Episode 92

Episode details · 250 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:10Melissa Erbacher: Welcome to episode 92 of the parkrun Adventurers. We are staring down the gauntlet that is going to lead us to episode 100. Not too many to go, but it's probably like those, you know, whenever you get close to a milestone, those last 10 seem to take about 20 or 30 to get there. How are you doing this week, Scotty?

00:00:32Scott Trickett: Really good, Mel. Thanks for asking. We're in November. We are in November just. Yeah, most people will be listening to this in December. So we're on the final straight. It's nearly over.

00:00:46Melissa Erbacher: It is nearly over. Silly season has well and truly started. Have you started any Christmas shopping yet? Are you doing Christmas this year?

00:00:54Scott Trickett: Of course we're doing Christmas this year. Doing a parkrun. Christmas again. I'm not prepared to do a November Christmas just yet. I think there's been a bit of debate in our house around The Christmas tree, I've suggested that I should make one this year, be a bit rogue, be a bit art deco and come up with my own creation. Yvonne hasn't got as much faith in that idea, but Yvonne, we've still got four weeks to go. This is true. Yourself, has the Christmas tree gone up?

00:01:28Melissa Erbacher: No, we usually save that for the 1st of December, so it may be just going up as people are listening to this podcast. In fact, we should start playing Christmas music or something at the beginning of the podcast just so if people are decorating trees, they can do it to the podcast. Let's do it next week. Let's sing the Christmas carols ourselves.

00:01:49Scott Trickett: Okay, next week. We've got a whole week to record them. But I tell you what, Mel, it felt like Christmas on Saturday.

00:01:56Melissa Erbacher: It did feel like Christmas on Saturday. There's nothing like a new launch to get everybody excited.

00:02:01Scott Trickett: Yeah, I was excited. Spending Saturday morning with all my parkrun family, which is very Christmas-like, opening up a new event, which is like opening up a new present.

00:02:13Melissa Erbacher: Did you have a good time?

00:02:15Scott Trickett: Of course, of course.

00:02:17Melissa Erbacher: For all those playing at home? They know it's a cross-country course. Did you stay vertical for the entire five kilometres?

00:02:23Scott Trickett: I did, but it was funny. I started walking with you and Wes cracked it and you guys blamed it on me, so I took off. But then when I was coming back, because it's an out-and-back, we're talking about North Harbour for those that haven't been following along at home. It's an out-and-back course, but when I came back to see you, nearly fell over. You were distracting me again.

00:02:45Melissa Erbacher: No, no. You were pretending to stack it and then you almost stacked it because you were pretending.

00:02:50Scott Trickett: Yeah, that might have been closer to the truth.

00:02:52Melissa Erbacher: I could take any responsibility for that.

00:02:54Scott Trickett: But that was my only hiccup. Apart from that, I was eyes down, focused, just taking it easy too. One thing I noticed, I didn't think it was hot there. Like it was cold, wasn't it? It was a cool morning.

00:03:06Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it wasn't particularly warm on Saturday.

00:03:08Scott Trickett: But as soon as I started running, I started sweating. Is that the Brisbane humidity thing that I'm not used to? It is the humidity, yeah. It's like, it's not hot.

00:03:17Melissa Erbacher: Why am I hot?

00:03:18Scott Trickett: Why am I sweating?

00:03:22Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, that'll happen up here.

00:03:24Scott Trickett: Definitely not used to it. And it's really cool to sort of fly in, fly out to do a parkrun launch. I could get used to doing that.

00:03:31Melissa Erbacher: You could get used... Well, that's one way to get a lot of parkruns in, isn't it? Hop on a plane all the time. Mind you, I'd, you know... I actually had a dream last night. Next year we're going to take Wes overseas for the first time and I had a dream that I was at the airport and starting to really freak out about it because it's a long haul flight. But how do you get through all, like, if you're going to fly in and fly out for all these launches, don't you get a bit bored? The whole airport plane scenario?

00:04:01Scott Trickett: Here's this week's hot tip. I re-engaged my Netflix account and loaded up my phone with some Netflix series, movies, docos. And Mel, this is where I want your help and the listeners' help. I need some recommendations because there's a lot of stuff on Netflix and you flick through all the lists and I don't really know where to start. There's so many things I want to, but I don't want to invest my time.

00:04:24Melissa Erbacher: If it's not going to be any good. Yep. Well, you can just do what Adam does and you can start watching the series and then stop when you get bored of it.

00:04:32Scott Trickett: Yeah, well, that's one way. But I want to cut out the starting when it's crap. I want you to just give me your top Netflix tips. I'll tell you what mine are.

00:04:43Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:04:43Scott Trickett: So I've heard about Stranger Things. Everyone's gone crazy for Stranger Things. So I started up that and I'm pleasantly surprised. It's a bit scarier than I thought it was going to be.

00:04:55Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, the first season is scarier than the second season. Okay. In my opinion. But it's good. It's good. It's very stand-by-me meets, you know, E.T.

00:05:08Scott Trickett: Yeah. I just like the 80s references. They're like the keyboard synth sounds.

00:05:13Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, there's good music. Yeah.

00:05:15Scott Trickett: It just works. It's very good. And the kids, man. My goodness. They're good actors.

00:05:20Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, they don't. They are good actors. I would agree with that.

00:05:24Scott Trickett: Yeah, like can you imagine, peel back the curtain and when they're doing all those scenes, there's like cameras and lights and a hundred people standing around watching him do all those scenes. To stay in character and to be actors, it's hard. It's a hard gig. That's why we pay them a lot of money. And these kids were just fantastic. But that was Stranger Things. I also went back to Toast.

00:05:47Melissa Erbacher: Excellent. You need the happy, funny choices. IT Crowd is also on Netflix. If you haven't seen that in a few years or if you've never seen it, I can recommend that.

00:05:59Scott Trickett: Never got into that, so that's something to revisit.

00:06:02Melissa Erbacher: What else is good on Netflix?

00:06:05Scott Trickett: Well, let's leave it to our listeners. We want some Netflix tips. We also want Netflix to come at us with their sponsorship after this last three minutes of talking about them.

00:06:13Unidentified speaker: Yes.

00:06:15Melissa Erbacher: Yes. parkrun Adventurers, a Netflix original. It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

00:06:21Scott Trickett: Hey, you're going to write a book one day. I think skip the book, go straight to the TV series. Are we going to be a TV series or a movie?

00:06:30Melissa Erbacher: Oh, like we could be a midday movie. No, I don't know. Miniseries could work, you know, something along the scale of, you know, we need a budget akin to Game of Thrones or Downton Abbey. We need one of those kinds of budgets. But we could make it work, I reckon.

00:06:51Scott Trickett: Any ideas who would play you?

00:06:53Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's an excellent question. Who would you like to play you? I don't know. I'm going to have to think about that one. Have you got any ideas who would play you?

00:07:05Scott Trickett: Well, have you got any doppelgangers in the Hollywood world?

00:07:11Melissa Erbacher: I do, actually.

