Episode 50

Episode details · 309 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:10Scott Trickett: It's our 50th episode of the parkrun Adventurers, our milestone, our first milestone podcast. Welcome Mel.

00:00:21Melissa Erbacher: Thanks Scotty. It's our second milestone podcast because when we got to the 25, that was like matching the volunteers.

00:00:29Scott Trickett: Oh yeah. We do like to celebrate.

00:00:31Melissa Erbacher: We do. And are you all in red tonight?

00:00:36Scott Trickett: Well, it's hot, it's tops off again, but yeah, I'm in red, why not? Are you?

00:00:48Melissa Erbacher: I am, I'm in red sequins and I've got my red Santa hat on, so I'm red, red, red, red.

00:00:56Scott Trickett: Good. I've got my Christmas drinks going, I am festive, I'm ready for fun and I'm ready, dare I say it, our biggest episode ever. yet it's our longest anyway it's going to be a bumper one definitely yeah but let's start it with something hangover from last week bottom three we're just gonna you want to start with the bottom three i thought we would go out with this no no it's like it's like a band-aid ripping off a band-aid let's just do it oh i just i'm are we sure are we really sure we're gonna do this yep yep i don't think we're gonna win any friends

Bottom three parkruns

00:01:06[crosstalk]

00:01:35Melissa Erbacher: But you know what? We've always been honest. We have. It's not about popularity for us. We've proven that time and again.

00:01:45Scott Trickett: So look, I'll go first. I don't like doing this, so I'm only going to do it once. But I'm committed to it, so here goes. My bottom three parkruns are probably... finished they were around my ankles and nobody really needed to see that so it wasn't a great day Scotty I've never noticed have you got trains near you um I didn't quite catch all all the the things that you just said it was noisy it was noisy I'm nowhere near a train line but um I heard something too anyway that was it what did you think you probably have never run any of them so you can't really comment but Why don't you give me yours?

00:02:36Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I really... Okay, alright. Here goes nothing. Don't hate me, guys. But my bottom three are... And it had gone in so far that they had to call the doctor to pull it out again.

00:02:59Scott Trickett: Well, now I can understand.

00:03:00Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it was traumatic.

00:03:07Scott Trickett: I didn't catch all of that, but I think I got the gist. Yeah, again, noisy, noisy where you are.

00:03:17Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Sorry about that.

00:03:22Scott Trickett: But let's move on to happier things.

00:03:27Melissa Erbacher: Yes, we've done it. We've ripped off the band-aid. Let's talk about something fun like Christmas.

00:03:33Scott Trickett: What about it?

00:03:36Melissa Erbacher: Well, there's another reason to be in red. We're going to be doing Christmas Day parkruns. Hey, did you know? I mean, no, you wouldn't know because I haven't told you. Every year for my family, I don't do it for my husband's family, but for my family, I make bonbons, Christmas bonbons. So you can buy the packs of like the flat pack bonbons and they come with hats and sometimes they come with jokes, sometimes they don't. And then you can pop whatever you like in them. You can put freddo frogs so you know how you buy the ready-made bonbons and they've got these crappy little plastic toys um you might get a whistle or a comb or just something useless that nobody actually wants and these dodgy paper hats well the the packs that you buy at like the craft stores yeah you get the hat and you get the jokes but you have to fill it with whatever else you want. So you can put really cool stuff in there. You know, you can put scratchies or the chocolates that people like. Or one year I put in all these little parachuting men so that everybody got a different parachuting man. And then we had a competition later to see who could parachute their parachuting man into a series of hoops that I put in the backyard. So we always do some sort of games. But What I do love most about the bonbons is the really dodgy jokes. And I thought it might be funny if we had a chat about dodgy bonbon jokes. Do you... I mean, they're kind of like dad jokes. You know the ones I'm talking about.

Christmas bonbon jokes

00:05:10Scott Trickett: Of course. I specialize in them. Going back to your bonbons, this may surprise you. The first year me and my wife put on Christmas, we did exactly the same thing. I forgot about it, but... Here's something I learned from our experience that you might have picked up on. I put golf balls in the bonbon. And when two people are pulling it, that doesn't work. So then when golf balls are flying across the room. I also put seeds. And the seed packet split.

00:05:44Melissa Erbacher: Just loose?

00:05:45Scott Trickett: Well, no, I put them in paper, but somehow it got ripped. So again, when the bonbon was pulled, we had golf balls and seeds flying all over the Christmas table. So there's a pro tip for you this year. Leave the golf balls out.

00:06:04Melissa Erbacher: If there are particular people that you don't like, you could fill it with glitter. That actually, you know, that might win me some favours with my family this year if I put glitter in them.

00:06:18Scott Trickett: And if... You know, Christmas is all about spending time with people you don't really want to sometimes. So go for it.

00:06:29Melissa Erbacher: But back to the jokes.

00:06:31Scott Trickett: Not in my case.

00:06:33Melissa Erbacher: Because sometimes I do actually make up the things that go in there as well. If the jokes don't cut the mustard, the ones that they come with, I get online and I Google some bad jokes and I see how dodgy I can make them and pop them in. So do you have any... You're a dad. You'd have dad jokes. Look, I've got plenty. You'd have bad bonbon jokes.

00:06:53Scott Trickett: No, look, this is our Christmas party. This is the parkrun Adventurers Christmas party happening live-ish. So I've got a bonbon.

00:07:01Melissa Erbacher: Yep. I'm here by myself though, so I'm going to... Oh, you should have got Buster in there to pull one end of it.

00:07:06Scott Trickett: Buster's here, but he's asleep.

00:07:08Melissa Erbacher: Well, there you go. Buster, come on. Okay, don't wake him up.

00:07:12Scott Trickett: So I'm going to wedge one end under the laptop.

00:07:17Melissa Erbacher: Put it between your toes. Then it's like having two hands.

00:07:27Scott Trickett: I won!

00:07:29Melissa Erbacher: You won! See, this is the benefit of opening bonbons with yourself. And what was the favour in this one? Did you get a plastic comb?

00:07:43Scott Trickett: It's coming. Oh, it's a spinning top.

00:07:53Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay. That's not too bad.

00:07:55Scott Trickett: There you go. It's spinning. Okay, so my joke... This is... I can't make this up. You heard it explode. What do you call a penguin in the Sahara Desert?

00:08:02[other]

00:08:12Melissa Erbacher: Lost? You got it. That's it. Are you serious? Yep. Oh, no. It's practical.

00:08:22Scott Trickett: It's logical. Of course the penguin wouldn't be in the Sahara Desert. So there you go. You can add that to your repertoire this year, Mel.

00:08:32Melissa Erbacher: I will add that to my repertoire. That's a good one. I've got one for you, though. Why did Scrooge buy everyone a budgie for Christmas?

00:08:45Scott Trickett: Because he's cheap.

00:08:48Melissa Erbacher: Oh, you're so close because they were going cheap. They were going cheap. Do you know, I love doing the bonbons with my niece and nephew who are six and eight because they're old enough now to be able to read them, but they don't always get the jokes. And you can tell if they're just laughing because everyone else has started laughing. Oh, but it's good fun. And we often actually just end up getting them to read all of our jokes for us because it adds to the enjoyment.

00:09:21Scott Trickett: Will they be going to Christmas Day parkrun with you? Will you drag them out?

00:09:26Melissa Erbacher: Well, they will be given the choice. So they have parkrun, Park Ran. They have been to a lot of parkruns. They're actually quite the little adventurers. So what we'll do is because my mother and my nana will also be there on Christmas morning, they won't actually have to come out if they don't want to. And there's a rule that they're allowed to open one present each, but they're not allowed to open the rest until after parkruns. So they know they're not going to get them any sooner if they stay at home and just stare longingly at them. So I'm hoping they'll come, but we'll give them the choice whether or not they feel up to it.

00:10:03Scott Trickett: Very sensible. We don't give our daughter the choice. We just make her come. Well, she doesn't have a choice. We can't leave her home alone.

00:10:11Melissa Erbacher: But she looks forward to it, doesn't she?

00:10:12Scott Trickett: She loves it and she doesn't know any better. And I think she genuinely looks forward to it.

00:10:19Melissa Erbacher: Well, no, she doesn't know any different. I think she probably does know better. You know, not a lot of kids have had the benefit of being to parkrun on Christmas Day before and she's had the benefit of that. So I think she knows better than they do.

