Episode 257 - Cottesloe Consults

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HostsMelissa Ellis Oliver Spake

Roving reporterSarah Jefferson

GuestsAmanda Meloni Sarah Jefferson

Show notes

From the Facebook post

This week we head west

- no, not Meltown, Western Australia! Mel catches up with Sarah Jefferson and Amanda Meloni to talk Cottesloe (opens in a new tab) parkrun (and its beginnings with Upside Nepal )and touristing plus Sarah has a roving report from WA's latest event Homestead (opens in a new tab) parkrun . And as always we have all the latest from The Informant, Dazza's plus an update on Septober.

From the podcast feed

This week we head west - no, not Meltown, Western Australia! Mel catches up with Sarah Jefferson and Amanda Meloni to talk Cottesloe (opens in a new tab) parkrun and touristing plus Sarah has a roving report from WA's latest event Homestead (opens in a new tab) parkrun. And as always we have all the latest from The Informant, Dazza's plus an update on Septober.

Guests

Roving reports

In this episode

• Welcome starts at 0:23

  Melissa Ellis with Ollie Spake, who is a week into a new job and short on not-parkruns; his parkrun-day nottie was a virtual Kingston Park, south of Hobart, as he works through the alphabet. Both ran City to Surf as a 14km nottie: Mel's Melton trail-to-weir route drew double last year's field and she chalked her own start line, while Ollie ran with Chris and Kerry Fraser, missed a turn and finished twice. Coming up a roving report from a new voice, the Informant and an interview with a Western flavour; from last week, Mel proposes the Big Cheese Club for a Trans-Tasman Peel Club, Patrick Shymitzek's hypnotic-nottie Strava art and Sam Schroder joining the Not Peel Club.

• Septober starts at 10:01

  Weekly update on the listener-wide "Septober" not-parkrun challenge (a knotty alphabet run to a finale at Zillmere on 30 October). Oliver Spake reports two for the week - Kingston Park in Tasmania and, earlier, Jindabyne - and reckons he is about four parkruns behind. Melissa Ellis reports five: Ocean View, Pioneer Dairy, Queen Elizabeth (Casino), Rouse Hill and Sirromet, and plans to pause with six letters and about 12 days left. Referenced again via Bruce's message and throughout Dazza's.

• Launches and anniversaries starts at 12:47"Where is the cake?"

  Three Australian launches on the Saturday: Homestead parkrun in Western Australia (suburb of Thornlie), plus Fodder Forest and Glenoma in Queensland. The hosts note it is "almost a super Saturday" and hand forward to the roving report from Homestead.

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 14:29

  Debut roving report from Sarah Jefferson at the launch of Homestead parkrun, Thornlie, WA - recorded in two parts, before and after the run. Out-and-back along the Canning River under two bridges, a Welcome to Country at 7.45am, 277 participants at the first event, chalked encouragement along the path, and a run briefing delivered by Event Director/Run Director Rodney entirely in rhyming call-and-response poetry. She could not get an interview with Rodney because he insisted on clapping every finisher across the line, and promises to return in a few weeks. Hosts thank her: "Lovely to hear from Sarah for her very first roving report."

• the Informant starts at 18:02

  Weekly unofficial stats. A record post-COVID week globally: 205 events in Australia out of 1,409 worldwide across 18 countries; six launches (Fodder Forest and Glenoma in Queensland, Homestead in WA, one in Germany, two in the UK); Australian attendance 20,842 of 173,003 worldwide; 2,026 PBs and 799 first-timers; 59 Junior 10s, 101 fifties, 52 hundreds, 8 two-fifties. 12 people called bingo (David O'Brien quickest on 159 events, Vincent Naylor slowest on 306). Three new statespeople. Neil Scott enters the top-20 most-events list at 19th; biggest overall mover Martin Hawkins, up 14 places; 423 movers on the Wilson Index, biggest Indra Siva (0 to 6). Answers Bruce's follow-up on where the 15 Peel Plus members come from.

• Emails starts at 21:42

  Opened by the "You've got mail" sting. A message from Bruce "the ideas man": the Naughty Alphabet was meant to pace to Zillmere on 30 October but became a PB sprint, so he and Nadine are filling the gap with an "S" challenge; he tells Ollie to use "the old one-two, skip a few" if he cannot finish the alphabet and to meet them at Zillmere on the 30th. Earlier in the show Melissa Ellis also responds to last week's mail - proposing the "Big Cheese Club" as a name for a trans-Tasman version of the Peel Club, since Tim Oberg was reportedly first to complete it.

• Dazza's starts at 24:10

  City to Surf themed week at Dazza's. Contributions read out from Trent Flesser (Mudgeeraba), Claire Stutchbury (200th run at New Farm), Lyndell Murray (Ecco Ripley), Janet Reid (with Alicia Hopper and Jeff, and the "partners in wine" shirts), Mandy Oliver, Phil Olson, Pippa White, Tracy Wood (South Bank, with the visiting Wagga Bridge Troll), Tanya, Brett and Rebecca Bailey (the week's "Bailey shot"), Chris Fraser, Val Warwick (Devonport lockdown), Melissa Ellis (budgerigars), Peter Pohlman (Wickham suburb sign and a sticker-slapper treasure hunt), Jacqui O'Connell, Bernadette Bennett, Ingrid Botha, Abigail's mum (day 46, Werribee River), Nadine Crawford (Seacliff Esplanade) and Michael Scott (Septober list plus a 773km virtual Camino). Includes a fun fact that Steve Moneghetti holds the City to Surf course record of 40:03 from 1991.

• Consolidated Club Report starts at 51:16

  Brief club-stats item rather than a full standalone rundown this week: the parkrun Adventurers Club is unchanged at 56 members, with 19 members appearing on the Consolidated Club Report and 29 people recording knotties - up slightly on the week before. The hosts remind listeners the Adventurers Club is an official parkrun-affiliated club that can be added as one of the five clubs on a parkrun profile.

• Not parkrun results starts at 52:16

  Weeklyparkrun leaderboard. Australia: Wyndham Vale top on 53, Coonwara [Coonawarra?] second on 42, Campbelltown third on 41; further down, Shellharbour 15 and Toolern Creek 4. Oliver Spake then reads the New Zealand not-parkrun results, supplied by Alison [Fraser]: Whangarei top on 57 (which puts them ahead on the combined trans-Tasman listing), Hamilton Lake second on 55, Millwater third on 35, with Ollie apologising in advance for his pronunciation.

• Sign-off starts at 54:48

  Asked what she had planned for the coming week, Mel said she might run around the block a few times, and Ollie said he would beat himself up for not doing so with rain forecast. They talked about both their states inching out of lockdown and Victoria approaching its 80% double-vaccination mark, Mel hoping they would both be parkrunning for real by Christmas and saying she would come and visit if Victoria was not back; Ollie said he would not be getting to Tasmania or Queensland for parkruns in the next two months, wished the south-east of Tasmania and other locked-down listeners a speedy return, and signed off with the Facebook and parkrunadventures@gmail.com contacts and "that's it for another week".