Episode 158 - v-index

Welcome

00:00:23Melissa Erbacher: Welcome to episode 158 of the parkrun adventurers. My name is Mel. I am co-host with my buddy over here, Scotty. Are you here, Scotty?

00:00:35Scott Trickett: I am. I thought we had formal Mel for a minute there. It was a very serious start.

00:00:40Melissa Erbacher: Oh, was I formal?

00:00:41Scott Trickett: Episode 158. Well, it sounded a bit formal.

00:00:44Melissa Erbacher: Oh, sorry. I wasn't trying to use a professional. Well, formal and professional are two different things, aren't they? Yep. Yep. I'm making an assumption there.

00:00:56Scott Trickett: We can go casual. We can go formal. I think we do enough casual. I'm happy to go formal.

00:01:00Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:01:01Scott Trickett: Yep.

00:01:02Melissa Erbacher: Well, it's done then. Formal. Formal is done. I was going to say I'm very excited to be here as always, so I hope you're excited. Did you have a good weekend at parkrun, Scotty?

00:01:13Scott Trickett: Yep, I'm just putting on my pants, my formal pants to recap my parkrun weekend. I was in Adelaide. I had, Adelaide.

00:01:24Melissa Erbacher: Adelaide.

00:01:25Scott Trickett: It's an awesome town.

00:01:27Melissa Erbacher: The brew course or the zoo course?

00:01:30Scott Trickett: Okay, so we'll get to it first? Yeah, let's go. Okay. So you're right. There are two courses at Torrens parkrun. The brew course, which does go back along the brewery. We didn't do that one. We did the zoo course, which runs out to the zoo, funnily enough, and you turn around.

00:01:49Melissa Erbacher: But Mel… Did you hear the monkeys?

00:01:52Scott Trickett: I didn't hear the monkeys.

00:01:53Melissa Erbacher: No, I never heard the monkeys either.

00:01:55Scott Trickett: That's okay, but… They have a lot of people. There's a big crowd, and I was in the middle of the crowd, so all I heard were footsteps and heavy breathing when I went past the zoo. That was from the parkrunners. But Torrens, I don't know what world I was living in. I had this perception of Torrens that it was just a bit of a hodgepodge. It was in town, but I didn't realise, one, that it ran along the river, which highlights my lack of intelligence, I guess, because it is called Torrens. And it runs along the Torrens River. It runs past Adelaide Oval and the zoo.

00:02:35Melissa Erbacher: It goes under a water feature.

00:02:37Scott Trickett: There's water features that weren't turned on on the day, but I understand that they're magnificent that you run under. But, yeah, you run under a couple of bridges. Yeah. It's just a really pretty course. Like I would go as far as saying one of my favourites that I've run at in purely spectacle. Is that a word? Yeah, like visually pleasing, pleasant kind of morning running along the river.

00:03:02Melissa Erbacher: It's a great course, a flagship event for Adelaide and South Australia as well.

00:03:07Scott Trickett: Yeah, and we got there early, so we got to meet Robbie and his event team, and it's a big production, Torrens. You know, they've got tents and tables, and we had the athlete's foot down there, which this is where I go corporate again, Mel. I got to try on a new pair of Ons, which are my new favourite running shoes.

00:03:24Melissa Erbacher: Oh, another new pair of shoes.

00:03:26Scott Trickett: Okay. Yeah, I love the wear test. It's a great idea.

00:03:29Melissa Erbacher: You try a different pair every time, though, right?

00:03:32Scott Trickett: I do. Okay, good. I do. And I tried this and I didn't like them that much.

00:03:36Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, try before you buy. That's the whole point.

00:03:40Scott Trickett: Exactly. Exactly. But yeah, it's a really good crew there. You can tell lots of eager volunteers. Got to meet Marilyn, who's only ever done barcode scanning.

00:03:50Melissa Erbacher: I was going to say, did you get scanned in by Marilyn? Excellent.

00:03:55Scott Trickett: Well, there was a queue to get to Marilyn. So she's a celebrity scanner.

