Good Evening Storm.
After a frantic couple of months, I felt it was about time for another chair update focussing on some of the highlights of recent times. I’ll start by acknowledging the fantastic achievement by all at Storm Plymouth 🏆🙌🏻👏🏻

𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝘁𝗵𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 – 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗪𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗖𝗹𝘂𝗯 𝗢𝗳 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 🏆
What a way to celebrate our 10th anniversary eh?! Winning this award was never the be all and end all, but the recognition for all involved at Storm is very well received. A lot of work goes into this club behind the scenes. We have a great committee, some top drawer captains, a superb welfare crew, and around 60 or so volunteers who lead and buddy our groups each week. Our members support everything we do with such great enthusiasm. From charity events to socials and of course local races, we are always en masse. I may be biased but I believe this was throughly deserved for all of our members and it feels long overdue that this club received some recognition!
Prior to the awards Captain Julie and Vice Chair Keith gave a superb presentation all about Storm during the volunteer forum and apparently it went down very well. The one takeaway all Stormies in attendance fed back to me was how far ahead of the curve our club appears to be. Credit to the committee and those who have been on previously.

𝗖𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗢𝗳 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 – 𝗥𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗨𝗽 🏆
As I’m sure you already know, Coach Bee was also up for an award at the same event. There are literally hundreds of coaches across our region so to even be shortlisted is a major achievement. Bee finished as Runner-Up on the night against a bit of a legend from the Plymouth junior coaching scene, but she is of course a Winner to all of us. We feel very lucky to have such a highly recognised and accomplished coach within our club and are looking forward to seeing what our new coaches will bring when they complete their qualifications in the new year. 💪🏻👏🏻🏆

𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝟭𝟬𝗸 🏁💜🏰
Last month saw the return of Storm’s very own race. This was the first time since the Lopwell Loop in 2019 we had staged a race and what a success it was! It was a long time in the making with the idea to resurrect a club race being proposed way back in early 2023, but the hard work and wait was worth it. I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who played a part. It would take ages to list everyone but you know who you are. Thanks especially to the key individuals at the head of the teams and of course to our Race Director – Mike Todd who has worked so hard behind the scenes to get it all off the ground. What a day it was. So much support all the way around from our Marshalls and I’m not lying when I say being a Stormtrooper in the race is truly one of the fondest memories I have had in a decade of running with Storm! Copy & Paste for next year with a few little tweaks and improvements I say! 🙌🏻🏁💜👏🏻🏃🏻‍♂️‍➡️🏃🏼‍♀️‍➡️

𝗥𝘂𝗻 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗺 𝗙𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝗹 🏁🏃🏼‍♀️‍➡️🏃🏻‍♂️‍➡️🐎🚌
Talking of fantastic weekends….September also brought us our weekend away to Cheltenham and a race meet like no other at the famous gold cup race course! The weekend didn’t get off to the best of starts when our coach decided to spring a leak and break down. We managed to limp along to the nearest service station and that’s where the weekend got going! Seeing Gill and the ladies knocking back shots as we turned Gordano Services into our very own beer garden is a memory I will definitely cherish, and it just goes to show what Storm is all about. We could have been miserable, but instead everyone carried on having fun and just waited it out making the best of the situation. We got to Cheltenham eventually late on the Friday where the fun continued and some even partied hard in to the early hours! 🫣
There were a few hangovers around as we got up nice and early the next day to tackle the Cheltenham park run. We celebrated Georgie Farr’s 100th and Paul Fendyke & Damien Holloway ticked off their half century. It was a lovely morning out and rumour has it the Chairman just about managed to stay upright although I think I still have that hangover it was that severe. 😵‍💫🤦🏻‍♂️🍺🥃
We followed this up with a group pre race meal which ran as smooth as could be expected for 50 plus people 🤦🏻‍♂️🤣 and then the most amazing horse racing evening staged by our host for the weekend! The excitement in that room over a few 90’s dvd clips was on another level. Louisa got told off for being to loud – go figure 🤷🏻‍♂️🤣 and fair play to Charleine who managed to get a winner when she backed 7 out of the 8 horses 🤣🐎😜.
On to the big one the next day. Storm turned Cheltenham Racecourse purple as we arrived and we were mentioned multiple times by all of the event commentators. The race itself was fairly flat which saw our team come in with plenty of great times and some top drawer PB’s. The finish experience was unbelievable too, especially as our Stormies had taken over one of the stands and provided a huge purple blur as we all came sprinting down the finish! All in all it was a fantastic weekend away and the coach managed to get us home in one piece!! Thank you to the amazing Colin Palmer for putting so much effort into ensuring we all had such a great time. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
For info, the committee along with Colin, have decided to have a bit of a rest with the weekender for next year in order to keep it fresh and we will prepare something for the year after. We will however, look for a few away day trips 🚌 across the year. We will keep you posted with news coming soon.