00:10:33Scott Trickett: She's going to love it. I'm going to love it. Let's be honest. All our listeners are going to love it this year. Have we got any news this week?

00:10:41Melissa Erbacher: We do have news. Shall we go to the news?

00:10:44Scott Trickett: Yeah, let's have the news.

parkrun news bulletin

00:10:47Unidentified speaker: Here's the news.

00:10:56Melissa Erbacher: The parkrun Adventurers this week reach a new milestone, releasing their 50th episode of the parkrun Adventurers podcast. Achieving this milestone has been the culmination of a great many things.

00:11:10Scott Trickett: 2,490 minutes of audio was released.

00:11:14Melissa Erbacher: 113 guests have graced the podcast waves.

00:11:18Scott Trickett: 34 roving adventures have been reported.

00:11:21Melissa Erbacher: Hundreds of social adventures have been shared.

00:11:24Scott Trickett: Mel has increased the population of her costume room by a very modest six costumes.

00:11:30Melissa Erbacher: Scotty racked up four new stacks during official events and at least that many again on unofficial runs.

00:11:37Scott Trickett: And countless adventures have been had. Shortish news this week, but full of information, full of stats on us. So my favourite. We promised to catch up with Ian for more stats last week. So let's keep our promise.

Facts in a Haystack

00:11:58Melissa Erbacher: What did Cinderella say when her photos didn't arrive on time? One day my prince will come.

00:12:08Ian Hay: Oh, that's bad. That's really bad.

00:12:10Melissa Erbacher: Well, we don't have to wait for a prince because we have got Mr. Hay from Facts in a Haystack two weeks in a row back to give us the stats that he somehow forgot to give us last week, even though he promised he would. Welcome back to the podcast, Ian.

00:12:28Ian Hay: Thank you. Well, how lucky are you guys? Two weeks in a row.

00:12:31Melissa Erbacher: I'm pretty sure it was a planned ploy. You had this planned the whole time.

00:12:37Ian Hay: Exactly. My way of getting back on here. Now, I've got a better joke than that one.

00:12:42Melissa Erbacher: Oh, really?

00:12:42Ian Hay: I probably should say up front, I'm one of those people that should never, ever tell jokes. Mess them up every time. So what is the definition of a statistician? Someone who doesn't have the personality to be an accountant. I think I've insulted statisticians and accountants out there. So if any of you are listening in, my apologies.

00:13:04Scott Trickett: Did you find that joke in a bonbon?

00:13:07Ian Hay: It's got to be in a bonbon somewhere. Yeah.

00:13:11Melissa Erbacher: My big brother's a statistician. I'm pretty sure he doesn't listen to the podcast, so he's not going to be offended either.

00:13:16Ian Hay: So you're safe then. Cool.

00:13:18Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. But it does sound a bit like a dad joke.

00:13:22Unidentified speaker: Yep.

00:13:24Melissa Erbacher: So let's get on to something that you're good at, Ian.

00:13:30Ian Hay: We shall see.

00:13:31Melissa Erbacher: We posed, or at least I should say I posed a question for you in the lead up to last week's podcast. Okay.

00:13:41Ian Hay: about a revisit of something that we covered earlier in the year do you have those stats for us i do and of course because i love stats i took them a little bit further and made even more so let's see how many i can throw at you oh good the mel versus scott i think that was the first or second episode i think it was the first episode that i came on that we did this one didn't we so i think it was yep so and scott wasn't aware of this one you might have suspected but it's um Mel versus Scott volunteer stints we'll start with. Yes. So.

00:14:16Melissa Erbacher: For this year, now that we've had this whole extra year where there's been more Mels and there's been more Scots added to the mix.

00:14:22Ian Hay: Yep.

00:14:23Scott Trickett: Because last time, if I recall correctly, the Scots won.

00:14:29Melissa Erbacher: You pipped the Mels by a very small margin.

00:14:33Ian Hay: It's amazing that you still remember that too, Scott. You just hung on to that.

00:14:36Scott Trickett: I don't have many victories in life, so I take them where I can get them. But I can feel another one coming.

00:14:45Ian Hay: Feel another one coming? I think it's the tides have turned this year, or the mels have... No. No? Okay. So we have 277 mels in Australia, or running parkrun, not in Australia, running parkruns. And they've done 932 volunteer stints in total. So that's not this year, Mel. Unfortunately, I can't get a yearly breakdown, but that's now at 933 in total.

00:15:09Melissa Erbacher: We'll catch up eventually, even if we haven't got it now. But that's almost 1,000. That's amazing.

00:15:14Ian Hay: Almost 1,000. Now, the average isn't that great with Mel's. So Mel's got to do a bit of work. I think you're holding a lot of the weight there, Mel. There's only about an average of three volunteer stints each across that group.

00:15:26Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm well above average.

00:15:28Ian Hay: You're well, well above average. So the Scotts, there's actually 1,009 Scotts out there versus the 277 Mels.

00:15:38Melissa Erbacher: Wow, you guys. Well, their averages are probably worse though.

00:15:42Ian Hay: Their averages are quite low. So 1,194 volunteer stints. Winner, check. Yep. Twice.

00:15:52Melissa Erbacher: But the average is what, like one per Scot? That's not even – it's – yeah.

00:15:59Ian Hay: Fortunately, Scott, you're holding up pretty high there too.

00:16:02Melissa Erbacher: So if you multiplied the mels by four so you had the even amounts of mels and Scotts, we would be kicking your butts with the volunteering.

00:16:13Ian Hay: Yep, that's right.

00:16:15Melissa Erbacher: So I'm going to consider this a win.

00:16:18Ian Hay: Take a win out of there.

00:16:20Melissa Erbacher: Isn't that what people do? We just manipulate the numbers until they come out good for us.

00:16:26Ian Hay: Exactly. That's statistics. So, I also, because I couldn't leave it there, I had to go and look at the runs as well. So, there's been 10,500 runs from the Mels.

00:16:38Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, we're going to let down the runs, I'm pretty sure.

00:16:42Ian Hay: Actually, it's not too far off. There's only 12,300 Scots. So, yeah. Not that far.

00:16:47Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay.

00:16:49Ian Hay: It's pretty close. Now, just to finish it off.

00:16:52Scott Trickett: We got it registering and then never coming back. Exactly. That's right.

00:16:57Melissa Erbacher: Never volunteering, running one time. Yeah.

00:17:01Ian Hay: Now, to finish it off, I had to figure out there, where would you guys go to feel most at home amongst the Mels and the Scots in Australia? So Maitland actually have the most Mels. They've had 37 Mels run at their events. And they've had actually seven in one week. So you could go along, there'd be seven of you Mels running at the same time.

00:17:21Melissa Erbacher: That's good odds.

00:17:22Ian Hay: Yep, there you go. And Newy is the one for the Scotts to go to. So we've got 57 different Scots and eight in one week, which actually isn't far off the Mels. But yep, Newy for Scott and Maitland for Mel.

00:17:34Melissa Erbacher: Done. Going on the list.

00:17:37Scott Trickett: Yeah, we've both got to head to the regional runners, Mel.

00:17:40Melissa Erbacher: That's all right by me. That's all the stats for 2016.

00:17:45Ian Hay: Yep, we're all statted out. I think that's a word.

00:17:49Melissa Erbacher: Pretty sure it is. It just got used on a legitimate podcast, so that must make it a word.

00:17:54Ian Hay: That's right.

00:17:56Scott Trickett: Now, it's been great, Ian. We know parkrunners love their stats, and you've delivered them for us this year.

00:18:03Ian Hay: And bigger things coming next year, we hope. Exactly. We might have some surprises. Can't wait. Thank you, guys. I've had a really good year. It's been fun.

00:18:12Scott Trickett: We've had fun too.

00:18:13Melissa Erbacher: We have loved having you this year, Ian. I hope you will join us again in 2017. Certainly will.

00:18:19Ian Hay: I look forward to it. Thanks, guys.

00:18:32Melissa Erbacher: What song do you sing at a snowman's birthday party? No one? Freeze a jolly good fellow. And we've got... One jolly good fellow and one jolly good female fellow joining us on the podcast now. They hark from HQ in parkrun, Australia, and we're very happy to have them here. Renee and Tim, welcome to the podcast.

00:18:57Tim Oberg: Great to be here.

00:18:59Melissa Erbacher: Now, obviously, that joke was the caliber that you guys are going to have to meet for the rest of this interlude. So I hope you've brought your A-game, your Christmas A-game.