00:03:58Melissa Erbacher: She is a celebrity scanner.

00:04:00Scott Trickett: They had two scanners on in the day, and I like to show love to the poor guy that's got no one in his queues. I didn't get the Marilyn scanning experience, but I got to meet her. There's another little nice touch at Torrens. So Brian Wild was the founding Event Director at that event, and unfortunately he passed away. a number of years ago. But so the council or I'm not sure who organised it, but there's a little plaque set up on a table near the start line. So we got to see that and that was just a nice touch. The words on the plaque were nice. It's like for his services to the community, get people outdoors and active. Yeah, the other thing I like about Torrens is that it's next to a par 3 golf course. And I love par 3 golf courses, Mel, because one, they're lots of fun. And I'm not the best golfer in the world. I've got a bit of a natural hook to my thing. But a par 3 golf course, they're great fun because as bad as your hook is or as bad as your shot is, you can't do that much damage because the holes are really short.

00:04:59Melissa Erbacher: And you can get close.

00:05:01Scott Trickett: Yeah, and you only have to carry like two clubs because you only have to really hit it. You either hit it or putt it. So next time I'm in Adelaide and I'm going to go to Torrens parkrun, I'm going to make sure I pack my golf clubs.

00:05:12Melissa Erbacher: So which ones do you go there? I mean, I'm assuming you don't need the woods. You just take an iron and a putter.

00:05:17Scott Trickett: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Just your favourite club that you can hit a little bit and you're in business.

00:05:26Melissa Erbacher: Because that's not awkward, just taking like two clubs on a plane. I'm sure that wouldn't be weird and not difficult to pack into your carry-on.

00:05:36Scott Trickett: They might have invented foldable, collapsible clubs by now.

00:05:40Melissa Erbacher: I'm pretty sure you can hire clubs at most golf courses. Yeah, yeah.

00:05:46Scott Trickett: Maybe. So anyway, another added feature of Torrens parkrun. Absolutely awesome morning. Miserable weather, but that didn't dampen the spirits on the day.

00:05:57Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's good to hear. Hey, you know, when I did Torrens, I don't know, I must have been down there for the McLaren Vale Half Marathon and there was a whole bunch of parkrunners there that weekend and that was the first time I met Paul and Emily Wilcock and it was the first time it was my introduction to the coolest running club in the world because Emily was recovering from an injury and so she was walking sort of walk running at the back um and I was still just you know getting into running at that stage so that was still my pace at that time and she was wearing a zoolander shirt so that was my introduction I was gonna say emily's not a

00:06:46Scott Trickett: So that's a fateful day. You were at one of the old powwows that they used to organise.

00:06:51Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, yeah. I think it was the second powwow that they had, the first one they had in different wine regions. And, yeah, that one was down in South Australia, which was very cool.

00:07:04Scott Trickett: What was a powwow, Mel, for those that don't know?

00:07:08Melissa Erbacher: The powwows were a meeting of Event Directors and their families in a particular location over a weekend. There was always a running festival. So in this situation, it was the McLaren Vale Half Marathon was on the Sunday. So we headed down. And this was before McLaren Vale had the Shiraz Trail parkrun, of course, which or any other events much closer to it. I think, gosh, Adelaide has just boomed and South Australia has just boomed since that time. That was years and years ago. So Torrens was the parkrun of choice. There was always a parkrun on the Saturday. There was a dinner on the Friday night. There was dinner on the Saturday night somewhere closer to wherever the running festival was on the Sunday. And, yeah, just an opportunity for avid volunteers to get together and powwow about parkrun. It's been a long time.

00:08:05Scott Trickett: It was a precursor to the listener meetups in a way. I think it was open to all parkrunners, but it was mainly the Event Directors and event teams that got involved.

00:08:16Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, absolutely.

00:08:17Scott Trickett: Unfortunately, parkrun got too big, didn't it? It would be nice to do something like that.

00:08:23Melissa Erbacher: You can't really say too much. So it's not unfortunate that parkrun got so big, but there are still those sorts of opportunities and people are doing it on smaller scales with their running clubs like you guys do with your Westerfoldians and stuff like that. You head on down, do your different weekends away. So I'm sure there are heaps of people still doing the same sort of thing.

