Posts Tagged ‘batley’

I try to test up for the week or two before a race. However, as I’m also chasing my Parkrun 250 club (I have a long way to go), I couldn’t resist doing a Parkrun the day before the Leeds Half Maraton.

As I didn’t want to do my usual 10k run there-and-back, that meant driving. And, as I was already in the car, we decided to take the whole family and head over to Oakwell Hall.

As a Parkrun, it’s a mixed bag. The organisation is brilliant. There were loads of volunteers and cake at the end. It was also scenic: probably the most scenic I have done with the exception of Lyme Park. However, on the downside, a lot of it is done on man-made pathways that are only two people wide. Therefore, for the first 2 km, you are constantly being bottlenecked and forced to stop or slow down. It’s two laps, and nobody lapped me, despite me taking it easy.

On Sunday evening I got a phone call from Daryl informing me he had accidentally booked Atheist Bus Campaign creator Ariane Sherine to speak at the next Skeptics in the Pub meeting.

So on Monday I headed over to Batley (where Daryl resides into what is essentially a small castle) to discuss ideas of how we could re-launch the group with more exciting speakers and a better format. We began hunting for venues and next thing we knew we were driving back to Leeds to check out The Living Room on Greek Street.

By the end of the evening we had a new venue lined up, a new format in development and a plan to make Leeds Skeptics bigger and better than ever. Win.

I also have to say that Daryl has a very impressive collection of comics. I can’t say I know that much about them but he has box after box of them and all of them looking fancy and collectable. Top marks to anyone who has a replica Lightsaber in their lounge too.