00:19:11Tim Oberg: I'm ready.

00:19:12Melissa Erbacher: All right. Well, who wants to start? Give me your best jokes, guys. Your best Christmas bonbon jokes.

00:19:18Tim Oberg: Ladies first, Renee.

00:19:20Renee Gimbert: What do you call a blind dinosaur?

00:19:24Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I know this one because it was in a bonbon last year.

00:19:28Tim Oberg: Is it can't see a saurus?

00:19:30Renee Gimbert: No, it's a do you think he saw it?

00:19:35Tim Oberg: That is good. That is good. How did the human cannonball lose his job? He got fired, obviously. I've got another one.

00:19:54Dave "Robbo" Robertson: Can I do two? Are we going to do a second one later? All right.

00:19:57Tim Oberg: Why did the skeleton go to the New Year's Eve party on his own? He had no body to go with.

00:20:07Melissa Erbacher: That is actually one of the jokes I've got on my bonbon papers right here. That's a legitimate bonbon joke.

00:20:13Tim Oberg: There we go. There we go.

00:20:15Scott Trickett: Now, let's get serious. The year in parkrun for you two. Renee, you go first. Have you got a highlight that sticks out?

00:20:26Renee Gimbert: Well, yeah, definitely. The highlight for me was joining the team, doubling the team, so to speak.

00:20:35Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Ah.

00:20:35Renee Gimbert: Going from one to two employees of parkrun, that was for me a highlight on not only on a personal level of what it's done for me, but also on a national level of what we can do for parkrun and where we can grow now having more resources than we have previously. So that's my highlight.

00:20:59Scott Trickett: What does it mean for the parkrunners?

00:21:04Renee Gimbert: I don't think they would notice. And that's, I think, exactly how we want it to be. Territory directors and our event directors have got more support. Not saying they didn't have support, but there's now double the team. So we can get through more. We can launch more events. We can get kicked out quicker. We can... answer queries we can get back to people quicker because we're sharing the workload rather than one person doing it so at the end of the day i don't think that the individual parkrunner would notice how many staff we had we could have two we could have four um i don't think they would notice at an event level for the parkrunner ideally they wouldn't know or wouldn't it wouldn't affect them. But as an organisational side and with our event teams, definitely I think they've got the support and will continue to grow so they have more and more support in the future.

00:22:08Scott Trickett: And Timothy?

00:22:11Renee Gimbert: Very formal.

00:22:13Tim Oberg: So it sounds like I'm in trouble, Scott. Look... There's two highlights for me. I mean, lots of highlights, but the two that come to mind, the first one is, well, Renee just pinched it from me, which was Renee coming on as a full-time staff member. As you guys know, Renee had been volunteering in a capacity over and above her official territory director status for a long period of time. So when we were able to employ someone then that was the natural fit for Renee to actually come on full-time. So that's been amazing for me to double, as Renee says, double the staff. And so, yeah, Renee's starting has been absolutely key. And I think she's correct in saying that really the parkrunners wouldn't notice it. But certainly we all do on a daily, weekly, hourly, minute-by-minute basis. So that's my highlight number one. And of course, the way that that came about was because we signed Medibank as our third national sponsor and to have them come on, they gave us the resources to be able to bring Rene on. So yeah, bringing on Medibank after what was a sort of two to three year negotiation and finally getting that across the line this year was the other highlight. And of course, that is something that all parkrunners in Australia I think would be well aware of that they are now on board with us.

00:23:47Melissa Erbacher: Next year, 2017 is staring us down. We're not too far away. What are you most excited about or looking forward to the most for parkrun next year?

00:24:00Renee Gimbert: Look, I'm going to say the number of launches. So I don't know if in a way that's a good or a bad thing, but we're definitely on track to launch – at least one parkrun a week. And whilst that might be spread out over the year, we've done the same sort of number this year, but there's so much interest and we're building so many more sort of potential event directors and potential locations that I think next year, especially now there's, you know, double the team, I think we've got the capacity to launch more. So I find that exciting that we – Not so much that we're going to launch new events, but we're going to launch events in communities that have not experienced this before. And that's exciting to change the world, change Australia.

00:24:53Tim Oberg: As far as 2017 goes, I think what I'm looking forward to the most is and this is assuming it actually happens, is the launch of Junior parkrun. And this is something that has been on the radar for several years now. We've been watching it grow very successfully in the UK. The model is pretty much refined now. And having just recently launched in Ireland as well, I think the sort of global... presence of Junior parkrun is going to be something that we're going to see happening. And, of course, Australia is right at the top of that list of countries who will get Junior parkrun. We've got a pretty active Junior parkrun Australia Facebook page where people are forever asking questions about when is it coming, et cetera, et cetera. And I can pretty confidently say next year at some point we will launch Junior parkrun. So I think that will be amazing. It will just add to what we were doing. And as Renee said, it's changing everything. Australia, changing the health of Australia and from a legacy perspective of what we're doing is obviously if we can instill the right values around health and wellbeing into our children, then that sets all of us up for a brighter future. So that's, yeah, I think that's what I'm looking forward to most in 2017.

00:26:18Scott Trickett: Are we still just waiting for a sponsor? What's the hold up with Junior Parkra?

00:26:23Tim Oberg: That's a good question. There's a couple of things. The first is that Our colleagues in the UK had, I guess, warned me a little bit that they were still unsure as to whether they had the formula exactly correct in terms of the ages of children participating and just the general format of the event. But now that it's been established now for several years, I think they're happy with that. So that was one thing. I guess I was waiting to just see how it would all play out in the UK. The other was around, I guess, the financing of Junior parkrun. Would it just be something that we would bolt into our day-to-day operations or would it be something that we would run quite separately with separate sponsors and so on? And so that was just something I was, I guess, mulling over in my head. But as it stands... We're in, you know, the organisation's in a good place financially. We've got good systems in play, good people, lots of good people in the team from a staff and volunteer perspective. So I think, as I say, 2017 will be the year that we, you know, cross that bridge and get Junior parkrun happening.

00:27:41Melissa Erbacher: Alrighty. We are days away from Christmas. So what one thing would each of you recommend if you could have one Christmas wish for parkrun for Christmas?

00:27:55Renee Gimbert: Well, is this a wish that's going to come true or just a wish?

00:28:00Melissa Erbacher: Wishes can come true, but they might not.

00:28:03Renee Gimbert: So for parkrun, my wish would be that every event in Australia, which is currently 200, gets a defib from Santa. If it can come true, amazing.

00:28:15Tim Oberg: And I think my wish is sort of in that same vein category, Renee, in that I wish every event has a healthy festive period, meaning that there are no incidents at any of our events that would require the defib or any other significant first aid. So yeah, I'll be hoping that we get through the Christmas and New Year period with everyone in our parkrun family safe and sound.

00:28:40Scott Trickett: Now we hope the two of you are running on Christmas Day. Have you got big plans? Yes.

00:28:45Renee Gimbert: Most definitely. My family are coming from Sydney to stay with me for Christmas and as a Christmas at my house, we go to parkrun. So my dad and my sister are definitely coming with me. My mum, if she's well enough, will come, not run, but she will be there and potentially even volunteer. And then my sister and my brother-in-law and my nephews are It depends if we can get them away from their gifts from Santa. Hopefully they'll come along and even if they join us and have a swim at the beach after we parkrun. But definitely there will be running happening in my family on Christmas Day.

00:29:29Tim Oberg: And I won't be running because I'll be volunteering. And this is something I did last year up here at Airlie Beach parkrun. We'd only been established for, I think, three weeks last year because it's early December now. anniversary for early beach parkruns i think it was a our fourth event i think was actually christmas day so uh given that the community was so new i i um took charge and was run director and and so on and uh so i've decided that that's going to become a little tradition for me me me run directing up here on christmas day and i've actually i'm run directing new year's day as well so um so yeah i'll be i'll be run directing and i'll i'll have the family i'm sure um fulfilling some sort of capacity in the volunteering role. I might have Jack and Evie handing out tokens or something like that. But no, that's my gift. My gift to the early beach parkrunners is that I'll be run directing on Christmas Day.

00:30:22Melissa Erbacher: Hopefully without any creative volunteering from Evie and Jack.

00:30:26Tim Oberg: Yes, hopefully. No barcodes in the ocean or anything like that.

00:30:32Scott Trickett: Okay, team. Thanks for joining us. We're, we're a little bit hurt that one of your highlights wasn't the launch of the, um, parkrun adventures, Australian parkrun podcast.