00:08:45Scott Trickett: Can I go back to Torrens briefly because you reminded me because it's a good indication of how much you love the event. So then I was flying back home on Saturday and I was starting to plan just a trip back with Yvonne and Kasia, trying to time it up with a game of footy at Adelaide Oval and then we'd go back and I wanted to show them parkrun there. So I'm already planning the next powwow. It's just a Trickett powwow.

00:09:10Melissa Erbacher: A Trickett powwow. That's okay. Okay. That's all good. So that's one. I think we can notch it off the potential list for palm20 next year. We know that we're going to South Australia, but we're going to try and do a new event for both of us, aren't we, when we get down there. So we've both done Torrens now. So that one's a tick.

00:09:32Scott Trickett: But a massive tick, so if you haven't done it, next time we're in Adelaide, look it up, amongst all the other events.

00:09:40Melissa Erbacher: And Robbie's been around for a long time too. He was the RD on the day that I was there, so he was very entertaining. I'm sure he gave you guys a great show on Saturday as well.

00:09:50Scott Trickett: I met Ojo, Ojo Dojo, but this Robbie character, he did the run brief, you're right.

00:09:58Melissa Erbacher: Yep. Cool, cool. I'm glad you had a good weekend.

00:10:01Scott Trickett: Yeah, now top that, Mel.

00:10:04Melissa Erbacher: Oh, top that. Well, I didn't have an adventure so much, but it's always a little bit of a mini adventure when you're volunteering anyway. And I left it to the last minute to volunteer. I put my hand up on the Friday night or it might have been Thursday night. I said, you know, if I'm at parkrun on Saturday, I will be volunteering and I can do timekeeping. Because it's so weird. It's usually one of the last ones to fill at Kawana. And we actually made a bit of a furphy this week. And on our future roster, we had entered two people for Timekeeper on one week. So it was like pushing down the list. So it looks like we still needed a Timekeeper for this week when we already had one. And we don't generally run with a backup Timekeeper at Kawana. We just have the one. And I've had like three different messages this week all offering to be the Timekeeper, the second Timekeeper at Kawana this week. And it's like, what? What's going on? I don't know if there's a running festival that I don't know about and people are all just deciding they need to volunteer now. Anyway, that aside, I was Timekeeper last week. Managed to get through without doing any mistakes. But before the participants started to come back through, we were about 11 and a half, almost 12 minutes standing at the finish line with the token hander-outers. We have two of those at Kawana. And it's pretty standard for them to go through the tokens and just double, triple, quadruple check that they're all in order and things like that. And a lovely young lady named Sarah who is a very prolific volunteer. She's got her purple shirt. She's done all the roles like half a dozen times each. She was just looking through the tokens, making sure they're all in order. And you know how when people do those card tricks and they like sort of fan them out a little bit and they're like, okay, are you ready? And then they just like throw them everywhere because they kind of squeeze out of your hand, like your thumbs on the top one and your little fingers on the bottom and then everything in between just like vomits out of your hand. That's what happened to about the first half, tokens and it's just like whoops okay so and I'm not bending over at the moment so I just stood idly by I said look guys you've got four minutes until I'm expecting the first participant to cross the line. So find the first couple of tokens and then, you know, we're just going to try to get all the rest of them together. Fortunately, we had another bystander who was just along to spectate, help out. So between the three of them, they sorted the first hundred tokens in like four minutes and got everything sorted. Nice.

00:13:10Scott Trickett: Yeah, I think this happens more often than we'd like because I witnessed it at juniors on Sunday as well. Like as the first few kids are coming across the line, the tokens exploded and they're all over the floor.