00:07:12Scott Trickett: Oh, really? We'll share. We'll get in touch with them and see if they're interested.

00:07:17Melissa Erbacher: Alyson Hannigan. I've been told repeatedly over the years that she is my doppelganger. She's my celebrity doppelganger. Okay. For those of you who don't know who Alison Hannigan is, she played Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but more recently was Lily in How I Met Your Mother.

00:07:36Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:07:38Melissa Erbacher: Also on Netflix.

00:07:39Scott Trickett: Well, I miss both of them, so now I'm going to go back and look up Alison Hannigan.

00:07:45Melissa Erbacher: Yes, but have you got a doppelganger?

00:07:47Lyndell Murray: I don't think so. You're going to tell me it's somebody like, no, George Clooney's too old.

00:07:55Melissa Erbacher: I think the listeners need to send us some suggestions for who should play Scotty in the movie, in parkrun, the movie.

00:08:03Scott Trickett: We're putting our listeners to work this week. We want Netflix recommendations and also who they think would play us in the TV series, the Netflix original series. of the parkrun adventurers love it back for another round with the parkrun adventurers is the big cheese of parkrun global do you like that title brilliant yeah i think it might be the first time i've been officially called a big cheese but it's good

00:08:43Tom Williams: You're officially the big cheese.

00:08:47Melissa Erbacher: Everybody loves cheese.

00:08:49Tom Williams: Yeah.

00:08:51Scott Trickett: Now, you're back with us because we're going to talk about parkrun Germany, which we've launched parkrun in a few countries lately and around the world, but there's something about Germany. I think it's going to be massive.

00:09:07Tom Williams: Yes, I do. I agree.

00:09:09Scott Trickett: Tell us about how it came about.

00:09:12Tom Williams: Well, it's really interesting because I think we, so we're in Germany, we'll be number 19, I think, country number 19. And we've been really successful in some countries and not so successful in other countries. And I don't think we've, to this point, really cracked the answer in terms of how do we really grow Part Run outside of where we've kind of already been successful. So that really mostly South Africa, Australia, uh, UK and Ireland, obviously there's some part of our territories like New Zealand and Russia and Poland and, and a few others where we've, where we've, you know, got a reasonable number of runners, but it's, but it's been difficult and challenging. And so we, we kind of put new countries on hold a little bit, probably a year ago, we started Canada and we started Sweden, um, just just over a year ago and we we kind of that they were the last countries we started territories we started on on the of the older model where we thought you know what we'll do is we'll create a whole thing so we'll you know we'll look for sponsors and partners and build a company and and really kind of create the whole thing from the start and and um we thought maybe maybe that's not the right way to do it we'll revisit it and so we we were thinking about that and then um We get probably, I don't know, two or three requests a day from different countries or different weird and wonderful places, you know, from aircraft carriers to army bases to space stations to whatever it might be. And we kind of, we turned mostly pretty much all of them down because we didn't quite know how to do it. And then Germany, we're in Germany, we just had loads of it. such a diverse range of people so from you know australian and south african parkrunners who've done 200 parkruns who've moved there and we're missing parkrun you know all the way through to um somebody who's going to be the the kind of co-event director of of a partner parkrun in a place called osnabrück a 16 year old girl called clara who has done a year's placement in um in the UK with a family as part of a kind of schooling. And I'd seen parkrun, I think it was Beeston parkrun in Nottingham and loved it so much and has gone back and is going to be starting her own parkrun in January and kind of everything in between. So we're thinking, how do we harness this amazing excitement about parkrun and this great diverse community level of interest and so on. And we were also, at the same time, part-run Poland was growing to the point where it was nearly 50 events. It is 50 events now. And Jakub was managing that as a volunteer. And he'd grown part-run Poland over six years to 50 events a week nearly and 2,500, 3,000 runners a week. And so we thought, maybe there's an opportunity here to join those two things together in terms of resourcing it so we worked with Jakob probably six months ago to create a role for him where he'd be partly a full-time role, so he became an employee of parkrun, and so he'd be partly, as part of his role, he's supporting parkrun Poland and continuing to grow it, and as part of his role, he is looking after new events in Germany, and what we felt was he was... had a great depth of experience in starting new events outside of the UK and really, really understood that kind of event support type role. And so we thought, you know what, if we could put some weight behind it in terms of generating publicity and so on and then create this situation where we're just going to fire loads of prospects at Jakob in Germany and all he has to worry about is starting new events and supporting new events and he doesn't have to worry about any other things so we're not you know we're not really going to have sponsors there uh in the early days we're not going to worry about too much other than getting events going um and uh so it's been interesting so it's been you know it's been a joy to work with everybody over there and and yeah here we are we've got three events um scheduled to start on saturday uh december 2nd We've got three events. So that's Osnabrück, Mannheim and Hanover. And then we've, it's Osnabrück, no, Leipzig, Mannheim and Hanover. And then in January, we've got, I think, Berlin and Munich and Osnabrück scheduled to go. So it would be six in the first two months already scheduled. And I think the most any country's ever started in the first year is 10. And that was Canada. Yeah. The most runners any country's ever had in the first year is 600 a week, I think, in total across six events, I think, in South Africa. So it'll be interesting to see how it grows. But it's a departure for us in terms of the way we start in other countries. And I think it has a lot of implications for how we might start in countries in the future.

00:14:23Melissa Erbacher: Okay, Tom, you just managed to wipe out about half a dozen questions that I had for you. However, I'm not going to let you just casually mention aircraft carriers and space stations and move on without explaining. So please tell me, people want parkruns on aircraft carriers and space stations?

00:14:44Tom Williams: Yeah, well, they kind of do and they don't. Yeah, they kind of do. So we do get a whole raft of really interesting – really interesting requests and so um we had one i had one recently from a from a british aircraft carrier um and um but i but when we looked at it it was a little bit too small um so the kind of the i don't know what you call it the flight deck bit was a little bit too small i don't know whether it happened anyway but you know on one hand we don't want to go down the route of novelty parkruns that that cost us loads of effort and time on the other hand there are you know there are there are examples of ones, of part-run events that can really make a difference, yet they might be unusual. So Camp Bastion, for example, which was a part-run that doesn't exist anymore, but was in a British army base in Afghanistan, made a real difference to the people that were serving Afghanistan during that time. And we've not got another one. And we get a lot of requests, a lot of requests for those kind of events. And at the moment, we don't quite understand the scalable way to do it. So, you know, there are problems around temporary events and there are problems around regular cancellations and events where we can't communicate with them very easily. So we don't know whether they've cancelled or not, and that messes up our system and so on. So I think those kind of one-off unusual events are things that are maybe for the future, but we're certainly interested. And, you know, we, we did, you know, there was a, You may have seen when Tim Peake, the astronaut, went to space and ran a London marathon, like a mock London marathon on a treadmill. The year before, I think an American astronaut had done it with running Boston Marathon in the space station. We had a few conversations with a few people about potentially there being a part run there, but nothing's come of it yet. I think we need a young junior part runner to become an astronaut one day and then And then be so determined that he or she doesn't want to miss their parkrun when they're up and out of space that they insist on there being a parkrun on the space station.

