Episode 318 - parkrun, if you’re listening

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HostsMelissa Ellis Oliver Spake

Roving reportersAlison Fraser (King) Paul Kitching Tony O'Connell

Show notes

From the Facebook post

Mel & Olly have returned and one of them had adventures. Can you guess which one?

The Chanel 5 News Crew were out and about over the break with PK at Lochiel (opens in a new tab) parkrun and Alison at Warwick Racecourse (opens in a new tab) parkrun on Christmas Eve, and TOC popped in 'on the run' at Torrens (opens in a new tab) parkrun on New Years Day.

There's a new segment to enjoy. Surprise! Dazza's returns with an added bonus, and the time capsule has been refilled and stuffed back into the cupboard.

From the podcast feed

Mel & Olly have returned and one of them had adventures. Can you guess which one? The Chanel 5 News Crew were out and about over the break with PK at Lochiel (opens in a new tab) and Alison at Warwick Racecourse (opens in a new tab) parkruns on Christmas Eve, and TOC popped in ‘on the run’ at Torrens (opens in a new tab) parkrun on New Years Day. There’s a new segment to enjoy. Surprise! Dazza’s returns with an added bonus, and the time capsule has been refilled and stuffed back into the cupboard.

Roving reports

1·2Lochiel and Torrens3Warwick Racecourse

In this episode

• Welcome starts at 0:23

  New year episode with Ollie Spake on Dharawal Country and Melissa Ellis, plus a noisy budgerigar, on Wurundjeri Country, thanking The Office Lady for last week's summer-series episode. Ollie stayed home with family, run-directing Shellharbour on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and welcoming visitors from Sweden, Finland, South Africa and the UK and Ireland; Mel picked up three new events: Lake Wallace at Edenhope on Christmas Eve, Toolern Creek on Christmas Day where Thomas Martin broke the course record and ran his first sub-16, then Shiraz Trail on New Year's Eve with TOC, Jacqui O'Connell and Dawn Branton, Torrens on New Year's Day, and Strathalbyn the following weekend, her first runs back after eight weeks off with an ankle injury. Feedback from Jo McLean, still in the USA after Delaware and Raritan Canal parkrun, thanking them for her pre-Christmas Obi and explaining the Medibank selfie frame on Instagram.

• Mel on the spot starts at 14:05

  Melissa Ellis, on the road in South Australia near Aldinga Beach, chases down the story behind Isobel Batt-Doyle's women's parkrun world record set at Aldinga Beach on New Year's Eve, she contacts the Aldinga Beach Event Director, John and reads his reply about pacers Riley and Jacob Cox, the Run As One group, and the event's history of New Year record-breaking. Ollie tops and tails it: "Mel on the spot, yeah" and "And that was Mel on the spot".

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 23:38

  Three roving reports run back to back after Ollie hands over ("we've got a couple of roving reports. In fact, so many that we aren't bringing you all of them this week"): PK at Lochiel on Christmas Eve, TOC mid-run at Torrens on New Year's Day, and Alison Fraser at Warwick Racecourse (UK) on Christmas Eve. Melissa Ellis closes the block with "Thank you very much to our Channel 5 News crew. We always appreciate your efforts."

• Dazza's starts at 41:16

  Listener check-ins read out by both hosts: Phil Olson (first Southern Hemisphere parkrun, Hamilton Lake NZ), Daryl Smith (daughter Charlotte's milestone, the travelling Smith family at Queanbeyan), Samantha Roberts (Greenbank's event number 200 and her own "hundreds challenge"), Jack Corkill and Claire (Burley Griffin, the morning after their wedding, where they had their first date), a pre-recorded message from Janet at Lochiel, Chloe Bravos (South Beach Recreation Reserve), Louise Tilia (Centennial), Johan Duvenhage (Akkerendam Nature Reserve, Northern Cape, plus a VM50-54 age category record), Tracy May (Cosmeston Lakes, Wales), Juliet Colville (100th parkrun and 50th volunteer at Cheadle Hulme) and Josephine Moon (Elliott Heads Beach).

• the Obi Award — Daryl Smith starts at 48:36

  For January a "mysterious benefactor" has donated several of the Office Lady's own challenge cards, so the Obi winner also receives an "Office Lady snazzy edition" challenge card. Ollie hunts out the envelope on air and announces the winner. Mel offers to pass the prize on to the winner herself since the Smiths are Victorians.