00:13:23Melissa Erbacher: It's like you've got a trick set of tokens or something like that, isn't it? It's hilarious. And I just kind of stood there looking at them and thinking, we should just leave those ones all on the ground. And then the person who comes first and gets 101 might be a bit confused. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's not difficult to sort out the results later. It's more difficult later, if they get put back together in a rush in the wrong fashion and then people get the wrong tokens but no they did a good job it was a little bit funny yeah we survived and and it was amusing and hey you know what I didn't even realise but I earned my purple shirt for timekeeping on Saturday

00:14:05Scott Trickett: Oh, well done. Do we do that?

00:14:07Melissa Erbacher: Well, no, we don't do that. That's not a thing. But it was my 25th time timekeeping, and I didn't even realise I'd done it that many times. So that's half a year's worth. But it also made me think a little bit because I got my thank you for volunteering, blah, blah, blah, blah. You've now performed this role 25 times. I thought, oh, I wonder how many times I've done all the other things. And it – Your email must do it as well. It's not something I've ever really noticed, but it lists all the roles you've ever done and how many times you've done them all. And so I was going through my little list trying to figure out there's not a V index, like there's a P index or a Wilson index, but I reckon there should be. And I'm trying to figure out how it would work, Scotty. Because obviously, you know, there's a whole bunch of things that you do different amount of times and stuff. But how do you reckon it would work? Do you think it would work like the P-index? And it couldn't work like – it's not about going to different events the same amount of times. It's about –

00:15:20Scott Trickett: doing different roles different roles across so so for example I've pulled up as we have you've spoken I've pulled up the running challenges and I know I know they they're really keen to get lots of suggestions about new challenges they love it it's their favourite it's good it's good it's good that you've brought another one to the table and you've based it around volunteering which again I think they love because it's really easy to get the volunteering stats

00:15:42Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I'm pretty sure this is something that you'd only ever be able to figure out for yourself based on your email. You would never be able to get that information anywhere else.

00:15:51Scott Trickett: So I'm glad you said that up front. So this is just for us to tinker with. So I've done other once and car park marshal once. Yeah. But I've been photographer twice and I've been token sorter three times. So my V index probably sits at three. Okay. Is that what you're thinking?

00:16:09Melissa Erbacher: No, no, that's not how it works. You would have to have done – so you've got to sort them by what you've done the most and then filter it down because you have to have done like a certain amount of things at least. If you're basing it the way the P index works, it's like, okay, if you've done three events three times, then you're on a three, right?

00:16:37Scott Trickett: Okay, okay.

00:16:38Melissa Erbacher: So you need to cascade it down, in that direction, you'll have to like probably copy it and sort it or something like that. Unless it's, it's quite obvious to you. I mean, I think I've done something like how many roles have I done? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 different roles. So I've, I've put mine in order, but I think so for example, one, two, three, four, five of them I've done 10 times and, So, that would put me on a P index of five, though.

00:17:17Scott Trickett: No, because then… V index.

00:17:21Melissa Erbacher: Well, a V. See, I can't even… I'm so… And I'm terrible with the maths. No, that doesn't even work because those five I've done ten, but then that one I've done eight, that one I've done six, that one I've done six, and those two I've done five. So…

00:17:38Scott Trickett: I think we get it. I think we get it. You come up with your V index. Look, I'll give you the rest of the episode to figure that out. So give us an update in the outro. Okay. I just want a quick humble brag. Run Director 50 times for me.

00:17:53Melissa Erbacher: Nice.

00:17:54Scott Trickett: Didn't even realise it.

00:17:56Melissa Erbacher: Oh, just like perfectly round number 50.

00:17:59Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:18:01Melissa Erbacher: Cool. Well done you, Scotty.

00:18:03Scott Trickett: That's my number one. I'm guessing that's the same for you as well.

00:18:07Melissa Erbacher: Run Director is my number one, yes.

00:18:10Scott Trickett: And?

00:18:11Melissa Erbacher: Give us a number. Well, it's one of my goals for this year, remember? It's my New Year's goal to – I need to do it eight more times to get to 100.

00:18:20Scott Trickett: Oh, there we go. Yeah. Wow, that's a lot. That's two years of Run Directing.