00:16:59Scott Trickett: Well, we need to get Elon Musk or Richard Branson out of the parkrun. We need to convert them into parkrunners and then they'll just include it as mandatory. Part of their needs.

00:17:09Tom Williams: Yeah, they'll make it mandatory, yeah. On Mars. Imagine one day being apart on Mars. You never know.

00:17:15Scott Trickett: You heard it here first.

00:17:17Tom Williams: Let's go back from Mars.

00:17:18Scott Trickett: Let's go back to Germany. I think one of the reasons why I think it's going to be massive is because there's a great culture in Germany of organized sport running, but also of volunteering. I think the Germans are known for being very meticulous and structured, but they're also good volunteers. I think that's going to be helpful getting these events up and going. Maybe one of the reasons why we've got so many ready to go already is

00:17:41Tom Williams: Yeah, so the thing that really struck us, we went to Germany earlier this year and went round a load of cities in a few days and met everybody and we were kind of prepared and expected everybody to be excited and organised and really, really up for it. I think the thing that was fascinating was, and you guys will get this, I'm sure, when you're talking about parkrun and you to people that haven't necessarily been before and haven't experienced it. And you're having to explain the whole, it's a run, not a race. It's about the community. It's about coming together. It's about volunteering. It's about socialising and friendship and all those things that it's not really even a run, let alone not a race. And so we did expect, because there's such a culture of kind of sport, we did expect to have to have that conversation a lot around it being, you know, much more than a sporting event. And actually, I don't think we had to have that conversation a single time. And again and again and again, you know, people were saying, you know, how can we engage the refugees? I mean, that's probably the biggest, most common question we got time and time again, was how do we engage refugees? Can we help use this to help refugees become part of the community and integrate? And, you know, how do we engage people with disabilities? And how do we engage kids and families You know, we just constantly had those questions, which was caught, you know, I was over there with PSH, obviously the big cheese, and James Kemp, our global operations manager, and Jakob. And we were just blown away by how repeat, you know, how common those questions were and a total lack of misunderstanding around the whole kind of, you know, competitive side of things. So it was overwhelming, really.

00:19:37Melissa Erbacher: In terms of the events that you've got lined up and ready to go, are the event teams themselves, you know, is there a combination of like expats or people from other countries that have moved back to Germany after experiencing parkrun elsewhere that are behind starting up the events?

00:19:56Tom Williams: Like a total mix. I mean, you know, again, it's been fascinating. You know, we've got, you know, when I think about it this weekend, we've got Hanover Park. park I can't remember the actual name of the event but it's in Hanover we've obviously we've given them names based on the parks and I've not been so involved in the last couple of weeks but we've got an event in Hanover being set up by a guy called Dirk Gross and he's part of a like a social running group called Hanover Runners and so you know they hadn't really experienced parkrun before and they're all German but they've got this kind of social running group and they'd heard about parkruns Um, and so, you know, that's fast kind of pure German event team who hadn't even really been to part one before. Um, and then, um, you've got, uh, Mannheim, you've got kind of, you know, British expats starting that then. And I think one of them is on 99 or 190 99, I think, or 96 runs or something. So, you know, she's really excited to do a hundredth run at a parkrun. She has started, she's a British expat apartment. She has started in Germany. You know, then you've got, you know, there's people, there's a chap called Ralph Behrens who, you know, is a retired Lufthansa aviation technician who'd never really experienced part run before, but had heard about it. We've done some, Glenn Turner, head of comms in the UK, had done some comms about it in a German newspaper and quite a few people heard about it. And so Ralph's this competitive high jumper who worked for Lufthansa as an engineer for his whole career and when we went out there he lives in Hamburg and he flew down to Munich for the first meeting just so he could be at the first ever meeting of parkrun and then he came over to where was it Berlin or somewhere in Metz again and then he actually has been instrumental in a lot of the stuff we've done and he has interestingly no real interest in starting, going across all of Germany, rather than focusing on one event, what can I do? And so, yeah, it's everything. I don't know, we've met a few Aussies over there, but I don't think we've got any Aussie starting events just yet, but I'm sure they will.

00:22:16Scott Trickett: They'll come. They're coming.

00:22:18Tom Williams: Yeah, they're everywhere. They are.

00:22:20Scott Trickett: Now, a couple of weeks ago, parkrun also released the Virtual Volunteer, which is an app that which is a stopwatch and a scanner in one. I saw it in action last Saturday. It was awesome. Yeah. And I've had a play around with it.

00:22:34Tom Williams: Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?

00:22:35Scott Trickett: It is. It is. It's the future. It's the future of barcodes.

00:22:38Tom Williams: Yeah, designed by Aussies. We can talk about that. Yeah, designed by... Made in Australia.

00:22:42Scott Trickett: Before we get there, when you launch in Germany, they're not going to have stopwatches and barcodes. They're just going to have this app. So that's a step forward. App only, yeah.

