What about helping out with juniors at a local running club, you'll need a CRB to take a group on your own but in the meantime you can help, the CRB won't cost anything as it's on a volunteer basis. Just because they're kids doesn't mean it's not leadership.
What you're not getting is how new runners just assume anybody in a club vest will be a better runner, PC I'm not quite sure why you're so uppity about it when I only said what I was told by the race director !
I think the idea of 'dicouraging' club vests would be so people believe it's allcomers welcome, I know the idea of running in something full of sesoned runners would put many new runners off.