The Nashua Corp
Running Club
Founding The Nashua Corporation Running Club
Note: I originally prepared this as part of the Career Planning exercise in the book "What Color is Your Parachute". I have edited it for this presentation.
Back in 1977, I had developed an interest in road racing. It grew out of my experiences as a cross country runner in high school and college. In 1983, I decided it would be fun to try to organize a running club at Nashua Corporation. On two occasions, I had run with several other employees in the company. At one race, I was particularly impressed with the turnout, and found that jogging was a popular hobby for more people than I realized.
My early efforts to organize the club met with limited success, but each year I generated new ideas for improving the club. At times I found it frustrating that I gave so much effort to recruiting new members with so little response. But I persevered. I'm not sure why.
About the 3rd year, some major breakthroughs occured.
First, I realized that the 6 mile races would only draw about a dozen participants, no matter how much I recruited. Whereas the Boston 3 mile race grew year after year. I decided to build the club around the shorter area races.
Second, in the newsletter that I developed, I stopped publishing times of the slowest runners. I also started publishing "most improved" times, "team scoring", and "age graded scores", so that
Friendships were formed and grew at the races. Rivalries developed between runners of similar paces.
I believe I might have been responsible for a couple's marriage in some way. One of our faster male runners finished 1 second slower than one of the more attractive female runners at the Boston race. Suspiciously, his time was 5 minutes slower than his normal pace. Within a year, their marriage was consumated.
My network of friendships grew as never before or since. People from every corner of the Corporation knew me as the running club captain and thanked me for my efforts. I tried to learn everyone's name, and introduced myself to make them feel welcome, but the size of the club in the final year, made it difficult to greet everyone.
I turned the club over to a committee of capable friends, and dropped back into the role of a single team member. New members didn't know who I was after that. But at the final race before I turned the club over to new leadership, Bob Pelletier presented me with a plaque from the team, expressing their appreciation for my "leadership and guidance". That plaque, which now resides on my office desk, represents so much effort, enormous personal rewards, and lasting friendships. I live with the satisfaction that I made a difference in the lives of those who joined the Nashua Corp Running Club.
every participant had the chance for recognition. This made the club more attractive to non-competitive runners.
Finally, and probably most importantly, I hooked up with Jim Foley, who was promoting the company's wellness program, and received generous funding for my club. My running club became a key draw for his wellness recruitment efforts. Our biggest year of funding brought $5000 to the club, enough for shorts, team shirts, and wind suits for club members.
Over the next 3 years, interest in the Boston race and the United Way 5K in Nashua grew dramatically. We had smaller numbers show up for some other 3 mile races.
I maintained and improved the newsletter, kept records of times for every race participant, and developed a heirarchy of team captains and "recruiters". In selection of team uniforms, I formed a committee and built consensus for attractive outfits.
One year, a student summer employee, writing for Nashua's company newsletter, described our visit to the Boston race. Other teams showed up with small contingents wearing singlets or tee shirts with their corporate logos. The writer described our presence as a "sea of red" flowing from the 2 busses that we rented. We sported our wind suits with "Nashua" boldly written across the back. Seventy employees lined up for the team picture that day. Other teams asked about our company, admiring our uniforms.and our numbers.
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