00:22:54Tom Williams: Yeah, so... it's a really complex situation. So if we go right back to where we are now, so where we are now is in general in parkrun, as everybody knows, is we have paper barcodes as the primary way to bring your, to identify yourself in parkrun. You can buy wristbands and you can buy plastic tokens, which can be a little bit more durable or like in case of the wristband, you can have one on you all the time. But that system works really, really, really well. So we process people in excess of 200 000 walk jog run performances every single week really quickly really accurately really cheaply and actually you know there's a number of kind of parkrun kind of spin-offs or copies or whatever you want to say around the world where other organizations have tried to replicate parkrun and that's one of the things i probably shouldn't tell them but that's one of the things they often get wrong is they over technologize that process of recording someone's instance of participation and and you know, there's a number of critical things there. You know, one is about maximising human interaction. So we want a person to kind of, you know, record you going over the line and give you something in the part of a barcode and scan something. And that's encouraging human interaction, which is really, really important. And also, at the same time, when, you know, to scale and to grow, when we, I think this weekend, we're starting, I think, 14 events around the world this weekend. It'll take us over 1,300 in total. And when you're, when you're growing and like that, you need things to be simple and easy and scalable because if, you know, if you're trying to get out of their timing chips and timing mats of the ages, it's just not going to work at scale. And so, so kind of where we are worked really, really, really well. We process, you know, more results than anybody else in any, probably in any sporting environment. Um, but there are some problems. And so, so, you know, printers, could be a problem. So, you know, could the death of the printer be the death department? So, you know, if everybody's printers kind of disappears tonight and none of them had any printers, that would be a real problem. Now, I know people could kind of bring a barcode on their phone and, you know, we could have scanners that scan that, but there's lots of complexities there, you know, around accessing ice details. If somebody has an incident around the technology required to do that, around if you've got an event with 1,000 runners, and we probably have about 45 events with 1,000 runners a week. Most of them are in South Africa. You add 10 seconds per person because somebody can't remember the passcode for their phone or the battery goes or whatever it is, then you've got a real problem. So we're kind of aware... that paper barcodes are an issue. And this is, I'm going on for a slight tangent, but we also don't know necessarily what the solution is. So what, you know, how will we be identifying people in 10 years time? We don't really know. So obviously, obviously technology is an interesting thing. And so one of the issues we have is we're starting, we'll probably start 500 events next year. So we've got 1300 at the moment. We'll start, like I say, 500 next year, probably. But that's going to grow. We're probably going to peak at about 1,000 events a year, new events per year. That is within the next few years. And actually sending everybody a couple of scanners, which are £100 each, and a couple of stopwatches, which are £25 each, and a laptop, which is £300. You know, that's a challenge as you grow. And then actually servicing that. I think we replace about 1,000 stopwatches a year at the moment, and that's going to grow. And then... You know, some countries can't afford that. And in some countries, the logistics of doing that is difficult because the postal service is a challenge. And so we're constantly looking, you know, almost every day we're considering, you know, what is the future of recording people and timing people and identifying people and processing results? And how does that work? Because if we sit on our laurels, actually, we could suddenly find ourselves in a position where we don't have the answer. And then, so a number of people had created, we've probably seen, I don't know, six or seven scanning and timing apps that have been built by part-run volunteers randomly here and there around the world, kind of unofficial things, you know, over the years. I know a few events use kind of off-the-shelf scanning apps on phones and stuff as a backup if they're stopwatching, particularly their stopwatch goes. So we'd kind of be mulling it over. And then we saw a great little company in Australia called Newism, who has an employee who was part of the core team, Penny, who's part of the core team at Newy parkrun. They had built their own scanning, timing and scanning app. So this is essentially kind of what you see now as a part of a virtual volunteer. They built it. on iOS, and we're using it to do the timing and scanning at Newey parkrun, which is obviously one of Australia's biggest. And so, yeah, so we saw that and thought, that's really good, actually. And it was the best example we'd seen of it happening. And we felt that if we didn't move with developing something like that, we would be vulnerable to to other people doing it. And of course, if somebody does it as a third party and we can't control it, and then suddenly thousands of event teams are using it and they start advertising alcohol or cigarettes, or they, you know, steal loads of data. I mean, you can't really do that yet, but you know, it's a, it's a vulnerability. So we picked up the phone to, to Levi, who, who's the founder of Nuism and to Penny and said, we really, really, really love what you do. We think it's excellent. Um, but can we make it an official parkrun, um, app? So can we bring it within our ecosystem? So can you create, you know, can you create it for us effectively and allow us to kind of vote to, and then they'd be absolutely brilliant to work with. I mean, absolutely brilliant. And so we very quickly, probably in the space of a couple of months, work with them to turn it into the part of a virtual volunteer, as you see, which is really, really great. Um, And we are very, very close to launching an Android version. So we'd have Android and Apple kind of parity really quickly, which would be great. And the only reason we haven't got that from the start is that, you know, they had already built it pretty much 95% of its iOS app and was really good. And we figured let's, let's finish it off and then replicate it rather than try and build two in parallel. Um, So there we go. So now people can go to the App Store and download the Part 1 Virtual Volunteer. It allows you to time or scan. Now, I think what's really, really important is actually, in the Australian context, and certainly this is something we've stressed in the UK, is essentially there is no impact on the event teams. There's no obligation for them to use it. So they can carry on using the existing hardware that they use. We'll support that. I mean, definitely we'll replace it. If there's stopwatch breaks, we can replace stopwatches. If there's scanner breaks, we can replace scanners. It's 100% supported across all of Australia and the UK. If people, if event teams want to try and use the part of virtual volunteer, they're welcome to, but it's entirely the discretion of the event director. So if the event director of an event wants to use it, use it at their event, either as a backup or as their main system, then they're welcome to. I think it works really, really well. The only real challenge we found at the moment is rain. And you don't get much of that in Australia. So I don't think there's too much of a problem there. But like I say, it's not compulsory for teams at all. What we're doing in Germany is we're trialling. And we've done this entirely with the collaboration of the German teams, who we know really quite well now. We're trialling the... kind of principle of making them app only so essentially what they'll do is they'll launch they won't use timers or scanners they'll use the part of a virtual volunteer and because you don't then need specific drivers to remove the software and remove the timer files and scanner files from the hardware you can then use any computer so they can then email it to their own computers and process the results themselves on whatever device they really want to Um, so obviously we've never done that before, so we don't know whether it'll work. We feel fairly confident. Um, but we'll see. So yeah, so it's kind of experimental at the moment in Germany as a, as a, as a function. But when you look at some of the countries we want to get into and some of the challenges we face financially in those countries or logistically as countries, You know, when we think of the long term, then I would imagine that the kind of the longer term solution resides somewhere in this kind of technology. That was a long answer.

00:32:19Melissa Erbacher: That was a very thorough, excellent answer. Thank you, Tom.

00:32:23Tom Williams: No problem.

00:32:25Melissa Erbacher: It's being adopted in Australia across the board. Some people are trialing just the scanning part one week and then just the stopwatch one week. Some are just diving in going, we don't want to use the other things anymore. Let's test this out. I do know that a lot of events are wondering whether or not, and this is a behind-the-scenes thing, so some adventurers might not know what we're talking about, but the software that parkrun uses, WebFMS, it's not super user-friendly on a phone. Are there plans to make that more friendly?

00:32:59Tom Williams: Yeah, yeah, definitely plans to make it more friendly. So our kind of global technical lead is a chap called Ian Rutzen who is working mostly in his head at the moment in terms of what a WebFMS 2.0 might mean. So yeah, for people who aren't familiar with that, we have a Paul created the systems. When Paul first started parkrun, it was him and a clipboard and a stopwatch and a pencil and an Excel sheet. And then Paul then built this thing that he called FMS, which he rather catchily had titled Field Management Software. And that was this kind of system that processed all the results. So that's developed over the years to WebFMS, which was where it became like an online portal system. which was developed largely by a guy called Alan Dempster in Scotland quite a few years ago now. And so we're kind of WebFMS is what we use. I think, you know, one of the issues we have is because we're becoming more and more and more diverse in where we are, I think it's less and less likely there will be a solution for everybody. So we might, you know, in 10 years' time, we might have events in, I don't know, rural Tanzania or something where it is paper barcodes, stopwatches, and a part-on provided laptop, let's say, kind of how it is now. But then we might have events in San Francisco where you scan and time on a mobile device and that uploads in real time to the cloud and And then the run director, as soon as the events finish, the run director can just open their phone or their mobile device or iPad or whatever it is, they can just open their device and there already are all the results ready to be kind of fiddled with, edited a little bit. We might have a system then that means we don't have unscannables anymore. And they upload it straight away. So I think it will be, where it goes will be interesting, where it goes in 10 years will be interesting, but but absolutely, you know, the kind of the thoughts around making the results processing platform for event teams, much, much, much more user-friendly that's, that's right at the front of our mind. Although I do think, I think all event teams should have to spend the first three months using the original system first as a kind of a passage of rights as a kind of initiation so that they appreciate where we are now, because it was a, In the early days of Woodhouse Moor parkrun, when I started it in Leeds in 2007, we had to have a laptop to do the registration of the individual at the run. And so we'd probably at the peak, I think we probably had three or four laptops at the end of the event. And you'd come along and you'd say, what's your name? Mel or Scott. What's your date of birth? And what's this? And you'd be fine. You know, it's snowing and you've got someone over you with an umbrella and it's minus 10. And you're trying to find their name on the database and all that. So I think everybody should have to do that. In fact, everybody should probably have to do that at a Siberian parkrun. So they really appreciate it.

