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Hugh Jones

AIMS Secretary

Hugh Jones succeeded Andy Galloway as AIMS Secretary on 1 July 1996, after a career as a marathon runner (from 1981) and freelance athletics journalist (from 1987). He was born in London in 1955, and ascribed his later success as a runner partly to running to and from school (1200m, four times daily) for most of the 1960s. In the 1970s he ran casually at secondary school and then at the University of Liverpool. In 1978 he ran and won his first marathon (2:25). In 1981 he won the English Championships with a time of 2:14, which propelled him into a professional running career. His first major win was the 1982 London Marathon with a time of 2:09:24, which coincided with the foundation of AIMS. He competed in city marathons and championships in the 1980s (World Chs 8th & 5th) but his failure to complete the 1990 London Marathon led him to diversify more seriously into athletics journalism. He also qualified as an international course measurer which helped to make him an obvious candidate to succeed Andy Galloway as AIMS Secretary in 1996. Jones continued as both a runner and a journalist but the AIMS job grew with increasing membership of the Association and in practical terms became full-time. He became editor of Distance Running in 2000, served as a member of the IAAF Road Running Commission from 2006-2015, and co-authored the IAAF-AIMS joint publications ‘The Measurement of Road Race Courses’ and the ‘Road Running Manual’.

Al Boka

Treasurer

Email: aimstreasurer@aol.com

Al Boka became a committed runner while attending the University of Nevada - Las Vegas. He has run 37 marathons with his personal best of 2:45.05 at the age of 43; just three years after beginning running. Al had spent 22 years in the United States Air Force with more than half of that while living in France, England, Greece, Spain and Thailand. His travels honed his deep interest in worldly matters which became apparent after he began directorship of the Las Vegas Marathon in 1980. As the event grew and as a result of his own running in large international events he began focusing on attracting international participant to Las Vegas. Within 10 years he had grown the foreign attendance from zero to over 1,000. In 1992 the Las Vegas Marathon became an AIMS member. In 1996 he was nominated for the position of AIMS Treasurer by the outgoing AIMS Treasurer, Andy Galloway, and was duly elected. Since then he has developed procedures and policies which define and control AIMS finances. These controls over spending have greatly contributed towards AIMS’ growth from 120 to 470+ members.

Gary Friar

Media

Email: gary@distancerunning.co.uk

Gary started producing Distance Running back in 1994 and has been working with AIMS since that time developing the magazine and more recently the AIMS website. He is a qualified stockbroker and worked on the Glasgow Stock Exchange floor from 1978 to 1981. He then joined Scottish and Universal Investment Trust (SUITS), a division of Lonrho, working firstly in Scottish and Universal Newspapers heading a team which launched a series of free distribution newspapers around the west of Scotland. He transferred within the group to Holmes MacDougall magazine division as Special Projects director. He published the 1982 Glasgow Marathon magazine and introduced Mars Confectionery to marathon sponsorship, who later went on to be the title sponsor of the London Marathon. He continued to launch and develop other titles within the group prior to starting his own company. In 1990 he set out on his own producing and growing publications for both major brands and owners of niche titles. In 1994 he was approached by an ex-colleague from Holmes MacDougall to get involved in publishing Distance Running magazine for AIMS, which at that time had around 100 members. He helped transform the publication from a black and white A5 yearbook to an A4 quarterly magazine, now with a worldwide distribution serving over 400 members. He also introduced various sponsors to AIMS and continues to develop the magazine and the AIMS web site, which now has over 482,000 visitors looking at 2,589,776 pages per quarter.