00:18:27Melissa Erbacher: It will be if I ever get there. I've still got a couple more months of RDing to get in before that happens, but – I've made a good start to it with the year. So I'll just keep that up a little bit more and hopefully get there before the clock runs out in December.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Joanne Watkins — Albert Melbourne

00:18:47Joanne Watkins: Hi, this is Joanne and I'm tuning in from Albert, Melbourne. And with me today, I have Katie and Katie has achieved a very special milestone today. So Katie, what was special about your parkrun today?

00:19:05Katie: I got to my 100th parkrun.

00:19:08Joanne Watkins: Congratulations. How many years has that taken you? Five. And how did you get involved in parkrun and what age did you first start?

00:19:19Katie: I started when I was five, no, four, and I started because my mum did it when, like, I was in a pram.

00:19:30Joanne Watkins: And if you had to tell someone what parkrun was, how would you describe it?

00:19:35Katie: It's a free walk or run which everybody chooses their own pace and like everybody can do it.

00:19:42Joanne Watkins: Now I know sometimes mum has to get you up in the morning and drag you because you're a bit like me and we don't like mornings. But in other days, why do you keep coming? What makes parkrun something you get up early on a Saturday morning for?

00:19:55Katie: It's fun and you can like see everybody around and stuff.

00:20:01Joanne Watkins: And when you do parkrun, because you're under 11, you're nine years old, who do you do parkrun with?

00:20:07Katie: My mum and grandma.

00:20:11Joanne Watkins: And have they done as many parkruns as you?

00:20:14Katie: More.

00:20:15Joanne Watkins: More? Do you know how many?

00:20:17Katie: No.

00:20:20Joanne Watkins: So how do you think you could get other kids to come to parkrun? Because you like it so much. What would you tell them would make them come?

00:20:28Katie: Um... It's really fun and you can always do heaps of different types of stuff. You can do whatever pace you want. So one day you're feeling slow, you can walk. And the other day, you're feeling fast, you can run.

00:20:50Joanne Watkins: Okay, so imagine... Because this is a radio show or a podcast, so people can't see Albert Park. So can you tell them what our course is like? Can you describe what the... Because you've done it so many times. What does it look like?

00:21:02Katie: Well, it's... It's around like a big lake and it's like you do a big circle kind of but you go along the lake for some parts and then you go like not along the lake for other parts.

00:21:17Joanne Watkins: And what's unique about Albert Park Lake that you think people might find interesting or attractive?

00:21:24Katie: There's heaps of swans everywhere. And, like, it's like... And, like, there's heaps of, like, seabirds and stuff.

00:21:36Joanne Watkins: Now, are there any funny stories or happy moments that you want to tell people about from parkrun?

00:21:41Katie: Well, it's cool how one day I saw my teacher at parkrun and it was also cool when one day one of my classmates said, oh, I'm going to parkrun. And I liked racing my parents and stuff and saying, no, I'm not going to run the whole thing with you and then running it with a friend.

00:22:05Joanne Watkins: which we know Under 11's within arm's reach. So anyone listening out there, she's talking about burning off her parents at the very end of the run, aren't you? Maybe. Okay, for viewers out there. Now, Katie, you've also volunteered 35 separate days in those. That's nearly like for someone who has sport and other things, that's almost a whole year of your life that you've volunteered. So which roles do you like in volunteering?

00:22:32Katie: I like marshalling and I like scanning. Scanning is probably my favourite.

00:22:39Joanne Watkins: And why do you like scanning more than the others?

00:22:44Katie: Because it's fun. I don't really know. I just like it.

00:22:49Joanne Watkins: That's all right. Now, this is National Volunteer Week, so we're celebrating volunteers. If people were scared about volunteering, what would you tell them that could help them think it was a good thing to do?

00:23:00Katie: Well, you can always just try it one time and you're like, oh, well, I don't like that job. Oh, I'll do another job. So, yeah, and there's like jobs for different things. So like if you're just like standing around kind of like doing nothing, you can be like a Marshal. But if you like bike riding, you can be the lead bike or something.

00:23:22Joanne Watkins: Fantastic. Thank you so much and well done on reaching your 100th parkrun.