00:36:14Scott Trickett: I'll tell you what, our complaints would drop if we did do that.

00:36:20Tom Williams: Yeah.

00:36:20Mark Porritt: Because we never want to go back to it. Tom, thanks for sharing all this behind the scenes sort of stuff. I think parkrunners... No worries. Thank you.

00:36:29Scott Trickett: I think there's, you know, parkrunners have ownership over parkrun. To hear all this stuff is great. So thanks for coming on the podcast again.

00:36:36Tom Williams: Yeah, no, thank you. Look, it's an absolute pleasure. And I really genuinely appreciate the opportunity to share the kind of some of the inside stuff and hopefully give people a bit of clarity around what we're doing and where we're going and why we make decisions we do. So, yeah, thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you.

Channel 5 News Crew

00:37:04Lyndell Murray: Hi ho, it's Lyndell the Adventurer here reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew on the parkrun Adventurers. If you listen to the podcast regularly you will already know that I am at the North Harbour parkrun this morning and so are Mel and Scotty. So it's my first meeting with Mel and Scotty and I've got to try and track them down amongst the crowds here at the parkrun launch. Now last week Connie was on the podcast and she said that she thought she might get two to three hundred people here now I go to a few launches in Brisbane I know that Brisbane parkrunners love a launch I think she might be being a bit shy so I'm a bit worried that Scotty and Mel might miss me so to make sure that doesn't happen I have made myself stand out a bit and I've kitted myself out as a proper parkrun Channel 5 News crew reporter. Now, to do this, I've channeled PK. Now, PK, well, last week he was naked, but he's been known to deck himself out in a safari suit when reporting for the parkrun Adventurers. So here I am in my safari suit. Mel, just for you, I have got my sequined standard issue Channel 5 News Crew microphone. And for you guys, the listeners. You've said that in the Perlustration that Kermit the Frog was your favourite frog. And I have a sneaking suspicion that that's a bit subliminal. I reckon that the reason why you guys all like Kermit the Frog is because of his roving reports for the Sesame Street News. So for you, the listeners, in recognition of Kermit the Frog and his reporting, I've tracked down a Kermit the Frog style reporter hat. So let's see if I can find Scotty and Mel or more to the point, let's see if they can find me. I'll talk to you again soon. Alright, so I've caught up with Lynne. Now Lynne, I understand that you did your first ever parkrun today here at North Harbour.

00:39:09Lynne: Yeah, it's a lovely course. It's the first time I've been registered for parkrun for about two years. So it's finally good to actually put a plan into action and be here. It's an absolutely fabulous course along the Caboolture River and it's been a really exciting morning. A big turnout for a first parkrun. And I'm really excited to have done my first parkrun here. And yeah, I'll be back.

00:39:32Lyndell Murray: It's a lovely spot, isn't it? So will this be your home parkrun?

00:39:36Lynne: No, I actually live in Northside, Brisbane, but this is a really good run for a trail run, really scenic and lots of trees. So, yeah, it's probably good for a few different training places to put this one on your map because it's not just, you know, the basic pavement. A few extra degrees of difficulty, isn't there? Yeah, there is a few jumps over a few cowpats, but it's absolutely sensational scenery, great breeze here. It was just really lovely.

00:40:03Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Well, thanks for your time on the podcast today, Lynne, and happy parkrun adventuring. Yeah, see you next Saturday. So I've caught up with the crew. There's a pretty strong contingent here today from my home parkrun of Bunyaville, and here's just a few of them. I've got Tara.

00:40:16Tim: Tim. Stuart. Peter.

00:40:19Lyndell Murray: Sue. And how did you go today? How does it compare to Bunyaville? How would you rate the course here at North Harbour? I think it was just as hard as Bunyaville without the hills.

00:40:28Neil: Yeah, it's different running on a cross-country course for a change, so it was nice.

00:40:31Unidentified speaker: Yeah, hard to find your footing in today's run, very hard.

00:40:34Neil: I'm glad Bunyaville doesn't have so many cowpats.

00:40:37Lyndell Murray: And I had a fall. Oh, no, that's no good. I think there was a couple out there today, so don't feel too bad, Sue. Training. There's a few stacks at home sometimes too. Oh, yes, done that. Thanks for your time today, guys.

00:40:53Tanya: Thanks.

00:40:54Lyndell Murray: So I've found a couple of avid parkrun adventurers in Tim and Neil. G'day, Tim. G'day, Neil. How are you going today?

00:41:00Tim: Not too bad, thank you. Very well, thanks.

00:41:02Lyndell Murray: And what number parkrun is this for you in terms of different parkruns?

00:41:07Tim: 32 for me. 53 for me.

00:41:09Lyndell Murray: So you've been around a bit. How did you rate the course today? What did you like about it? And will you come back?

00:41:15Tim: Very different course today. Had to really focus on where you're running, where your feet are going, being through the cow paddocks. But something different. I enjoyed the scenery. It was very nice.

00:41:23Neil: I didn't have much time to look at the scenery. I was more concentrating on my footwork. But it was a great course. Probably the only country course in Brisbane and highly recommend it.

00:41:33Lyndell Murray: There's another one down at Greenbank, south of Brisbane, so if you liked this course, get down there and check that one out. Do you reckon you'll come back or will you keep searching for more new parkruns to do?

00:41:42Tim: There's quite a few different parkruns to tick off, so I'll probably keep hunting around before I sort of venture back in this direction. It's a fair drive from home as well, so I'll probably head south of Brisbane to see what I can find down there.

00:41:53Lyndell Murray: All right, well done for coming along. And you, Neil?

00:41:55Neil: Yeah, you mentioned Greenbank. That's on my list, so now I've done this one, I think Greenbank might be the next one to go to. Yeah, so...

00:42:02Lyndell Murray: And if I can offer you another challenge, I'm always keen to plug Bunyaville, my home parkrun out in the western suburbs of Brisbane, trail run. A bit hillier than this, though, guys.

00:42:12Tim: I've done Bunya. Have you tried Nambour?

00:42:14Lyndell Murray: I've done Nambour.

00:42:14Tim: Yeah, that's a bad one.

00:42:17Lyndell Murray: So this one's a bit easier, so maybe come back here. All right, guys, thanks a lot.

00:42:23Neil: Thank you. Thanks very much.

