
We’ve had a number of questions and inquiries over the last few months regarding our Level 2 coaching qualification.
If you’re looking for more information on the course, you can check out the podcast episode we did below.
In early June, Parkour UK celebrated UK Coaching Week, organised by UK Coaching.
UK Coaching Week this year had a focus on “Duty of Care”.
During this week, we put together an article (Read Here) where we celebrated a handful of the amazing coaches seen within the parkour community.
We think it’s crucially important to highlight the positive work that parkour coaches are doing to support individuals within their communities, and UK Coaching Week is a brilliant way for us to do this.
This follows our attendance at the UK Coaching Awards back in December of 2022, where 3 parkour coaches were nominated as finalists in the “Change a Life”, “Coaching Podcast of the Year” and “Young Coach” awards.
In late May, Callun and Simon visited Sheffield for the Action Sports Gathering, organised by UK Sport.
We were joined by other sports, including Skateboard GB, GB Snowsport, British Bobsleigh and Skeleton, British Cycling, & GB Climbing.
This led to some amazing discussions with those organisations, including their competitive coaching pathways and experience in the Olympics.
We also told stories about how Parkour is unique as a sport, addressing some of the misconceptions about parkour being a high-risk sport, and what we are doing as a National Governing Body to serve, elevate, and add value to the Parkour community.
A huge thank you to everyone involved at UK Sport for making this happen, and we are looking forward to the next one!
Not long after the Action Sports Gathering, Callun and Simon met again in Brighton to record our next batch of podcasts.
This round of podcasts covers everything you need to know about starting your parkour coaching journey and includes information about how to get your coaching hours signed off.
These podcasts will be coming soon to YouTube, Spotify & Apple Podcasts.
You can check out our latest episode below. How can Parkour UK help you?
In June, our first piece from the Women’s Engagement Project was uploaded to our YouTube channel.
This piece follows the journey of Isla Ramsay, who recently took part in our Level 1 Parkour UK Coaching qualification.
It was an absolute pleasure to visit Isla Ramsay in Glasgow for the first of many video projects to promote female participation in parkour, and encourage more women to take up space and be part of this wonderful community.
Thank you to Johnstone Macpherson-Stewart for filming and editing the video. https://www.jmsfilms.com/
We would like to say a huge thank you to Katie McDonnell, who hosted a takeover on the Parkour UK Instagram account during the Women’s International Parkour Weekend, hosted by Parkour Generations.
Katie attended and gave insight into the event, which included speaking to a number of different participants from all over the world and sharing their stories on our Instagram story.
The takeover was a huge success, and it is something that we would love to do more of in the future.
If you would like Parkour UK to cover your event, please reach out to us. A member of our team will be able to organise a visit or have someone do an Instagram story takeover on our account to document the event.
As well as Katie running our Instagram during the WIPW, we also have been highlighting a number of competitions and work that has been going on within the parkour community.
Our recent long-form written content includes a post-interview with Generic Parkour, who hosted the Liverpool Takeover back in April, and a conversation with Queer Parkour, who are working within our community to create a safe space for individuals and communities who identify as LGTBQIA+ within parkour.
You can read both of those articles by following the links below.
Generic Parkour – The Liverpool Takeover
Queer Parkour – Creating Safe Spaces within Our Community
We understand that there is a demand among parkour coaches to have the opportunity to further learn and develop their coaching skills.
Caroline, a member of our workforce support team, is in the early stages of developing some further learning courses for parkour coaches. This is something that we will be working closely with the community, and we encourage current parkour coaches, and those who are thinking of becoming coaches in the future, to get involved and have a discussion with us regarding this, so we can further add value to the parkour community.
We are currently in the process of planning some upcoming webinars regarding our Level 1 Parkour UK Assistant Coaching course.
These webinars will run around 6 weeks before the courses are due to start, and we will be looking to run one of these before our Bedford Level 1 course.
Keep your eyes peeled on our social media to find out when this is, and have your questions ready!
