Jog Leader Welcome Pack

Welcome to the jogscotland Jog Leader welcome pack – we hope you enjoyed your course!

Having completed your course, you should have all the information you need to set up and run your own Jog Group, or to become a Jog Leader with an existing group.

This page pulls together lots of useful information and resources to support you as you lead. Because the page is only for people who have passed the course, it isn’t linked to from the main jogscotland site – so bookmark it now in case you need to return to it.

If you have any questions that aren’t answered here, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Course resources

Jog Leader course resources – downloads
Jog Leader pre-course information

Our programmes – downloads
Walk for Fitness Programme
Learn To Run Programme (Beginners 1)
Learn To Run 2 Programme (Beginners 2)
10K Preparation Programmes (Intermediate 1)
Run 10K Programme (Intermediate 2)
Full set of jogging programmes (Beginners 1 up to Advanced 2)

UK Athletics post-course information
You can download some other useful resources below:
Stretch Cards
Session cards (Fartlek, Indian File, etc)
Group register
Session Plan Template
Lirf On Track

If you booked your course through the athletics hub, you can also log on there and find resources linked to your course. If you have any issues logging on, please contact coaching@scottishathletics.org.uk.

Getting your licence

Jog Leaders are required to hold a valid Jog Leader licence, issued by UK Athletics. When you took your course, you were told how to apply for your first licence.

You must hold a valid licence before you start leading your first sessions.

Please note: Your UKA licence is not the same as your jogscotland membership. The licence is a red card, issued by UK Athletics, and renewed every three years. Your jogscotland membership is operated by jogscotland/scottishathletics, is free of charge, and must be renewed annually. You can check or update your jogscotland membership online.

Getting started as a leader

Once you’ve completed your course and received your licence, we hope you’ll feel ready and excited to start leading! Here are a few other handy links to help you get started:

• Click here to add your new group and first session to our Group Finder. In due course, you’ll receive an email letting you know that these have been approved by our team. Then you can return and add extra weekly sessions if required.
• Ask to join the jogscotland Jog Leader facebook group, a good source of support and advice. This is a closed group, and we will need to approve your request to join. We may not be able to do it straight away but we will do it soon – bear with us! We do check join requests against our records to make sure that only Jog Leaders become members, so if the name you use on facebook is not similar to the name you used to enrol on the Jog Leader course, please also email Jo Stevens with details of your facebook name, real name, and when you took the course.
• Ask your new members to join jogscotland using the online membership form before your first session.
• They must also fill out the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PARQ) before your first session – keep this for your own records.
• Don’t forget to carry out a risk assessment on your routes before you head out.
• GDPR – If you keep any information about your joggers, particularly in digital form, (including phone numbers, PARQs etc) it is important that you make yourself familiar with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The GDPR tells you what your legal obligations are when storing/moving/using other people’s data. Although it shouldn’t be onerous, there are fines for not complying so you should make yourself aware of what is required. You can find out more general information on the GDPR for Jog Leaders page of the website – and there’s a step-by-step guide with useful documents to help you set yourself up on our page of useful GDPR documents for Jog Leaders (the latter page is only for Jog Leaders and not linked to elsewhere on the site, so you may wish to bookmark it).

Ongoing support and resources

Any time you want some support or advice on your group, just get in touch – we’re always happy to help.

Our online Jog Leader Toolkit contains a lot of useful information. In particular, we recommend that you check out:

• Promoting your group – advice on how to spread the word
• Structuring your group – if you are collecting any money at your group, it is a good idea to become a constituted group, with a bank account, committee and constitution. It doesn’t have to be complicated! You might even want to become a scottishathletics-affiliated club as well as a jogscotland group – it doesn’t mean changing what you do at your sessions, but might be better for the group as it grows. This page of the website will help you decide what is right for you and your group.

Mental health awareness – online training

We are proud to work in partnership with SAMH (Scottish Association for Mental Health) to provide support to joggers and Jog Leaders around mental wellbeing.

As part of this partnership, we offer SAMH’s free online mental health awareness training to all Jog Leaders. You can access this training here and we do encourage you to complete it. There is no expectation that you should become a mental health expert, but we know that jog leaders often find their joggers talking to them about mental health, and so we hope it will help you feel more comfortable and able to support joggers in your groups, as well as knowing where to find help and further support for yourself and your joggers.

Menopause Friendly campaign

The signs and symptoms of menopause can be wide-ranging, and some of them can make it feel tough to stay active. We want our jogging groups to be supportive of joggers going through menopause, so we have plenty of resources online to help you as a jog leader achieve that, whether or not  you’re someone who has experience of menopause yourself.

Once you’ve read our resources on supporting joggers through menopause, and committed to making your group Menopause Friendly, you can use our Menopause Friendly Jogging Group logo to promote your group and let members and potential members know that they’ll get a warm welcome from you.

To find out more, start by reading:
Menopause and running – introduction

You can then move on to:
Menopause – advice for joggers
Menopause – advice for jog leaders

Kit

• You and your joggers can jog in whatever you’re comfortable in. We recommend well-fitted trainers, and sports bras for women, but other than that, whatever makes you and your joggers comfortable goes. We recommend high visibility clothing be worn when jogging, especially during the winter, and any other times of low light.
• Some groups like to get group T-shirts and other kit printed, which can help create a sense of pride and belonging. If you’re doing this, you’re welcome to use the jogscotland logo, which is available in the files section of the Jog Leader facebook group.

Other questions

If you have any questions, just check our Jog Leader FAQ and the Jog Leader Toolkit section of the website. If you can’t find the answer there, do get in touch – happy leading!