00:30:41Melissa Erbacher: Oh, but that was a given. Nice save, Renee.

00:30:44Tim Oberg: In all seriousness, from myself and Renee and all of your listeners, I want to thank you guys for putting this together this year. Most people probably don't realise that you guys get nothing for doing this show from us as an organisation. You're not paid to do it. It's just an extension of your love of parkrun and what you're doing caters to a really niche but really important part of our organization and uh so on behalf of everyone from parkrun australia and the world including your listeners in um uh mongolia mongolia yeah i think mongolia you're one listener in mongolia and we've got cuba and norway now too well cuba i mean it's opening up isn't it so so uh anyway so on behalf of everyone guys thank you for for what you've done this year and we look forward to more parkrun adventuring in 2017

00:31:45Scott Trickett: For our final guest of the year, we thought long and hard about it and thought, who should we get? Let's just go right to the source and get the founder on. Welcome to the parkrun Adventurers, PSH.

00:31:58Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Thank you, Scott. It's fabulous to be here. I feel very, very linked and tied to Australian parkruns and parkrunners, so it's fantastic to be able to come and talk to you.

00:32:11Scott Trickett: When you first started, did you ever think there'd be parkrun in Australia?

00:32:15Paul Sinton-Hewitt: No, mate. When I first started, I only thought there'd ever be one parkrun and that would be Bushy Park. Most of your folks will know this, but it's worth repeating. I started parkrun because I was lonely and I wanted to make sure I saw all my mates. So the idea was have a little run, but then go for a coffee afterwards. And if I did that, I was pretty certain that I would see most of my mates every week or maybe every other week because they would all come to this free easy 5k run so it was a I had selfish motives and it turns out that one of the best things we do is the coffee morning after parkrun couldn't agree more we often tell people parkrun is not a running event it's a social event I've made so much so many more friends in the last few years from parkrun was was that your idea as well Well, it's key to what we do. So I would say at the beginning, I didn't anticipate that parkrun would expand across both the nation and also the world. But absolutely, I did want for my community to be the best it could be. I love people who run because they just seem to have the right kind of personality to get on with. We're all a little bit OCD. We're all a little bit want to be the best we can and all of that stuff, and that's great. But absolutely my focus was to try and get as many people around me who loved doing the same things that I wanted to do and who were good for having a coffee and a cake after parkrun. And to a large degree, I think we've been successful at that. I think one of the things that parkrun is... Most success for that is not focusing on the running, but focusing on what happens around the running, the social scene, the building relationships, the supporting of each other. The volunteering is just such an amazing thing, which I have to say, I didn't think about on day one, but as we decided to grow parkrun, we knew that it had to be a volunteer-led organization. These things have just come together over time and we've made a lot of right decisions and I just feel very blessed to be part of something that stands for so many good values. It's fantastic.

00:34:55Melissa Erbacher: And speaking of branching out across the globe, there are a few million people who agree with you that it's a wonderful thing to do on the weekends and we've just reached a milestone in registrations, haven't we, Paul?

00:35:09Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Yes, the three millionth barcode was issued. And fortunately, brilliantly, it's somebody here in the United Kingdom. It hasn't gone to South Africa again. I think we lost one million and two million to South Africa. So, yeah, I'm very proud that we have three million people signed up. I think that's just the beginning, really. Our responsibility now is to share the joy of to share the well-being, to share the support, to share volunteering and give the gift of parkrun to everybody in the world. I don't think we have to do it next year, but we can keep doing it for the rest of our lives because it is such a simple proposition. It's so engaging. It keeps all walks, all people from all avenues of life engaged. It gets everybody involved and it is about your community. It's where you live. It's your people. It's your friends. And it is the best it can possibly be.

00:36:12Melissa Erbacher: Absolutely agree. Now, the person who has registered with the three millionth number, so their athlete ID would be A3 and then a whole bunch of zeros. I'm a little bit proud that my athlete ID is roughly in the 380,000 mark because obviously, you know, it was a way... It was away in the UK for years before it came to Australia. You've got a very low parkrun barcode, but you don't have the A01. How long did it take you to register, Paul?

00:36:47Paul Sinton-Hewitt: No, well, to begin with, there wasn't a computer system. To begin with, it was an Excel spreadsheet. And what happened was on day one, I didn't know who was going to pitch up. So as they arrived, I said, go to the back of my car, write your name down, and then come to the start line. Everyone at nine o'clock, I sent everybody off. And as they finished the run, I handed them a metal token, a washer that I got from a local hardware store. And I'd stamped in the number one and then the number two and so on. So very rudimentary. I gave them the token and I said, go and find your name in my car and put the number, write down the number next to your name. And then we took that A4 sheet of paper, we went to the coffee shop and then I typed everything into Excel. And so we had, I suppose for a while, we had an Excel spreadsheet that had a bunch of names on from this week, from last week, from the week before. And I would always... sort them into an alphabetical order so it was easy for you to find your name. That system obviously can only go so far, and eventually I decided to computerize. And when I computerized, I gave, I sorted everybody alphabetical, and I gave them a number starting from one. And I happened to be 1,674 because I think I sorted it on surname and then first name. So since then it comes towards the end of the pack. Probably the first 3,000 registrations were given to people who either had or who must have come down and done an event. What happened after that was there was a period of time when somebody who had registered with parkrun could write to me and say, look, I don't want to be on the database anymore. Take me off. And I would actually delete their record. I made a decision a year or so later never to delete anybody. And so today, if somebody registers and then asks to be deleted, we don't delete them. We just anonymize and we remove their personal details. But that record stays. And especially if you've run an event, your record stays. So what happened was I think numbers one, two, three, and four all deregistered. And so we've got a gap. There is nobody in position one, position two, position three, and position four. And I suppose we could eventually do something special with that, auction it off, get somebody high profile to register in those numbers. But at the moment, they remain vacant. And I'm 1674. And I was never bothered really about being number one. I didn't think that it mattered, to be honest.

00:39:40Scott Trickett: Have you still got any of those washers?

00:39:44Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Yes, yes, I still have them. I have the originals. And then I, you know, what happened was the first hundred or so were the tokens that I stamped a marker in. And then I did the same for the first few events. But eventually I had to, through research, I found the Forestry Commission in the United States had these aluminium numbers pre-stamped. And so for the next year or so, we were ordering aluminium tokens from the United States which typically are used to mark trees. And then eventually we got to develop the barcode system, which eliminated us having to import these tokens and so on.

00:40:26Scott Trickett: That seems like a much more economical way to do it.

00:40:29Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Yeah, I think what we've done over the years, what we've done is we realized that this parkrun thing had legs. It would grow. And so we've done the very best we could to... make the model as self-service as possible so that you don't have to have a very big, large organization managing and operating the whole event. Clearly we do now. We're a very responsible and professionally run organization. But the idea was to give as much accountability and as much authority to local teams to do what I did for my team or for my community. I had a vision. to bring people together around a run where we would learn to like each other and support each other and share time. And every new event that starts, there's somebody with that same conviction, that same courage, and they're going and doing exactly what I did for the first event. And that makes me so proud. It's just the fact that we can actually help them and we can facilitate that, make it, Maybe a little bit easier than when I did it, but at the same time, it has the same power and the same impact, bringing people from all walks of life and making their lives better.

00:41:53Scott Trickett: You gave us the idea, you had the idea, but you also gave a lot of your time and money in the early days. Have you ever put a figure on how much you invested in parkrun to get us where we are now?

00:42:10Paul Sinton-Hewitt: that allows for all of this to happen. The results system, the barcode system, the administration, the registration, the Wikipedia, all that stuff. We've probably invested three million pounds in those systems. And there's more to be done. I mean, I don't know if you know, but the website's being redeveloped. That's a massive project. I think personally, I invested every spare minute I had for the first five years. So I carried on working and I took half my income and I invested that in the business, paying for people like Chris Wright and so on to be part of the company while I carried on working. So my personal investment in straightforward cash is probably around £50,000 a year for the first five years. But that pales into insignificance if you take into account the hours that many of the volunteers have given right from the early days. The people who invested in the technology and there are quite a few of them who invested their time and their effort and got the system up and running. And it's brilliant. We have a very powerful engine which is going to allow us to grow this in the same manner that we're currently doing for a very long time still.

