Episode 297 - The one when Mel sings

— open the full-size cover

HostsMelissa Ellis Oliver Spake

Roving reportersAlison Fraser (King) Cameron Drake Johan Duvenhage Lyndell Murray Pippa White

Show notes

From the Facebook post

This week, while

Olly was a speedy roving photographer at home,

Mel was in the company of bananas at Kirkdale Reserve (opens in a new tab) parkrun. Confused

Read on…

An

old favourite returns (again), a

bottle washes up and there are roving reports from Lake Claremont (opens in a new tab) parkrun, Darwin (opens in a new tab) parkrun, Manzini (opens in a new tab) parkrun and Stratford upon Avon parkrun.

Abi's away this week –

so no need to listen to the end…

From the podcast feed

This week while Olly was a speedy roving photographer at home, Mel was in the company of bananas at Kirkdale. Confused? Read on… An old favourite returns (again), a bottle washes up and there are roving reports from Lake Claremont (opens in a new tab), Darwin (opens in a new tab), Manzini (opens in a new tab) & Stratford-Upon-Avon. Abi’s away this week – no need to listen to the end.

Roving reports

1Manzini2Lake Claremont3·4Stratford-upon-Avon Rec juniors and Stratford-upon-Avon Rec juniors5Darwin

In this episode

• Welcome starts at 0:23

  Ollie Spake on Dharawal Country and Melissa Ellis on Wurundjeri Country, wishing Sphinxie a happy International Cat Day and Mel reporting her first magpie swoop of the season. Ollie was photographer at Shellharbour and caught up with Chris Fraser on his 300th; Mel was at Kirkdale Reserve for Jodie Maisie's 50th and Hoffman, with Brendan Peel scanning barcodes as B1 and a run-walk with Bruce and Donna Purdy, and she calls for a Bananas in Pyjamas outfit for Ollie at Cooks River on Saturday. No feedback on 296, but Sarah has found the message-in-a-bottle challenge in Western Australia, and the pair run through the Commonwealth Games results: Ollie Hoare's 1500m gold, Abbey Caldwell (a former Westerfolds parkrunner) bronze, Peter Bol silver, Madison de Rozario's four golds and the parkrunners in the 5000m finals.

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 13:15

  Mel throws to the roving reporters and Ollie wraps them with "thank you very much to all of our roving reporters this week... Cam over at Lake Claremont, Johan in Eswatini, Pippa and Alison, both in Stratford-upon-Avon and Lyndell up at Darwin." Five reports in an unusually international block: Manzini (Eswatini), Lake Claremont (WA), Stratford-upon-Avon Juniors (UK, twice) and Darwin (NT).

• Poem Zone starts at 38:54

  Announced as returning with the segment jingle - Ollie: "The Poem Zone. That's right. It's back... You and Scotty foreshadowed it." Contribution from listener Patrick Shymitzek, who asked for "Mel's dulcet voice" to read it. The hosts hold it back to the very end of the episode; the jingle plays again and Mel SINGS the poem - a parkrun-tourism parody of "I Still Call Australia Home" ending "I still call Shellharbour home". This is what the episode title refers to.

• Dazza's starts at 40:30

  Themed "It's Wiggle Your Toes Day". Posts read out from Claire Stutchbury (25th volunteer milestone at St Lucia), Tracy Leiper (Nightcliff, northernmost Australian parkrun and first in the NT), Matthew Billington (RD at Albury Wodonga, flagging Fibonacci event-number dates), Samantha Roberts (Varsity Lakes, swans), Chloe Bravos (Lake Joondalup, matching shirts - prompting Mel's research aside on the six Noongar seasons), Barbara Luther (Lota - Roger's 350th parkrun and 100th Australian event), Jodie Maisie (50th parkrun at Kirkdale, which Mel attended), Chris and Karen Gore (Claisebrook Cove 10th anniversary, first parkrun in WA) and Graham Wilkinson (Stormont, Northern Ireland, with a dad joke).

• Dad joke starts at 47:48

  Graham Wilkinson's snake joke inside Dazza's: "what did St Patrick say as he drove the snakes out of Ireland? ... Are you all right in the back there, lads?" Mel labels it "A dad joke". It wins the Obi, and the hosts openly wonder whether a dad joke segment should exist - "So that'll be the next new segment, will it? The dad joke. Has that happened in the pod before?" - with Mel nominating Peter Pohlman as a likely contributor.

• the Obi Award — Graham Wilkinson starts at 49:35

  Mel calls for the envelope; Ollie announces "The Obi this week goes to... Graham Wilkinson." Stated reason, from Mel: "And he wins an Obi for a dad joke."

• the Informant starts at 50:57

  Weekly unofficial stats: 450 events down under (413 Australia, 37 NZ) out of 1,753 worldwide; attendance 35,376; launches at Bells Parade (Tas) and Limemark Playing Fields (UK); 4,010 PBs; milestone counts; eight new statespeople; movers on the Wilson Index ("windex"); three Poole Club inductees. Extended bonus explainer on the "i-index" - the event-launch-order equivalent of the Wilson Index, first raised in episode 226 - with Neil Barnett topping the list on 20. Signs off "my spreadsheet is bigger than yours" and points to theinformant.me.

• Consolidated Club Report starts at 57:14

  For Saturday 6 August 2022: 262 members, 208 participating at 111 different locations. 18 UK events, one each in the USA (Joe Creason), South Africa (Homestead Lake), Eswatini (Manzini), Germany (Rosenstein Park) and Singapore (Bishan); 32 Victoria, 19 NSW, 16 Queensland, seven SA, four WA, three ACT, two Tasmania, one NT, three North Island and one South Island. "Another clean strike."

• the Frond starts at 58:57

  Largest fronds of the week, read straight after the CCR: four at Umbergong District (Mike Scott, Tanya Pollard, Michael Charlton, Tim Robbins), four at Kirkdale Reserve in Victoria (Jodie Maisie, Bruce Purdy, Joanne Blackbourn and Mel herself), five at Lota. Biggest frond of the week was at The Ponds - Charles Burns, Geoff Robinson, Joe McLean, Louise Garbers, Lisa Spencer, and Julie and Gordon Turner.

• Sign-off starts at 1:00:18

  Ollie asked whether Mel was excited about next week's fronds; she said it would be interesting to see how many turned up at Cooks River or were in town for City to Surf, which she reckoned was the 50th physical running after a virtual edition in lockdown, and said she would be dressing up in a shade of yellow. They noted Liam Adams and their recent guest Aidan Hobbs were both racing and joked about leaving the informants in charge of the office, before trailing the long-awaited return of The Poem Zone. Mel took over the sign-off, gave the Facebook and email contacts and said that was it, almost, for another week.