Each year the London Marathon awards guaranteed entries to the race to all of the UKA affiliated clubs around the country. The number of entries that each club gets is dependent upon their number of first claim seniors members over the age of 18. Currently we have just under 100 members and therefore qualify for one place.

To give this entry to our members we choose to operate a ballot system and over the years have developed a criteria that members have to meet. It has been tweaked a number of times to ensure that they go to people who contribute to the club and give everyone a fair opportunity to get in.

The draw will be made each year once the results of the general ballot are known, typically this is around the end of October. The draw will be conducted by one of the committee members. The criteria is as follows:

1. You must have been a paid up first claim club member since the start of the year (paid in full by the end of January), and you must retain your membership through to the following year (the year of the race itself).
2. You MUST enter the general public ballot which typically opens a week after the previous year’s race. This is vitally important, members will be expected to produce their rejection confirmation in order to enter the club ballot.
3. Members are not eligible to enter the club ballot if they received a club ballot place in the previous two years or a ran the race the previous year by another means.
4. If any member has a Good For Age or Championship qualifying standard then they must use this method to enter the race, not the club ballot.
5. To ensure that the places are awarded to active club members, in order to enter the club ballot, entrants must have taken part in at least five club ‘events’ during the previous 10 months (Jan-Oct). An ‘event’ is defined as being any race that constitutes the overall club championship (including cross country, off-road series, East Anglian League, road & track championships), or a volunteering/marshaling role including leading sessions, organising events, helping at Leighton 10. For example, in 2017 there were around 40 events plus innumerable volunteering opportunities that would count.