00:42:25Lyndell Murray: Okay, so there are a couple of things happening here today. We are not only launching parkrun here at North Harbour, but we are also embracing the Commonwealth Games 2018. For those of you that don't know, maybe you've been living under a rock, I don't know, the Commonwealth Games will be here in Queensland on the Gold Coast early next year, April next year. So Arne is here and I'll just get her to explain what's going on and why are we embracing the Commonwealth Games and what's the involvement with parkrun?

00:42:54Arne: Hi, yeah, so the Embracing 2018 Legacy Program for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games is all about community involvement and community excitement in and around the games, but also about sort of inspiring people to... you know, create change within their communities and part of that is about inspiring people to be healthy and active in their lifestyles. We sort of approached parkrun a while ago because we're aware that this great volunteer-run community movement, for want of a better word, has just been spreading like wildfire across the country and we felt that You know, it really embodies what we're trying to achieve through the Legacy Program and we're really proud to partner with parkrun Australia and the Legacy Program is supporting 20 new sites across the country in the lead up to and during the Commonwealth Games.

00:43:47Lyndell Murray: All right, so I might put you on the spot here, so it's okay if you can't answer this question, but this podcast is for parkrun adventurers. We like travelling around to different parkruns. So can you give us a bit of a hot tip on where some of the other events might be popping up?

00:44:01Arne: Okay, so actually one of the events that was simultaneously launching today, which is probably not a surprise, is in the Miles out in central western Queensland. In terms of some of the other ones, we are looking to do another, I think another six in southeast Queensland and around another six across the rest of Queensland as well. But that's probably as much info as I can give you at the moment.

00:44:26Lyndell Murray: Well avoided there. Fabulous. I know it's difficult. When you've got all this news and you can't tell anyone, that's okay. We'll keep it close to our chest and we'll stay tuned to the podcast and tuned to Embrace 2018 and find out more about it. Thanks for coming along. Thanks for talking to me on the podcast and all the best with the program.

00:44:44Arne: Great. Thank you.

00:44:47Lyndell Murray: Okay, so I've tracked down Connie, the event director here at North Harbour. How are you going today? Very well. It's been a great morning so far. And everything went smoothly for you? You're happy with the way the launch went?

00:45:00Connie: Yes, it went very smoothly and everyone seems to have enjoyed themselves. That's the main thing.

00:45:07Lyndell Murray: Well, I've enjoyed myself. The course was fabulous. I love the permanent signage. So you've had great support from your sponsors and so forth in setting up the parkrun here? Yeah.

00:45:15Connie: Absolutely. North Harbour. Developers have been absolutely amazing. So making sure the road into the estate was ready on time, all the permanent signage and just support in general. They've been amazing. Excellent.

00:45:34Lyndell Murray: And you've had quite a few adventurers like myself here today. How many people have registered for North Harbour as their home parkrunner? Have you got a few people that we can draw on to volunteer and help the event keep running?

00:45:47Connie: I haven't checked in the last week, but I think I was up to about 40 or 50 registered like North Harbour ones. So that's not too bad.

00:45:55Lyndell Murray: That's pretty good. And how many here today do you know?

00:45:57Connie: I think in the order of 240.

00:46:05Lyndell Murray: Excellent. That's a pretty good start, right? So well done. Is there anything else that you'd like to say to the parkrun adventurers?

00:46:12Connie: Thank you. parkrun Australia and parkrun Adventures for all their support as well, and especially Mel. She has been amazing, as always.

00:46:22Lyndell Murray: Awesome. Well, thank you, and thanks for the great work that you've done, not only for this community, but the other communities where you've set up parkruns and volunteered over so many years, Connie. Well done, and thank you. Thank you. Well, I think that's about it for me. I think that's a wrap from North Harbour parkrun today. As you've heard from the guests that I've spoken to during the roving report, North Harbour is a cross-country, off-road type event. Grass, cow paddies, bit of trail. It's lovely scenery through cow paddocks and along the beautiful Caboolture River. Lots of trees, lots of grass, very green areas. And probably a bit of shade in summer perhaps. So it might be a good one to check out over Christmas if you're looking to adventure. And if you're living in the area, get along and volunteer and help Connie out with keeping the run going. That's it for me, guys. Talk to you next time on the pod.

Channel 5 News Crew

00:47:17Gary Murphy: G'day Mel, Scott and all the parkrun adventurers. It's Gary Murphy reporting in with an audition for the Channel 5 News crew. I was lucky enough to be volunteering this week to the launch of Sunbury parkrun on the northwestern outskirts of Melbourne. Sunbury is the birthplace of the Ashes and from the top of the course you can overlook the ground where it all started, which is appropriate for the Sunbury launch with the first test of the current Ashes series happening this week in Brisbane. The parkrun vibe was electric, the atmosphere vibrant, and Natalie's volunteer crew were a well-polished team who pulled off an outstanding launch. It's got to be the only parkrun in the world that finishes on a bluestone bridge that was built in 1860. Looking forward to meeting everyone at the parkrun Adventurers Listener Meetup, but until then, blue skies and happy parkrunning. All right, we're at the finish line of the launch of Sunbury parkrun. I've found Natalie Harrison, the launch event director. Natalie, congratulations. They've started. How awesome is that?

00:48:13Natalie Harrison: Thank you. It's awesome. It's an awesome feeling seeing all those people. It's a beautiful day. The sun is shining. I just can't believe it's actually happened.

00:48:22Gary Murphy: How many people do you reckon have started?

00:48:24Natalie Harrison: um i reckon over 200 i don't know it's hard to say um it's a good crowd um and yeah i'll just have to see what the numbers say at the end yeah it's great there's a lot of first-timers brand new to parkrun a lot of tourists a lot of um a lot of visitors it's really great to see what what's inspired you to start parkrun in sunbury It inspired me. It was something I wanted to do two years ago because I'm very passionate about health and fitness and also bringing the community together. And parkrun offers a great opportunity to bring the community together socially and to get everyone active. It's free. Anyone can do it. You don't have to be... It doesn't matter how old you are, how young you are.

00:49:12Gary Murphy: um it's for everyone and that's the beauty of it you can walk run um there's it's not a race it's out there just to have fun and enjoy awesome that well congratulations it looks like it's going to be an awesome day you're off to a great start so thank you for starting some sunbury parkrun thanks gary and all the best thank you all right i've caught up with two first no not well we'll find out i've got jenny and tanya are volunteering jenny's marshalling

00:49:38Jenny: Bit of anything. Bit of anything.

00:49:39Gary Murphy: And Tanya's on the photographer. And is this your first time volunteering?

00:49:44Jenny: No, no. I volunteered out at Brimbank before.

00:49:46Gary Murphy: Awesome. And so how many parkruns have you done before today?

00:49:50Jenny: I've run, look I've probably volunteered more than I've run now. I've run 10 parkruns and I've volunteered probably about a handful of volunteering so far.

00:49:58Gary Murphy: So do you think Sunbury will become your new home parkrun?

00:50:00Jenny: Definitely, I live in Sunbury so fantastic to have one close to home.

00:50:04Gary Murphy: Awesome, too good. And Tanya, is this your first time volunteering?