00:43:36Scott Trickett: What about the impact on volunteering that parkrun has done as well? So yeah, we've got these runners who have got something, but you've also given something to people to be involved in the community. Did you ever think of that when you started?

00:43:49Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Well, to be honest, right at the beginning, I felt that that could be the whole downfall of the model. If we didn't get that right, it could mean that you would have to start charging people to run so that you could pay people to manage events. But it's turned out that we made a lot of the decisions were brilliant decisions, keeping it at 5K, making sure it was always short, an hour's worth of work, giving the teams accountability and responsibility, helping them grow their skills, all those sorts of things. As it turns out, there are many organizations who would like to copy what we do. And I've been and spoken to many of them because clearly we would love it if more organizations were able to be as effective as we are with volunteering. But there's just something that works. We are unique in that it really, really works for us. It doesn't always work for the swimming association or the golf or the tennis or so on. So it's probably... one of the most important things that we do for society. People are finding their way into a very, very soft startup volunteering role and then deciding, actually, this is something that's really valuable. It's not something that I need to be rewarded for because it has its own reward and it's helping me develop myself as a person. and I'm giving something back to community, and there's a huge amount of emotional and physical well-being associated with that, some people are actually growing their skill base. And it even goes so far as when people are being interviewed for jobs, one of the first things that seems to happen is if somebody sees that you're a parkrun volunteer, they immediately know what that means. They immediately understand what kind of person you are because you are a parkrun volunteer and the conversation starts at that level and as a result puts people at ease and really sets the path for a good conversation. So I think it's a lot bigger than I could have ever imagined. I think the impact on countries and on society is going to be astronomical. And I think it's something I'm incredibly proud of. And there's more to come. It's just, this is a never-ending story and it just gets better and better every day. It's brilliant.

00:46:29Melissa Erbacher: Speaking of never-ending stories, there are more events launching every week than we can possibly get to. We love adventures and I know you've been to quite a few parkruns. Do you know exactly how many different events you've been to, Paul?

00:46:43Paul Sinton-Hewitt: No, I'm sure I can look it up, but it's probably edging towards the 200 different parkrun events, probably 190-something.

00:46:51Melissa Erbacher: And do you think you can remember them all?

00:46:54Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Oh, no. Look, if I pick a particular event and sometimes I can't remember, then I go and check my record and say, okay, I've been there. Then I try and recover the thoughts I had when I was there and the course and so on. The most memorable events are not the course. It's definitely the people. It's what happens often not before the event, but mostly after the event. How the community gels, what happens in the coffee shop, how people speak to each other, and so on and so forth.

00:47:34Ian Hay: So I have some very, very fond memories of lots of background courses.

00:47:39Paul Sinton-Hewitt: But I'll tell you for a fact, it's very seldom to do with the actual running. It's a lot to do with the people.

00:47:46Melissa Erbacher: Speaking of the people, we had one of our adventurers visiting Bushy Park earlier this year and he managed to snaffle a little interview with you that was on the podcast. You mentioned in that interview that you would be coming to Australia next year. Is that still on the cards?

00:48:03Paul Sinton-Hewitt: I have an Australian passport and I have a big allegiance to Australia. I would like to, if at all possible, come and travel the whole country. So that's going to be quite an extended trip. And, you know, I probably can't run every single Saturday parkrun. So probably what I'd look to do is maybe start in the north and move all the way down to the south and then to the west and then do as many parkruns during the week as I can. So probably one on a Tuesday and another one on a Thursday or maybe a Wednesday and a and a Friday, and then again on the Saturday. And for each of those, I would be looking to meet the local team and spend time with them, perhaps have a meal or coffee or whatever. But the idea would be that when I'm done, I would pretty much know as much as I could know about Australia and about the Australian community.

00:49:04Scott Trickett: That sounds awesome. You're going to be doing lots of running and drinking lots of coffee because I reckon if we say PSH is coming to town, people are going to make time to be there and go for a run. Are you ready for that?

00:49:16Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Well, I hope so. No, I am. I am. I'm not looking to break any records anymore. I'm just looking to run. If I can run, at the moment I'm running probably three miles every day of the week, probably just under every day of the week, but I'd be quite happy to run three miles every day of the week, that would be absolutely brilliant. Keep me exactly in the shape I think I want to be in. As I continue to get older, I think that's my vision when it comes to running is about enjoying every single run. It's not about breaking records and it's not about being as fast as I possibly can be anymore. It is about who you're on the run with, what you can see, what you can hear, and what memories you left by having that run.

00:50:08Scott Trickett: What about your plans for Christmas and New Year? Will you be running on Christmas Day?

00:50:14Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Absolutely. It's the best parkrun of the year, by the way. And traditionally, well, it's a tradition that I started, obviously. I always wanted every single parkrun to run on every single Saturday that was possible. It just so happened in 2004 that the Saturday was Christmas Day. And I didn't know whether people would come down or not, but I decided that if it was a Saturday, we would definitely run parkrun. And I put the parkrun on that day, and it was brilliant. And they continue to be the most exciting day of the year to run. There's something really, really special about Christmas Day because I suppose everybody's in a specific kind of mood. They're all about presents and sharing. And I think that just carries on straight into the parkrun world. And of course, you get it over and done with very quickly. People don't stick around and have coffee on Christmas morning. They head home and they start the cooking and so on and so forth. But it is by far the most exciting day to run a parkrun. And it's one of those days that you just remember for a very long time. Of course, you feel pretty righteous for the rest of the day, knowing that very few people are out there or running or doing any exercise. Everyone's enjoying some gluttonous feast. So, yeah, I feel totally righteous about it.

00:51:52Scott Trickett: Yeah, I love it too. For me, it was my favourite parkrun memory as well. My first event, we put on Christmas Day and we were struggling a bit for numbers. Then we put on Christmas Day. It was an awesome morning and, you know, momentum just grew from that day. Yeah. So, I'm with you. Can't wait for Christmas Day parkrun. Yeah, it's brilliant.

00:52:13Melissa Erbacher: Another aspect about Christmas... You mentioned that you started parkrun because you didn't want to be lonely or you were lonely and you wanted to see your friends and make arrangements to see your friends. And for some people, parkrun on Christmas Day is the only contact they have with any other people, you know, so it offers that as well.

00:52:37Paul Sinton-Hewitt: To be honest, you're absolutely right again. Christmas Day is a day when you will notice lonely people because it is one of the few things that offers an opportunity for communities to come out and to be with other people. Now, this is something that's very dear to my heart, something that I care very passionately about. parkrun is a gift and it's a gift for everyone. Every single week, when you get your result, that is a gift given to you by the volunteers. And people need to see it in that light. They need to understand that. And I think that it's the nature of it, the fact that it's free, that it's weekly, that we can give that gift to somebody else every single week. And especially when somebody is lonely, we should be looking out for those people. We should be making special effort to, even if it's just to pick them up and drop them off, get them to the parkrun regardless of their activity. They don't have to run. They don't have to walk. They can just stand and observe. If they want, then they can get involved in the volunteering. It is the most precious gift that you can give, and it is a life-changing gift. If you help one person, in that situation this year, their whole life will be different next year. And I guarantee that.

00:54:03Melissa Erbacher: That is absolutely the truth. Paul, thank you so much. I'm sure you get thanked a lot for being the ideas man and for having this wonderful idea and bringing parkrun to the community. Lots of people can have ideas but not everybody takes action or follows through on it. So thank you on behalf of all our listeners, the parkrun adventurers and and the parkrun community in general. And thank you also for joining us on the podcast.

00:54:32Paul Sinton-Hewitt: It's an absolute pleasure. Can I just wish everybody in Australia the best Christmas ever. I wish a very happy and prosperous new year. And also, if I can express my sincere thanks and gratitude to every single person who's ever either run a parkrun or volunteered at a parkrun. because we couldn't do it without you. So God bless you all and I really thank you and I hope that I get to meet as many of you as possible in the next year.

00:54:58Scott Trickett: Time to catch up with another one of our regulars who's been good to us during the year. Welcome back to the pod for the last time this year, Robbo.

00:55:15Dave "Robbo" Robertson: G'day Scotty, g'day Mel and g'day listeners. Great to be back on the show.

00:55:20Scott Trickett: Always good to have you back Robbo. On Saturday, a bit of a special day for you at Newy.

