Episode 366 - Euphony

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HostsMelissa Ellis Oliver Spake

Roving reportersAlistair Buchanan Johan Duvenhage Paul Kitching

Show notes

From the Facebook post

This week, Mel is joined by a holidaying Olly as we hear a euphony of parkrun celebrations and record numbers, plus some misadventures, the odd kookaburra, and a cacophony of camp-site neighbours.

We continue to catch up on the summer season's roving reports, as we hear from Johan at Voortrekker Monument (opens in a new tab) parkrun in Pretoria, PK at Belair National Park (opens in a new tab) parkrun and Alistair who did some guerilla tourism at St Peters (opens in a new tab). And amongst all the chatter, Rachel, Dazza and some love for the one and only Colin Thorne.

From the podcast feed

This week, Mel is joined by a holidaying Olly as we hear a euphony of parkrun celebrations and record numbers, plus some misadventures, the odd kookaburra, and a cacophony of camp-site neighbours. We continue to catch up on the summer season's roving reports, as we hear from Johan at Voortrekker Monument (opens in a new tab), Pretoria, PK at Belair and Alistair who did some guerilla tourism at St Peters (opens in a new tab). And amongst all the chatter, Rachel, Dazza and some love for the one and only Colin Thorne.

Roving reports

1St Peters2Belair National Park3Voortrekker Monument

In this episode

• Welcome starts at 0:24

  Ollie Spake from the front seat of a van at a Umina Beach holiday park on Darkinjung land, with a live audience of kids and birds, and Melissa Ellis on Wurundjeri Country, back at full-time work. Mel had her seventh Puckapunyal with ambassadors Tanya Baker and Mark Porritt, then 26 kids at Eynesbury juniors' third birthday with new co-ED Janelle; she announces Ollie's 2024 Community Sports Award from Shellharbour City Council. Ollie's planned Tuggeranong and Rooty Hill trips fell through to illness, so he stayed at a booming Shellharbour all summer.

• parkrun news bulletin starts at 10:14

  Attendance and milestone news. Albert Park recorded 1,090 finishers with 38 volunteers, a new Australian event record passing South Bank's 1,010 (Mel credits Joanne and Scott, and points to the Australian Open bringing tourists into Melbourne). Australia set a national attendance record of 78,274 participants with 19 events recording their own records; Ollie notes Australia had never passed 70,000 before 2024 and has now done so every week of the year. This weekend (27 January) the one millionth different Australian is due to take part, with 999,503 to date. The centrepiece is Colin Thorne of Whangarei parkrun, New Zealand, who has just turned 100, completed his 175th parkrun in 1:00:34 and moved up an age category (age grade 114.01%); Ollie reads from the parkrun New Zealand story about him and his late wife Betty, and both hosts point listeners to Colin's own run report.

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 17:29

  Mel throws to the block "it is time for us to move swiftly forward to listen to some roving reports this week. We are going to hear from Alistair Actionman at St Peters, PK at Belair National Park, and we've got Johan from a South African event." Three self-contained reports run back to back: Alistair Buchanan's Guerrilla Tourism piece from St Peters parkrun in Sydney (interviewing that day's RD, James, on a record ~610 turnout), Paul Kitching from the new Belair National Park parkrun in South Australia (vox-pops with Tracy and Deb of Mount Barker, and barcode-scanning stalwart Marilyn), and Johan Duvenhage from the returning Voortrekker Monument parkrun in Pretoria. Ollie closes the block and the hosts then debrief at length, St Peters' 12th birthday and 682 finishers the following week, its January 2012 launch with 122 people, its 24,354 individual runners and 161,402 finishes, ED Paul as Australia's longest-serving ED, and the unofficial 24-parkruns-in-24-hours attempt starting at Belair.