00:50:07Tanya: No, I've done about 10 volunteering.

00:50:09Gary Murphy: And which parkrun?

00:50:10Tanya: Chiltern Creek.

00:50:11Gary Murphy: Excellent. And what about you? Do you think this will become your first home parkrun?

00:50:15Tanya: Yes, definitely, because I live here in Sunbury.

00:50:17Gary Murphy: Easy. So Jenny, you've seen the course. How do you describe the course?

00:50:22Jenny: It's undulating with a nice little hill thrown in the middle for it, but fantastic views for anyone who comes out and runs, and just a beautiful course.

00:50:32Gary Murphy: I've heard a rumour that it's going to be called Hell Hill, but the other rumour is that it's going to be called Happy Hill. Which one do you think would be more appropriate?

00:50:38Jenny: Look, I think you could be happy and hell at the same time because going up might be a bit of a hell and coming down you're definitely happy.

00:50:46Gary Murphy: And Tanya, as a photographer, I reckon the course has probably got lots of opportunities for good photos because there's a really good view at the top.

00:50:53Tanya: Yes, definitely a good view at the top over Sunbury and you get to see great views and in the season you see the canolas as well.

00:51:00Gary Murphy: Ah, terrific. Well, thanks girls. Thanks for volunteering.

00:51:03Tanya: Thanks, Gary. And all the best for the future. Thank you. Thank you.

00:51:06Gary Murphy: so i'm a bit excited i've found nathan castle castle or castle castle get it right man and we he's just well he's well finished sunbury parkrun how did that go yeah we got through it yeah temperature um challenging yeah hills challenging but very scenic yeah good big crowd so for those of the so for those who don't know nathan how many parkruns have you done how many different parkruns 67 different parkruns across the world.

00:51:36Nathan Castle: 65 in Australia.

00:51:38Gary Murphy: You've probably been asked this a hundred times before or maybe not. What's your top three or do you have a top three?

00:51:45Nathan Castle: It's hard to say really because you forget them.

00:51:50Gary Murphy: We've dubbed the hills going to be called Happy Hill. What do you think about that?

00:51:55Nathan Castle: Yep. Going down.

00:51:59Gary Murphy: Good answer. I like it. So you're off to Mount Gambier next week, and what other adventures have you got coming up?

00:52:06Nathan Castle: Albury's on the to-do list soon.

00:52:10Gary Murphy: Yeah.

00:52:11Nathan Castle: And, yeah, then keep up with the new ones. Cool. Awesome.

00:52:16Gary Murphy: Nate, good on you, mate. Well done today. Thanks for coming out, and we'll see you again.

00:52:20Nathan Castle: Okay.

00:52:22Gary Murphy: Hello, parkrunners. How's it going?

00:52:24Lynne: Hi.

00:52:24Gary Murphy: Hi. My name's Gary, and I'm doing a roving report for the parkrun Adventurers podcast. How did today go? Excellent. Who have I got? What's your name? Anders. Linda.

00:52:36Unidentified speaker: Dawn.

00:52:37Unidentified speaker: Chantal.

00:52:38Gary Murphy: And where is everyone from?

00:52:44Unidentified speaker: Chelsea by 10-0.

00:52:45Gary Murphy: Lay low. Oh, what a good mix. And so, how did the course go today?

00:52:49Unidentified speaker: Who put that bloody hill there?

00:52:52Gary Murphy: One hill. Excellent. Great views. Yeah? Good.

00:52:56Unidentified speaker: Great views. Yeah, love running down that hill.

00:53:01Gary Murphy: Why did you decide to come to the launch today at Sunbury? Why? Why not? I like this man. I like him. I like him. Good answer. it's a launch why wouldn't you be there it's an excuse to add tutu these are my people i like these people thanks for coming to the parkrun today guys it was fantastic thanks gary for time keeping we're at the finish of sunbury launch parkrun and i've got cheryl and i've got Jess, here. How did that go today, Jess?

00:53:36Jess: Look, oh my God, personal record of my worst time, but quite the achievement for getting it done. The hill will definitely be in your dreams tonight if you ever come here. You won't forget it anytime soon, but very rewarding.

00:53:50Gary Murphy: And what are the views? I heard the views are very good.

00:53:51Jess: Oh yeah, I actually, no, sorry to my tail walker, I did take a photo. I was like, if I'm up here, I want to remember this view. So, you know, it's beautiful, spectacular, yeah.

00:54:00Gary Murphy: And what's your home parkrun, Jess? Highlands! Oh, Highlands! I heard that's a good parkrun.

00:54:04Jess: It's a great parkrun.

00:54:05Gary Murphy: Oh great, good. And Cheryl's here too. How did you go, Cheryl?

00:54:08Cheryl: It was great. I really enjoyed the route. Yes, there was a hill. Actually, there were a couple of little hills, but there was one in particular. But I have never found a hill I can't walk.

00:54:18Gary Murphy: Good answer. I like that.

00:54:19Jess: I'm like, yes, I'm going to use that in my new motto.

00:54:24Gary Murphy: so i didn't see the views my head down so you've done a bit of adventuring cheryl now how many different ones have you done do you think um in australia today's number 32 awesome congratulations that's really good thank you so how how would the toughness or the i don't know what the word is degree of difficulty yes i like that brutal that's a good one too what's what's the rating compared to other parkruns you've done

00:54:48Cheryl: I'd say this one is up there probably 7, 8, 8 probably. The heat's actually got me today.

00:54:56Lynne: Yeah.

00:54:56Cheryl: But I enjoy undulating. Yeah. I find flat is actually more challenging. Yeah. One muscle group working.

00:55:03Gary Murphy: Yeah. Well, thanks for talking to me. Thanks. Thanks for coming to support the launch today.

00:55:08Cheryl: No worries. Thank you, Gary. The volunteers were amazing. They did an awesome job. Sunbury, all the very best. Hoorah. Very friendly environment, thank you.

00:55:19Gary Murphy: Happy parkrunning.

00:55:20Cheryl: Thank you, bye.

00:55:21Gary Murphy: I've found Mark Porritt. Mark's the event ambassador for Sunbury.

00:55:25Mark Porritt: How did that go today, Mark? Yeah, great launch today. We had 364 finishers out there. A little bit of a tight course, but everyone allows for that with a launch, so it went really well. No accidents, no injuries, and everyone seemed very happy on a fairly humid Melbourne morning.

00:55:43Gary Murphy: It was a good buzz, it was a really good atmosphere for a lot of first timers. So there was a lot of talk about the hill and I think it's been decided it's going to be called Happy Hill rather than Hell's Hill. What did you think about the hill?

00:55:56Mark Porritt: It's good fun, it's probably 80 metres in a straight line and then it starts to level off and you think you've beaten it and then you've got a sharp left and it gets steeper again. It's a real challenge. I would probably put it up there in the two or three toughest hills of all parkrun events in Victoria. And look, feedback on it has been great. Some people don't like the hill, but you've got to embrace it sometimes.