00:55:27Dave "Robbo" Robertson: It was a very special day and an emotion charged day as well. We had a bit of a tragic incident, well not a bit of a, a very tragic incident here in Jennifer Bates, who is a regular parkrunner at Newey parkrun, she was killed tragically in a motor accident. She was riding her scooter on the way to work about nine o'clock in the morning and was involved in an accident at a roundabout, basically just near the halfway point of Newey parkrun. So it's very close to home for the Newey parkrun community. But yeah, she was involved, as I say, with Newey parkrun, her husband, Geordie. Also a regular at Newey and a member of the Newcastle Flyers running group, which I'm also a member of. And yeah, we're still trying to make sense of it. I'm not sure we'll ever make sense of what's happened and just such a sad loss. Jen was 36 years old, had a bright, bright future in front of her. And it's really touched Newcastle. It really has hit home just how much Newcastle is just such a it's like a big country town really and it was just amazing to see the support of the community and the running community especially for Jen's family and Geordie and so yeah Jen's favorite color was purple and we were encouraged to come with it dressed dressed in your purple and come and run parkrun in honor of Jen and there were some even some special barcodes fashioned which were actually purple and a great moment led by Andrew Dodd one of the event team he yeah you know, said, said some great words at the start in, in honour of Jen and we were able to raise our barcode, um, to remember her as well. And then, and then we ran and Geordie, her husband, yeah, you know, somehow he was able to, to be, to be there. And I would, you know, put myself in his shoes. It would be an emotional wreck, but you know, he was very strong and came out and we were able to run with him as, as part of the Newcastle Flyers group. So very, very, very special. Um, Yeah, such a sad story, and coming into Christmas as well, but if there's any way to, I guess, lessen some of the pain, it was certainly seen at the Newey parkrun course on Saturday, and yeah, Geordie himself said how much he appreciated that, and we'll think of Jen when we're running around there, I'm sure, for many weeks and years to come.

00:57:52Melissa Erbacher: I think a lot of people, you said that Geordie was strong in showing up, but I'd a lot of people probably don't realize the impact that the support of your community and the fact that you all wore purple and the greater parkrun community did as well. I wore purple on Saturday for Jen and I was in Queensland. So it would have been happening all over the country. And that kind of support would have given him so much strength. So it's a really lovely thing that you guys and the rest of your community were able to do for him.

00:58:26Dave "Robbo" Robertson: No, and thanks for, yeah, not only yourself, but, yeah, everyone and anyone that got involved. And I know, yeah, down in Canberra and Sydney and, as you say, right around the country. I think it even touched the parkruns internationally as well. Yeah, you know, we feel that loss. And I think, you know, life is just crap sometimes and these sorts of things come up. But it was nice. It was empowering. It was great for people to be able to show their support just by doing something small. A token... gesture wearing purple coming along just being there you don't even have to say anything you know you're supportive by being there and it's you feel so helpless it's great for people to actually feel like they can do something just to show that they support and as was mentioned we had a Christmas run which we do each year here in Newcastle and a group of the Newcastle Flyers got together after a memorial sort of that was conducted and you know yeah just made that point to Geordie and his family you know we're here if you ever need a a run or a coffee or a beer or, you know, a hug or anything, you know, we're here. And I think certainly that was felt by Geordie and his family. And certainly, yeah, a huge thanks, you know, to not only the locals here around Newcastle, but all the parkrunners around Australia for that show of support. It's really special.

00:59:42Scott Trickett: Yeah, nice one, Newcastle. Life is crap.

00:59:46Dave "Robbo" Robertson: Sometimes.

00:59:47Scott Trickett: Let's move on to happier memories. What's been your highlight of the parkrun year?

00:59:52Dave "Robbo" Robertson: Yeah, thanks for asking, Scotty. I had to reflect on this during my run this afternoon, actually around the Newey parkrun course, it ended up being a Freedom Run, but rolling the months all the way back to the start of the year, Scotty, and the newest parkrun event that launched here in the Hunter region, or sometimes known as the region of runners, a little cheekily, but that was on the 30th of January this year, and it was at a place called Raymond Terrace, about 20 minutes north of where I am here in central Newcastle. And it's known as the Terrace parkrun. And that was an amazing celebration. The launches around this part of the world are always pretty staggering in terms of the people that come up from it. It's just a huge party atmosphere and it's a thing you have to be at. I think there's a huge fear of missing out. And everyone that was anyone was there, including Olympian Marty Dent, whose mum and dad just live up the road from there. So he calls that his second home parkrun. And his wife, Kathy, also there. They happen to be the leading, the first finishers in the men's and women's categories on the day. And I actually had Periscope going, live streaming app on Twitter. And I Periscoped the entire thing, which I don't know if it was great viewing or not. But I think a few people tuned in. But there was this incredible moment. It's a two-lap course there. It's on the banks of the river where the hunt the Hunter River flows along there. Two lap out and back course, fairly flat course, very, very, very picturesque. But Marty Dent, to see him have to try and go through the 692 other people who were on the path as he made his way out for the second lap was really quite, he used all his cross-country skills to run up a 45 degree angled slope on the side of that and he made his way through. So his time of 15.53 was certainly a pretty decent time given all that. So that was, That's a big one to kick us off for the year. That was the 12th launch of a parkrun here in the region of runners. I'd have to say just before the Olympics, that was pretty special as well. We talk about parkrun as being something that can be for beginners and all the way up to Olympians as well. And we actually had a real live Olympian during the Olympic Games that he was competing in here at Newey parkrun just before he flew over to Rio. So Scott Westcott, the current parkrun Australia record holder, And yeah, he ran Newey parkrun and then about an hour after he'd started that run was the opening ceremony in Rio. So that was really weird in a way, but it was nice to be able to give Scotty a big send-off and he went out and I think he ran about 15 minutes himself that day, a little bit off his record pace. But yeah, to be able to get behind Scotty, people may know the story behind Scott and he tried for... It seemed like for decades to try and crack it, he finally reached his goal of getting to the Olympic Games. So, yeah, that was fantastic. And he's just a fellow that lives, he loves, he totally understands and gets what parkrun is about and is always happy to support it. And, yeah, great to sort of give back. It was a big thrill for all the parkrunners and, you know, from 20-minute runners to 50-minute runners and walkers to be able to rub shoulders with Scotty. I've got to say as well, my international runs, which you guys heard about on the show in a previous episode, South Africa doing two parkruns over there, Greenpoint parkrun and Durbanville parkrun. And just to get a taste of the craziness, the way that the South Africans are fanatical about parkrun, I thought we were good. We were keen. But the South Africans, I think, have taken it to another level. So that was great to get a taste of that. And then my final one, guys. would be my four-year-old daughter, Grace. Well, firstly, we got her registered for parkrun, which you can do when your kid's turned four. So got her her own barcode, but fairly recently, up on the Gold Coast visiting my sister's place, and she actually completed her first ever 5K parkrun, running and walking a good chunk of it. And it was pretty sticky, as it can get up there, pretty hot and humid, but she got through the whole thing, and I think we're going up to do another one on Christmas Day. egged on by her older cousin, Kate. But pretty special when you start seeing your kids getting their barcodes scanned as well.

01:04:22Melissa Erbacher: That is very special. You've got it all, Robbo. You've got the beginners to Olympians and the adventures.

01:04:30Dave "Robbo" Robertson: A good cross-section there. So, yeah, look, there's just a few that came to mind. But I guess it's been a pretty handy year when I can think back on all those things. Very lucky.

01:04:40Melissa Erbacher: Very lucky. Now, We've been asking everybody this during the podcast this week. It's very important. Do you have a terrible bonbon joke for us to share for Christmas?

01:04:55Dave "Robbo" Robertson: The age-old when is a door not a door, when it's a jar, that usually is just a detail. So that's no dramas, but we'll get that one out of the way. But this one came to me. I was emceeing at Christmas Carols the other night, the Mighty Gregson Park Christmas Carols here in Newcastle, and a lady – I asked if she knew any good jokes or might have got to ask if she could sing me a song. But she came up with this one. She said, how did Mary and Joseph know Jesus was seven pounds six when he was born? Because they had a way in a manger. So I thought that was pretty good. I hadn't heard that one before.

01:05:31Melissa Erbacher: I've been educated. I didn't know he was seven pounds six.

01:05:34Dave "Robbo" Robertson: No, well, yeah, there's a lot of layers to that one. Yeah. So you're welcome to use that. And if you see that in a bonbon this year, well, you'll have to act surprised. But, yeah, no, that's the best I can do for you, I think, guys.