• Dazza's starts at 42:44

  Ollie opens it with "we've had no emails, so I think it's time to switch across to Dazza's", noting Dazza has made it take-a-walk-outdoors day. Posts read out: Natalie Sopa wrapping up a seven-stop New Zealand tour with a PB at Foster; Ian's first first-timers briefing at Lake Mac in front of 463 finishers with an Auslan interpreter, his 222nd parkrun; Martine Barrot from Tasmania walking Windsor Precinct with Andrew and Eric and meeting a regular called Gary (a snake); Jonathan Morgan tail-walking The Avenues for his 250th volunteer milestone with a volunteer photo collage; Chris Gore from WA whose great-nephew ran his first parkrun at Bibra Lake aged four; Maria Wicks on an icy Panshanger in the UK chasing her 100th there; Adrian Luscombe at a bitterly cold Quakers Walk; and Irene, off to volunteer at Zillmere's seventh anniversary dressed as a zookeeper.

• the Obi Award — Jonathan Morgan starts at 48:41

  Awarded to Jonathan Morgan for celebrating his 250th volunteer milestone as Tail Walker at The Avenues parkrun and for the volunteer milestone photo collage he shared with it, Ollie: "Congratulations, Jonathan. Thank you for all of your volunteering efforts... that's a fantastic collage." Presented from a campground with, as Ollie notes, kookaburras in the background and no envelope.

• Club Corner starts at 49:57

  Rachel's piece, self-contained, on how you count your parkrun participation, runs, or volunteering, or runs and volunteering, with the pros and cons of each (counting both aligns with the milestone shirts; counting everything captures all you do), landing on "you do you, and don't let anyone browbeat you".

• Consolidated Club Report starts at 50:57

  For Saturday 20 January 2024: 546 members, 423 of whom took part, in four countries across 218 locations. Adventurers at 27 UK events and three in South Africa; locally 48 in New South Wales, 47 in the greater state, 41 in Queensland, 13 in South Australia, 11 in Tasmania, 10 in Western Australia, nine on the North Island, four each in the ACT and the South Island, and one in the Northern Territory. Also an adventurers PB for Rebecca Ryan at Albert, Melbourne and milestones for M. Nico (250th, at Kirra), Timothy Amos (10th, Hagley), Maurice Cohen (50th, Whangarei) and Christiana Charlet (100th, Mundy Regional).

• the Frond starts at 52:01

  Largest international frond at Itchen Valley Country, the Smiths, Stuart, Tamsin and Morglen, which prompts Ollie to mention his family hail from Itchen in Southampton. Largest local frond was seven in the greater state at Kirkdale Reserve: TOC, Jackie, Sarah Jefferson, Val and Steve Warwick, Erica Hopcraft and Scott Wilson-Smith, with Jodie Maisie volunteering on finish tokens; Mel notes it was a spontaneous frond.

• Launches and anniversaries starts at 55:28"Where is the cake?"

  One launch in the past week: Lousberg parkrun in Aachen, Germany, two laps along the north side of the Lousberg, a small hill northeast of the city with a tower and a slowly revolving restaurant. 65 finishers, nine volunteers, and 38 people (58%) doing their first ever parkrun. Mel follows with the local folk tale of how the Lousberg got its name, the devil, tricked by a child called Luz into thinking Aachen was still far away, dumping his bag of North Sea sand outside the city.

• Launches and anniversaries starts at 58:11"Where is the cake?"

  A second instalment: Mel apologises for missing a second piece of audio Johan sent last week and plays it now, a wrap of the South African summer. The Mapule Sindane School parkrun inaugural on 6 January in KwaGuqa Township outside eMalahleni, Mpumalanga (35 parkrunners, two brand new, 14 volunteers), attended by uber-parkrunner Jabulani Mkize completing his 280th different Southern African event; the return of Voortrekker Monument parkrun after 199 weeks; and Odendaal Stadium parkrun in Prince Albert, Great Karoo, relaunching on 13 January 200 weeks after its last event, with 12 parkrunners and nine volunteers.

• Sign-off starts at 1:01:25

  Mel said she would stay local and go to Studley parkrun for round two with the lawnmower, thinking some people she wanted to catch up with would be hanging out there; Ollie said it was Shellharbour for him, and that the day before he was doing the running leg of the Aquathon with adventurer Bec Bailey swimming, up against two others of the Windang clan in another team including Lance, who he expected to disappear off into the sunrise ahead of him. Mel wished him luck, said it had been good to catch up and that he was joining from his caravan park on holiday with the girls quiet in the background, then gave the Facebook and email contacts and closed for another week.