00:56:21Gary Murphy: I think it'll be a drawing card for some people to come and see what all the talk's about. And it really is, like we say, that it's a good view from the top, but it really is a good lookout over the city of Sunbury from the top of the hill and Rupertswood College.

00:56:33Mark Porritt: Oh, it's amazing. I mean, you've got Rupertswood there and Sunbury being the birthplace of the Ashes. You've got an amazing view of Sunbury, an amazing view of Rupertswood and Salesian College there. It's well worth stopping just for a look when you get up there.

00:56:46Gary Murphy: Mark, thank you so much for helping to get Sunbury off the ground. You've been a great asset to parkrun, and we much appreciate all the help you've put in in getting the event going. So thank you. Well done today. No worries. Thanks, Gaz.

00:56:57Mark Porritt: Happy parkrun. Thanks, Gaz. Thanks, guys. See you.

00:57:00Scott Trickett: We're back. Thanks to Lyndell, who we had the absolute pleasure of meeting and running with on Saturday, and Gary Murphy, chiming in with his report from the Sunbury launch.

00:57:12Melissa Erbacher: Yes, great job, guys. Especially loved that Lyndell took up my challenge, introducing herself as Lyndell the Adventurer after a little hi-ho, which is, of course, a reference to Kermit the Frog, who was the winner of our perlustration. And as Lyndell pointed out, he must have been the winner because our parkrun adventurers love our roving reports. And, of course, Kermit the Frog was a reporter. We knew there was a connection. Yep.

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

00:57:42Scott Trickett: Now, there was going to be a launch at Marriott Waters this weekend, but that's been postponed. There's some crazy weather coming through Victoria. So, out of safety reasons, we're just going to put that off a week. But there's another launch. Well, it's in Queensland. I've got no idea whether it's close enough to you, but it's called...

00:58:03Melissa Erbacher: It's not close, but it's going to be a goody.

00:58:06Scott Trickett: St. George. St. George.

00:58:09Melissa Erbacher: St. George. They've been going for, well, they've been in development for quite a while. So kudos to the event director for finally getting this one off the ground. It's going to be amazing.

00:58:20Scott Trickett: I think they're very excited, I should say. The event team's super keen. I think it's going to be a good one. But where is it? You say it's not close. What are we talking?

00:58:30Melissa Erbacher: It's not close. It's north and east and so like inland.

00:58:35Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:58:35Melissa Erbacher: St. George. Yeah.

00:58:37Scott Trickett: We're getting more of these in Queensland, aren't we? I always think of coastal Queensland, but now we've got Miles. Last week was inland, St. George now. It's good.

00:58:48Melissa Erbacher: It is great. I love the fact that we're getting more and more in the areas that haven't previously been exposed to parkrun yet. Yeah.

00:59:00Scott Trickett: Now, these following events have definitely been exposed to parkrun because they're celebrating their anniversary. We've got Bunyaville in Queensland, Lyndell's home event. So do you think she'll be going back to her home event?

00:59:12Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure she will. I wouldn't mind popping along to that one, but I've got a milestone one to attend this weekend. But happy fourth birthday, Bunyaville. I can't believe it's been four years already for you guys as well.

00:59:25Scott Trickett: And you haven't made it there yet, Mel, in four years.

00:59:28Melissa Erbacher: No, and it's a trail. Shame on you. What the hell have I been doing?

00:59:34Scott Trickett: In Victoria, we've got Cohuna, the big Kahuna, up on the Murray, celebrating their first, I think.

00:59:41Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense, obviously, because we've only been going for not quite two years, and I remember when we talked about their launch and having trouble deciphering how to pronounce Kahuna.

00:59:55Scott Trickett: I'm still convinced it's Kahuna.

00:59:57Melissa Erbacher: Well, it is, isn't it?

00:59:58Scott Trickett: I think we were told otherwise.

01:00:00Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay. Well, we can just go on our merry way in. Yes. Willfully getting it wrong. But one that is not difficult to pronounce is going to happen this weekend in New South Wales, and that is Lakeview.

01:00:15Scott Trickett: And two more in South Australia, Mount Gambier and Torrens. Happy anniversary, everyone. Good weekend to have an anniversary. Speaking of South Australia, speaking of Channel 5 News crew, PK, taking the honours in the Naked Runners Naked November Challenge, nailed his time.

01:00:35Melissa Erbacher: He did. I know when we – I saw it on – no, no, I didn't see it on Facebook. I heard it on our podcast. He thought he was quite close, but he wasn't sure how it was going to pan out in terms of what the parkrun stopwatch said and apparently the parkrun stopwatch was bang on so that is definitely an honor for pk no doubt there is going to be a naked runner's headband in it for him so congrats and way to represent the parkrun adventurers pk love your work now you mentioned you're off to a milestone event this week

01:01:15Scott Trickett: What's this? Is this your milestone or what's happening?

01:01:18Melissa Erbacher: No, it's not my milestone. It is I have been invited to the illustrious event ambassador Adam Gimbert's 250th parkrun at Coomera this coming weekend. So the first time I've got to experience running with somebody who is or, you know, at the same time as somebody obviously is much faster than I am. on their way to earn their lovely green shirt. So that's very, very exciting for me.

01:01:49Scott Trickett: 250. I mean, there's more and more 250s in Australia. So Adam helped start up event number seven, which is Coomera in Australia.

01:02:00Melissa Erbacher: Yes. And so for somebody who has volunteered as much as he has, it's just amazing to also be ticking off that kind of milestone. So, yeah, it's going to be another great morning. There are so many great mornings that happen every weekend.

01:02:15Scott Trickett: You're so lucky, Mel. That sounds like fun.

01:02:19Melissa Erbacher: It will be fun. But I'm not the only one who has great weekends every morning. Anyone who goes to parkrun does, I think.

01:02:26Scott Trickett: There's lots of people that are going to have great weekends in Germany, I think. Big weekend for parkrun. You know, Germany's been on the radar for a while. I think they're going to go crazy. What's the German word for go crazy?

Word of the week

01:02:42Melissa Erbacher: I don't know. Go crazy.

01:02:45Scott Trickett: It's probably really long.

01:02:49Melissa Erbacher: I'm going back to all the German I know and I'm singing 99 Red Balloons in my head now. And, you know, the Beatles version of She Loves You in German. We'll have to educate ourselves.

01:03:05Scott Trickett: Well, Mel, you may not have a vast knowledge of German, but I do. Lots of German friends. And if you're curious, it's verrückt werden. [German: "to go crazy / to go mad"]

01:03:14Melissa Erbacher: I was curious, and thank you for that education, Scotty. I'm sure your accent is impeccable.

01:03:21Scott Trickett: So there'll be lots of people saying Verrack Verden.

01:03:24Melissa Erbacher: Which is our word of the week for episode 92.

01:03:28Scott Trickett: Mel, Verrack Verden on Saturday, and I'll speak to you next week.

01:03:33Melissa Erbacher: Thanks, Scotty. Talk to you then. I should, I should, what's, no, I'm not going to swear in German.