01:05:52Melissa Erbacher: Thanks, Robbo. I think the quality there is up to scratch with the other ones we've received so far.

01:05:58Dave "Robbo" Robertson: Good. I'm glad to hear. Yeah, they're pretty bad at the best of times.

01:06:02Melissa Erbacher: They are, but it's all part of the Christmas charm.

01:06:05Dave "Robbo" Robertson: Fantastic. That's right. That's right.

01:06:07Scott Trickett: Robbo, we've made it to 50 episodes. We're equals now.

01:06:15[applause]

01:06:15Dave "Robbo" Robertson: I don't know if I've actually given you the official round of applause. Raise the bat for your half century. That's fantastic. So please do me one favour and don't stop at 50.

01:06:28Scott Trickett: Well, were you tempted to keep going? Or were you dead set on finishing at 50?

01:06:34Dave "Robbo" Robertson: No, I think it had run its course and... I'm not sure what it was. Russ Jeffries was just blowing up, my co-host, that he could never get the keys to the parkrun Learjet, so he stormed off in a huff and went back to the UK to do some marketing job. So, no, I can't actually remember. I think it just got to a point where we were happy with that and we thought, we've got our 50 shirt, that'll do us. So, I reckon you guys are good for at least a black 100 clubber and I'm even thinking the 250 would look good on on the parkrun Adventurers podcast as well. So I'd say keep your head down, guys. Well done. Well done. Don't forget your barcode. Get it scanned and then, yeah, just keep racking them up. I think you're doing a fantastic job.

01:07:19Melissa Erbacher: Green is our favourite colour.

01:07:21Dave "Robbo" Robertson: Oh, great. Very good. Yeah, thanks, Robert. It's a bit Christmassy too. Ah, pleasure.

01:07:25Scott Trickett: We couldn't have done it without you and your contributions during the year. So if we come back next year, you'll also have to come back every now and then.

01:07:33Dave "Robbo" Robertson: Oh, fantastic. Deal. I'll be more than happy to come on. If you're still game enough to have me on, babbling on as I do, then I'll be more than happy to oblige. So, yeah, love to come on and keep spreading the gospel of parkrun.

Channel 4 News Crew

01:07:51Scott Trickett: Now it's time to catch up with our one and only member of the Channel 4 News crew. In a segment, we like to call, get to know the Channel 4 News crew. Welcome to the pod, underscore PK.

01:08:10Paul Kitching: How are you going, Mel? G'day, Scott.

01:08:12Melissa Erbacher: I'm really well, thanks, PK. And thank you for coming on the show, live, sort of, this time.

01:08:18Paul Kitching: Yeah, well, absolutely. It's an absolute pleasure.

01:08:21Melissa Erbacher: In this live pre-recording.

01:08:24Paul Kitching: Indeed, indeed. No, it's good to hear. Good to hear from you guys. And it's been an absolute pleasure to be involved this year. Congratulations on an awesome year. Well done.

01:08:31Scott Trickett: Thanks, PK. With your help. You've contributed a bunch of roving reports that we've loved. And what inspired you to help us out, get involved and get some stories from SA and around the world?

01:08:44Paul Kitching: Oh, I just, yeah, absolutely. I just, I'm known for getting obsessed with things. And I've only discovered parkrun this year. So parkrun's new, well, new to me from January, I reckon. And I just got obsessed like most parkrun adventurers. And... Then thought, well, I need to share some of this with more people. And then I heard you guys doing great things. And I thought, well, let's share what's happening in South Australia with the rest of Australia from both, you know, already converted parkrunners, but hopefully others that we can help join our cult. Sorry, community.

01:09:23Scott Trickett: Now, we're openly calling it a cult, I think, at this stage.

01:09:26Paul Kitching: Oh, good. Good to hear.

01:09:30Scott Trickett: Now, you're a Mount Barker parkrunner.

01:09:33Paul Kitching: I am indeed.

01:09:34Scott Trickett: Describe Mount Barker to us. Is it hilly?

01:09:37Paul Kitching: Oh, no. No, it's pretty well flat. It's probably the flattest one that I know of in South Australia. West Beach is probably a little bit – it's got a bit of an undulation. But, no, there's a little bit of a dip as you take off. It goes under a bridge, and then it's flat. So it's out the back of the Homemaker Centre, out the back of Mount Barker. Mount Barker's up in the Adelaide Hills. It's probably a – 25 minute drive out of adelaide because i know that because i drive it every saturday so um we do have uh other parkruns closer lochiel and the torrens in the city but um just become a um love become obsessed there it is my obsession um with mount barker because a mate of mine um was volunteering up there uh yeah he wasn't even a runner but he got involved as a volunteer photographer then he started running and then that's how i found out about it and so We just, even though we could go to close ones, which we have gone to, we just love the Mount Barker community. So it's a beautiful community. It's probably on average about 120 to 150 each week. Our best was 204 on our second birthday. And the course itself is just an out and back, 2.5 out and back. And beautiful along the wetlands, the Laratinga wetlands. So very nice.

01:10:52Melissa Erbacher: They are a great community out there. I did a freedom run and Ros came out and showed, I think there were three of us who showed up from Queensland who wanted to do a freedom run one weekend and she came out and showed us the course. So that's the kind of spirit you guys have got.

01:11:07Paul Kitching: Yeah, absolutely. And everyone involved, that's why we're happy to head up there every weekend when we can, most weekends, and get amongst it when we're not parkrun adventuring in other places. So, yeah, love it.

01:11:21Melissa Erbacher: Now, recently you took part in one of those mannequin video challenges. You were one of the first parkruns in Australia, I think, to do it. A few others have tacked on since then. Who organized that and how much planning went into the beforehand part?

01:11:39Paul Kitching: Well, it would have been Gary Denham, one of our photographers. Gary and Charlie Butler and Paul Butler, they share the photography work. Mount Barker parkrun is well known for its photos. I know lots of parkruns are, but in particular, Mount Barker has each week anything from 250 to 400 photos every week because they're obsessed photographers there, which is great. So I think everyone... was willing and able. It wasn't a foreign thing to have a camera stuck in your face. So we already knew that. So we had some willing talent. And then it just went out on the Wednesday or Thursday night on the Facebook page. And it basically said, we're going to do it this week. Just be ready. And everyone had kind of heard about it. We put a few examples up on the Facebook group. And we got into it and did it. And I think we did all right. There was a few people that were a bit eager. and moved. But otherwise, yeah, it was all right. We had fun. It was good fun to get amongst it.

01:12:41Scott Trickett: PK, you also went over to the UK and you got our famous interview with PSH.

01:12:47Paul Kitching: Was that a highlight for you? Absolutely. That would be the other highlight of the year. The first highlight is actually finding out about parkrun. And, sorry, the first highlight is clearly discovering the parkrun Adventurers podcast, let's face it. Then... Great answer. Thank you. And I've been listening since Episode 1. I actually listened back to Episode 1 again today. Oh, dear. How was it? It was all right. No, no, it was good. Hey, everyone improves with age, like a good red wine, yeah? Yeah. No, it was – Going overseas was amazing. I, like good parkrun adventurers, planned our trip, unbeknownst to my wife, around making sure that we were in different places in the UK every Saturday where there was a parkrun near where we stayed. And, yeah, so I did one in London, one in Cornwall and one in Bath. The London one, unbeknownst to me, just happened to be the weekend that we were there was the 12th birthday of Bushy Park and, therefore, the 12th birthday of parkrun. and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time when the man himself who created parkrun, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, was just standing nearby, and I walked up and said g'day, and then I interviewed him for this very podcast underneath the parkrun tree, so therefore the tree that is in the parkrun logo. It was a pretty emotional time, I must say, to not only be there, but then actually to do that, so it was good. Lots of fun.

01:14:20Scott Trickett: Now, you mentioned you've got an obsessive nature about you with parkrun. This isn't a fleeting obsession, is it? You're going to kick around for another year?

01:14:29Paul Kitching: I'll be here for a long run, mate. I've done 39 now, and I've volunteered, I reckon, five times. So pretty well every week. If I don't parkrun, it's a sad day. But, yeah, pretty well every week. And absolutely cannot wait. I reckon I'm hoping to hit my 50 early in the year. Of course, we have the luxury here in South Australia, like most places I know, but certainly Mount Barker has a parkrun on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. And we've got one nearby at 9 a.m. So it is possible to do five parkruns over three, four days, I should say, over two weeks. So that should help me get close to my 50. Yep, I'm in it for the long run, can't wait.

