Episode 202 - Tom Williams
2020-06-12
— open the full-size coverHostsMelissa Erbacher Tony O'Connell
Roving reporterMelissa Ellis
GuestTom Williams
Show notes
From the Facebook post
TOC is back on the co-host mic, and we are super pumped for the impending return of parkrun to New Zealand! We chat to parkrun Global COO Tom Williams about what’s going on behind-the-scenes to make parkrun’s return a reality. Plus we have a roving report from the very exclusive Ellis Palace parkrun.
Come get some!
From the podcast feed
The parkrun adventurers are elated by the news of the impending return of parkrun with TOC back to co-host and share the joy. Tom Williams, Chief Operating Officer of parkrun Global, joins us to provide insight into what’s involved behind-the-scenes in making parkrun’s return a reality. And Channel 5 News Crew member Melissa Ellis submits a roving report from Ellis Palace parkrun.
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Enhanced transcript
Speakers named, sound described and segments marked by the editing pass — not yet checked by a person.
Read the transcriptGuest
Tom Williams
The impending return of parkrun after the COVID-19 pause. Tom explains that reopening is more complex than the two-weekend global shutdown of all 22 parkrun countries was; the save-the-date of 4 July for New Zealand, the first country back; how parkrun tracks 22 sets of national regulations (a 7:30am UK strategy meeting five days a week, a Friday territory-leads steering group, Tuesday updates to the world); why no country's rules currently permit events even where lockdown is light (Sweden, Poland, Belarus); the backlog of events waiting to launch and his willingness to start "20, 30, 40, 50 events on a single weekend"; survey work on whether volunteers and participants will return; and his deepest concern, that the pause has knocked back years of outreach to the least active, most in-need participants, work Chrissie Wellington's health and wellbeing team is now researching.
Roving reports
In this episode
Welcome starts at 0:24
Tony O'Connell wakes Melissa Erbacher with the news that parkrun may return in New Zealand within a month after twelve weeks of pause; they talk quarantine, Mel's family in New Zealand and a pre-COVID trip she still hopes to make, the trans-Tasman bubble and Queensland's closed border. TOC recounts his park faff appearance with Danny and Nicola from With Me Now, complete with the Inverloch stump as his Zoom background and his custom Channel 5 News Crew apricot, and they thank Mel Ellis and Ollie Spake for holding the fort on episode 201 before lining up someone from HQ for a corona update.
Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 42:43
Melissa Ellis files a roving report from "Ellis Palace parkrun", the improvised lockdown course she has been running from her own home during the parkrun pause. She gives a full mock course description (two-loop anti-clockwise, road crossings so it "wouldn't classify as an official course in parkrun rules", two playgrounds, builders' portaloos, "our very own swamp", a ritual wave towards the Toolin Creek trail, and a rise in the home straight she calls "Mel's Mountain"), then marks event 10, which drew its first ever tourists, Irene and Parth, with Zoe as photographer. She closes on the point of the report: "It didn't matter that I didn't scan my barcode... What mattered was I caught up with my friends today... we don't need official parkruns with barcodes and tokens to get that feeling." The hosts cross back to discuss it. TOC separately talks up his Channel 5 News Crew credentials earlier-, his custom "Channel 5 News crew apricot", press pass and microphone.
Sign-off starts at 51:00
Melissa said it had been awesome having TOC back for another stint co-hosting and thanked him for joining her that week. TOC said the news was fantastic and that he felt happier just knowing a barcode would be scanned somewhere within the month, Melissa answered that the barcodes were coming back, and he told her to keep safe and said he hoped to be out running with her one day.