• Club Corner starts at 50:10

  Rachel opens a new series about clubs in parkrun, starting with the only official ones, the milestone tees. She runs through the 5k milestones (10, 25 for under-18s, 50, 100, 250, 500, with 1000 currently proposed), the 2021 integration of the volunteer and run/walk streams, the milestone shirt colours (10 white, 25 purple, 50 red, 100 black, 250 green, 500 blue, 1000 still a mystery), the junior parkrun distance-word wristbands (11 half marathon, 21 marathon, 50 ultra, plus a 100 milestone that is not a wristband), and points listeners at the With Me Now and parkrun Show back catalogues for the UK history.

• Emails starts at 53:25

  Two listener emails. "Our favourite Eman" reports Team Vergara's NSW parkrun tour (Rhodes on Christmas Eve, Newy on Christmas Day, Orange on New Year's Eve, Dubbo on New Year's Day), highlights being Bernadette Bennett's Christmas-carol run brief at Newy and running with previous podcast guest and former parkrun global women's record holder Lauren Reid at Orange. Then "the Ideas Man" (Bruce) suggests refilling the time capsule in December 2023 for 2024 and offers predictions: 2,000+ Adventurers Club members, PALM 2024 in the greatest state, and Ollie being offered a record deal after singing in the 400th episode.

• parkrun news bulletin starts at 54:26

  Breaking news broken into the middle of the mailbag: parkrun Global has announced the appointment of seven new trustees to the board following a lengthy recruitment process, with the new members getting underway across January-March and some existing trustees stepping away. Ollie also flags that parkrun has alluded to releasing an ambitious five-year strategy the following month. The hosts admit they were hoping the announcement would be about new milestone shirts.

• parkrun adventurers time capsule starts at 57:30crystal ball predictions

  Prompted by the Ideas Man's email, Mel and Ollie repack the podcast time capsule to be opened at the end of 2024. Contents: Alice Springs parkrun (carried over); new parkrun countries, Fiji, South Korea (Seoul) and Thailand; Mel's wish for a "senior parkrun" for over-70s on a shorter, flatter, wheelchair-, walking-frame- and dementia-friendly course with mobility assistance volunteers ("parkrun, are you listening?", the source of the episode title); Ollie's wish for free public transport to parkrun on production of a barcode, and for a single app that handles results, photos, incidents, comms and a built-in milestone selfie frame, replacing reliance on WebFMS and Facebook; and a prediction of 625 parkruns in Australia in two years (the previous capsule, packed by Mel and Scott, had predicted 500).

• Consolidated Club Report starts at 1:07:33

  For Saturday 7 January 2023: of 364 members, 308 took part at 180 locations. Adventurers at 22 events in the UK, three in South Africa, two in the USA and one in Malaysia; locally 40 in NSW, 39 in Victoria, 36 in Queensland, 13 in SA, 8 in WA, 5 each in the ACT and the North Island, and 3 each in Tasmania and the South Island. Numbers were well up on recent weeks.

• the Frond — Tie — Sandon Point parkrun (NSW) and Gatton parkrun (QLD), seven adventurers each starts at 1:08:48

  Delivered inside the Consolidated Club Report: the largest frond was a tie this week, with seven adventurers at Sandon Point in New South Wales and seven adventurers at Gatton in Queensland, prompting a short detour about whether Gatton is in Queensland or NSW (Mel was thinking of Galston).

• Sign-off starts at 1:09:27

  Ollie thanked Mel for the club report and asked what was coming up next parkrun day: Aintree Heritage Trail junior parkrun was celebrating its second birthday with a cake baked by volunteer Janelle and a roster already full, and after that Mel planned to tourist, travelling north up the Hume, keeping the destination a mystery. Ollie might not parkrun at all, with a moving van booked at 8am for his daughter and her boyfriend. He wished her safe travels and a nice parkrun day; Mel took the outro with the Facebook, email, Twitter and Instagram contacts and said that was it for another week.

• Launches and anniversaries starts at 1:09:33"Where is the cake?"

  Aintree Heritage Trail junior parkrun (Melissa Ellis's home junior event, Victoria) celebrates its second birthday. Cake is confirmed, the volunteer roster was already full by Monday, and volunteer Janelle has offered to bake, with the only worry being hot weather melting the cake. The course has finally dried out after spending most of spring and the first month of summer underwater.