01:15:13Melissa Erbacher: Good to hear. Now, PK, very important question. Have you got a really bad Christmas bonbon joke for us?

01:15:23Paul Kitching: Absolutely. I've got a few, so either you can listen to them all or just, you know, delete the ones you don't like. Would you like two or three?

01:15:31Melissa Erbacher: Give us three and give them in ascending terribleness.

01:15:35Paul Kitching: Okay, let's have a look here. Right, the first one will actually is my daughter told me it, but I've kind of changed it a bit to suit parkrun.

01:15:44Melissa Erbacher: Oh, you've written it yourself. Like it.

01:15:45Paul Kitching: Well, I don't know. So it's either going to die horribly. Yeah, I don't know. What did the policeman say to the parkrun volunteer's tummy?

01:15:56Melissa Erbacher: Oh, my goodness.

01:15:58Paul Kitching: You're under a vest.

01:16:00Melissa Erbacher: Oh, dear.

01:16:03Paul Kitching: Yep.

01:16:05Melissa Erbacher: I like it. Makes sense, doesn't it? We should release a parkrun joke book.

01:16:09Paul Kitching: Yeah, I know, right? I think the original one is, you know, what did the policeman say to his tummy? Yeah, you're under a vest. Okay. Anyway, I had to try and make it a parkrun one. You probably know this, but I still love it. It's one of my favourites. What's orange and sounds like a parrot?

01:16:31Melissa Erbacher: A carrot? Correct. You don't know that one. It's pretty good. I didn't know that one. That was actually an educated guess.

01:16:40Paul Kitching: A carrot. Well done. And the final one, what's the difference between a piano, a tuner, and glue? Well, the answer is that you can tune a piano, but you can't piano a tuner. Have you heard that one before?

01:17:03Melissa Erbacher: But where's the glue?

01:17:04Paul Kitching: I knew you'd get stuck with that. It doesn't make any sense. No, you got stuck with the glue bit. Oh, man. Sorry, that's another. See, that's the thing with having young kids, mate. You got stuck with that. As the absolute dodgiest joke ever.

01:17:26Melissa Erbacher: Oh, dear. That was quality. Those were all excellent. I'm writing them down for my Christmas bonbons.

01:17:33Paul Kitching: You totally should. Hey, congratulations to you guys for an awesome year, by the way. Thank you so much on behalf of all parkrun Adventurers who tune in every week or when they can on the dedication that you guys show to this wonderful community that we have across the world and that you give up your time to create awesome content every week. So well done to both of you, by the way.

01:17:59Melissa Erbacher: Well, you'll make a splash.

01:18:02Paul Kitching: Mate, I'm speaking for many people and thousands, thousands, hundreds of thousands, you know, all the people that tune in. And keep doing great work. I can't wait to see what you do in 2017.

01:18:13Melissa Erbacher: Did you hear that, Scotty? We've got hundreds of thousands of people listening. So obviously the stats that you are downloading are not accurate. LAUGHTER

01:18:20[laughter]

01:18:23Paul Kitching: Oh, you never know. You never know. When people share it, that's what, you know, when people share it on Facebook and share the SoundCloud, you just don't know. They could be, well, I don't know, they could be listening on someone else's device.

01:18:34Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure people are making mixed tapes of us that get played on cassette in really old cars.

01:18:40Scott Trickett: That's right. PK's a newsman. I trust his facts. I'm going with hundreds of thousands of listeners.

01:18:48Melissa Erbacher: Me too.

01:18:50Scott Trickett: Thanks for all your work for us this year too. Have a good Christmas and a new year. Good luck.

01:18:56Paul Kitching: Thank you, mate. All the best to you guys. And thank you so much again. It's been a pleasure. I really appreciate you listening to my yabba, and I look forward to hopefully doing more of it in 2017.

01:19:17Scott Trickett: Mel, that is it. Episode 50 is done. Thank you and congratulations. You know, here's a bit of a history lesson. Can I indulge you?

01:19:31Melissa Erbacher: You mean, can I indulge you? You're more than welcome to indulge me, but I'm not sure what I'm going to ask for, so you could get into trouble.

01:19:42Scott Trickett: We can just keep rambling, because one thing we did prove last week is that, yes, some of you do listen to the end, but then, of course, some of you don't. Anyway, a bit of a history lesson. When the parkrun Show Australia with Robbo and Russ finished, I actually wanted to continue it. I didn't want the podcast to go away in Australia. I just was never really sure how we could continue it. There were some discussions. Nothing really happened. And then I came up with this great idea. Why don't I ask Mel if she'll do it with me? Do you remember?

01:20:16Melissa Erbacher: I remember when you asked, yes.

01:20:18Scott Trickett: Yep. And you said yes straight away.

01:20:20Melissa Erbacher: I'm pretty sure it was caps lock yes as well.

01:20:26Scott Trickett: And so it was. We didn't know what we were going to do. We had a rough idea. I remember we had this little spreadsheet with awesome ideas. And I think we've worked our way through all those awesome ideas this year.

01:20:37Ian Hay: So thanks.

01:20:38Melissa Erbacher: The actual awesome ones I'm pretty sure we covered. There were a couple that weren't so awesome and so, yeah. I think we have gone through them all.

01:20:47Scott Trickett: But now we've got to start a new one.

01:20:49Melissa Erbacher: Awesome ideas for 2017. If we return.

01:20:53Scott Trickett: You want to come back? You want to come back for another year?

01:20:56Melissa Erbacher: I'm not done yet. How about you?

01:20:58Scott Trickett: No, I'm not done yet either. We'll do it one more year.

01:21:05Melissa Erbacher: At least. Green is our favourite colour.

01:21:07Scott Trickett: One more week anyway. It is. How did you know that?

01:21:12Melissa Erbacher: How did I know that? It's our favourite colour. I think your shade of green is possibly different to my shade of green, but it's still green.

01:21:20Scott Trickett: Yeah. But we should finish up how we always finish up. Is there any cake this week?

Launches and anniversaries ("Where is the cake?")

01:21:27Melissa Erbacher: I don't know. Unless you like fruitcake for Christmas, there are no launches or anniversaries. Probably just candy canes, I think, this week. Everybody gets the bonus of having the option of going along to a second parkrun. Two in two days. That hasn't happened before in Australia. Pretty sure.

01:21:47Scott Trickett: Really?

01:21:48Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Don't, don't. Nobody check those facts, okay? I'm calling it. So nobody refute what I've just said. And then it'll be true.

01:21:58Scott Trickett: Didn't we do it last year? We had back-to-back. We did.

01:22:01Melissa Erbacher: No, there was a day in between them last year.

01:22:03Scott Trickett: No, no, there wasn't. We had Christmas and Boxing Day last year.

01:22:08Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, we did. No, no, I'm pretty sure it was Thursday, then day off, and then Saturday.

01:22:13Ian Hay: No, 100%.

01:22:15Scott Trickett: It was Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Saturday. And Boxing Day was Saturday.

01:22:21Melissa Erbacher: You think it was a Friday and a Saturday last year? Really? I'll take your word for it. So that's it for a year. And what are we going to do for the next three weeks when we don't have any podcasts to work on? I guess, you know, we might see our families for a change. That's a novel idea.

01:22:41Scott Trickett: Yeah, Monday night. Get Monday night back. Is anything on the TV on Monday nights?

01:22:45Melissa Erbacher: I doubt it.

01:22:47Scott Trickett: Wouldn't matter anyway. Don't watch TV.

01:22:49Melissa Erbacher: No.

01:22:51Scott Trickett: Go for a run?

01:22:52Melissa Erbacher: It's a bit hot in Queensland to run in the evenings. Also dark. We don't have your spectacular sunshine till 9.30 situation happening up here.

01:23:04Scott Trickett: Hmm. We'll just sit and stare blankly at the wall and waiting for the second week of January where we'll get to do it all again and discuss our Christmas runs, our New Year's Day runs.

01:23:19Melissa Erbacher: Yes, we can talk about the adventures we have had at parkrun over the festive season. I'm looking forward to that.

01:23:26Scott Trickett: So Mel, genuine thanks. This is how I'm going to say goodbye. Couldn't have picked a better host, co-host, to embark on this adventure with. Thanks heaps. I'll see you in a couple of weeks.

01:23:38Melissa Erbacher: I agree. I don't think you could have picked a better co-host.