Eligibility
All runners of SGP registered clubs are eligible to score points, both individually and for their club. There is no need for individual runners to be registered by their club. Clubs within Sussex can apply to become members if the club is affiliated to Sussex Athletics (and hence also to England Athletics). New applications are considered and decided at the SGP AGM.
Only fully paid-up first claim members can score for their club. The only exception to this rule is if a person has a Sussex qualification and their first claim club is outside of Sussex, they can then run as first claim for their Sussex club.
The minimum age for eligibility is 16.
Club members must wear their club colours or face disqualification from an event.
Veteran Status
The SGP awards prizes at 5-year increments for vets starting at 35 years for men and 35 for women. Runners who wish to be eligible to score in their vet category must inform the SGP of their date of birth. The age at 1st January is taken for each race for that year’s season. All runners without an informed date of birth will be classified as ‘U’.
Fees
Each club pays a fee to the SGP (£70) at the beginning of the season which runs for a calendar year. Clubs must pay the fees for their members to be eligible to score in the SGP. Any clubs not paying the fee will be disqualified from the SGP.
Communication
Each club should select a representative from the club to communicate with the SGP. Club reps will be invited to SGP meetings. Club reps are also responsible for communicating SGP information to their own club members and officials, including the arrangement of the payment of fees.
Events
Presently, there are 12 races that form the SGP calendar. Qualifying races for the following season are decided at the AGM. New events are considered at the AGM, priority is given to those that are organised by member clubs.
Only those races that have been selected at the AGM and publicised on the SGP website will count for scoring, these races will be publicised before the commencement of the season.
Result disputes and queries
The SGP results coordinator uses the official race results to compile points for the SGP competition. These official results are seldom completely accurate. Therefore there is a facility for runners and/or reps to query the results after publication on the SGP website. Queries should only be submitted via the query form on the website.
There is a strict cut-off time for the querying of results, the date is given on the publication of the results for each race. Currently, the query window is 3 weeks after the publication of race results (2 weeks for the final race of the season). Queries will not be considered after the deadline when results are declared final.
Number swapping
There must be no swopping of numbers. Competitors must only compete wearing the running number officially issued to them by the race organisers. A competitor must not run wearing a number which has been allocated to another person and transferred to them by a competitor who is unfit, unable, or does not wish to run.
Contact the race organiser before the race to have the changeover made official.
A runner who runs wearing a number allocated to someone else risks disqualification from the race and the SGP as does the donor of the number.
Runners changing clubs
Any runner changing clubs part way through the series will only be allocated points for the club they were with at the start of the series and up to the date of their ceasing to be a member. i.e. No runner, vets included, can claim points representing more than one club in one year.
Scoring
See the scoring page.