𝗥𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 🏁🏃🏻‍♂️‍➡️🏃🏼‍♀️‍➡️💪🏻
We’ve been all over the place during a very busy period of races for our members. Off the top of my head we’ve had runners at Warhorse 10k, 2 Harbour races, Barnstaple, Exmouth, Bournemouth, City2Sea, Torbay, Treggy 7, Tamar 10k, Eden Project and Weston Super Mare. Not forgetting three of the big ones, Amsterdam, Chicago ⭐️ and even Sydney ⭐️ Marathon!! I’m sure there are plenty more too and it’s fantastic to see so many goals being smashed. Special shout out to our Lauren Knox for winning the ladies 10k and her 2nd place today 🏆🥇🥈

𝗖𝗹𝘂𝗯 𝗥𝘂𝗻𝘀 🏃🏼‍♀️‍➡️🏃🏻‍♂️‍➡️
Club runs have carried on through the summer months as usual. The Sunrisers morning group has been busy and it’s been great to see the return of the Tuesday crew after a summer break. Monday crew have been ever present and the Montpelier groups on a Friday have had some fantastic numbers, especially during school holidays.
As we move into the winter months it’s obviously getting darker for evening runs, so please can I remind everyone to make yourselves seen, wear lights if you have them and a form of hi vis is advised. 🔦

𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗙𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 🙌🏻
I’ve noticed plenty of new faces recently. This is great to see and I’d like to welcome you all to Storm. Our Facebook message page has been red hot lately and it’s great to see the clubs reputation clearly getting out there and encouraging people to enquire. If you’ve only recently joined, I’d love to hear how you are finding Storm, so please comment here or come and find me for a conversation 🙌🏻

𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆/𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 🥰
I would like to say a huge thank you to the lovely people that got involved at the Mayflower specials last week. Yet again, it looked to be a rewarding evening and I’m sure all of the legends down there were more than thankful for all your efforts. We are passionate to keep this relationship going as fundamentally, it’s a really lovely thing to do. An hour here or there is nothing really is it.
Bee has also organised an effort to support the Soup Run. The rota has filled up in no time and I’d like to thank you all in advance for giving up your time. Yet again a lovely thing to be supporting! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻😍

𝗩𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 💜🧡
Quick mention for our leaders & buddies. These guys are the lifeblood of our club and we really couldn’t exist without them. We’ve recently seen a few new leaders finish their qualification. Join me in saying well done to Tracey Garland, Mike Todd, Dawn Dixon & Rebecca McCallum. We’ve also seen a return to leading for club legend Chris Lang. On top of this we are on the verge of adding yet more new buddies to the ranks, so watch this space. Thank you to all of our volunteers. 👏🏻🙌🏻

I’m nearly done. Just want to finish off by asking for your support at the Tavy 7. It’s a great race, but more importantly it’s the final race overseen for us by our Captains Julie & Mick. I’m sure you’ll all agree with me, these two have been outstanding all year long. I would really like us to have a good presence at Tavy in order to help celebrate the great year they’ve had and all they done for us. We will follow this up with a special ROM night in the week, including a captains run for the guys and ending with the standard ROM proceedings where we reveal the new captains for 2025/26. 👨🏻‍✈️👩🏻‍✈️

Just to finish with then. I hope you’re all as proud of our club as I am. Everyone mucks in, and it’s such a team effort from all involved to make storm what it is.

Storm Plymouth. You’re all fantastic! 😍💜💪🏻🏃🏻‍♂️‍➡️🏃🏼‍♀️‍➡️⚡️

Cheers 🎉🍻💜🏆
Dave Mac
Storm Chair 👨🏻‍💼💜⚡️