Information supplied by Jim Timmer-Arends
Jim Timmer-Arends was club President/Secretary from 1987 to 1993. Taking over the reins from Martin Thompson he played a major part in keeping the club going during the period between 1987 and 1997.
Unlucky for Jim, but lucky for the club he was injured 1986/87 and could not run. In these 2 years he did virtually every task required from writing up the newsletters and newspaper articles and even scheduling and marking the courses for the runs. After he overcame his injury Jim stated one week that he intended to race the next week and one member who was relatively new to the club and did not know of Jim’s impressive running career asked him do you run?
At the start of this period the club had very few females running, but this was the time of a major running boom which reduced the male domination at the club as more females were attracted to running with an increasing number regularly coming along to the runs. The Thursday night runs numbers increased mainly from social runners looking to improve their fitness as gyms and triathlons participation had yet to become popular.
Running in Athletics Victoria (AV) runs started to become popular after about 5 years of years of little participation by the club. Running AV was a bit hit and miss during those 5 years until a very good runner named John Brennen joined the club. He actively encouraged many to take up the challenge of racing AV runs. This was the start of regular participation of the Traralgon Harriers in AV runs.
