Coming of Age

By Christine Garvie, Jog Scotland Dunfermline

Jog Scotland Dunfermline celebrated our 18th Anniversary in May, by holding a special celebratory training session in the Pittencrieff Park in Dunfermline. My recollection of our first group welcome session back in May 2003 is clear. The photograph above was taken in the foyer of the Carnegie Leisure Centre and was the very first meeting held to recruit people responding to adverts in the Dunfermline Press and in the meeting venues of the local running clubs. The leaders came from two of the local running clubs, Pitreavie AAC Road Runners and the Carnegie Harriers. They are from left to right: Pauline Walker, Irene Leask, Val Macaulay, Allan Brown, myself and Christina Boxer, founder staff member of jogscotland. We also have photos taken at a come and try session held in the pavilion of the Pittencreiff Park a few weeks later. Little did we know that we’d still be going strong 18 years later and celebrating our anniversary in the same park!

For our celebration session, we had three groups - beginner/walker, intermediate and advanced, each doing 18 minutes of each of three routes, laid out a figure of 18.

We thoroughly enjoyed the celebration (in a covid safe way!) with cake and refreshments after the training. Being the only still-attending founder Leader of the group, I was presented with a lovely shield to commemorate the occasion and I wish to thank all our members for attending and the gifts that I will always treasure. It has been a great pleasure serving as a jog leader at Dunfermline over the years and even at the ripe young age of 72, I am hoping that I can continue for a good few years to come. Turn the page to find out how Jog Scotland Dunfermline is still helping people make new friends.

Christine Garvie