00:23:26Katie: Champion. Thanks.

00:23:28Melissa Erbacher: Well, how cute was that roving report from Joanne at Albert Melbourne?

00:23:32Scott Trickett: Very cute. The power of our junior parkrunners.

00:23:37Melissa Erbacher: I know. Milestones. And I mean, you know, it takes a long time to get to some of these milestones. And that doesn't make it any less of an accomplishment just because it took a little bit longer for some people than others. But yeah, Katie did a great job.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:23:51Scott Trickett: Indeed. Let's turn our attention to launches and anniversaries, Melissa. Not much to dwell on with launches because there are none this week.

00:24:02Melissa Erbacher: There are no launches. Zero, zero launches. But we've got anniversaries in a couple of different places. First one being in Ballarat, Victoria.

00:24:12Scott Trickett: And if you're chasing the Bee Gees Club, you can combine Bee Gees Club with anniversaries this week because we've got Ballarat... Berrinba, Bowen and Burnie.

00:24:25Melissa Erbacher: A couple of those in Queensland, one of them in Tassie.

00:24:28Scott Trickett: Yep. Canning River in WA, Narrabri in New South Wales.

00:24:34Melissa Erbacher: Sandon Point, also New South Wales and West Beach in South Australia. Happy anniversary to all those events.

00:24:43Scott Trickett: Now I'm heading to one of them, Mel. I'm heading up to Ballarat.

00:24:46Melissa Erbacher: Oh, have you done Ballarat before, Scotty? You have.

00:24:49Scott Trickett: Yeah, I have.

00:24:50Melissa Erbacher: In the early days of the pod, I remember. Yeah.

00:24:53Scott Trickett: Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is, I'm going to revisit an idea. So I went to the launch and Tim and I went to the launch and it was back in the day when we were both fit and firing. And so we had this idea that you would do, because Ballarat parkrun sits alongside Lake Wendouree, which is sort of the running hub. It's a famous running hub in Ballarat. It's where Mona and all his mates run around. But the parkrun's not there. The parkrun is in the park across the road. So we had this idea that you would do a warm-up lap around Lake Wendouree and then you'd do parkrun. So it would be like the Ballarat Double. I think to this day Tim and I are the only two that ever did it. I mean, Tim wrote about it in the newsletter at the time, but I don't think it quite caught on. So I'm going to try and revisit that, Mel. I'm going to go back and try and do the Ballarat Double.

00:25:47Melissa Erbacher: And you're going to recruit people to come and join you? Yeah, maybe.

00:25:52Scott Trickett: We'll see how it is. I was sent a photo during the week from Ballarat where it is actually literally snowing. So that might put me off the idea of getting up an hour earlier to go for a run before parkrun and anyone else joining me.

00:26:08Melissa Erbacher: You could always go for a run afterwards when you're already warm.

00:26:12Scott Trickett: This is true. But tune in to the podcast next week and find out if I did it.

00:26:18Melissa Erbacher: Well, do we really want to tune in next week, Scotty, because I hear you're going on a holiday.

00:26:23Scott Trickett: Actually, yeah, don't tune in next week because we're not going to be here. Let's put it off. Yeah, so I'm going to be up with you next week on the Sunshine Coast. Well, within the same.

00:26:34Melissa Erbacher: You're going to be in the Sunshine State. Yes, on the Sunshine Coast. And we will catch up while you're here, I hope. I hope so. I hope you don't come all this way and then not actually see me. That would be a little bit rude.

00:26:46Scott Trickett: It would be, yep. So the Tricketts are having our midweek break in warmer weather.

00:26:54Melissa Erbacher: Your midweek break because you do this all the time. Sorry, midyear.

00:26:59Scott Trickett: And I say that like we do it every year. I don't think we've done it for five years. In fact, I don't know if we've ever done it.

00:27:06Melissa Erbacher: Well, you're doing it now. And that's the point.

00:27:08Scott Trickett: We're doing it now. So we're doing it this year. So we're doing it next week. So people, there's not going to be a podcast next week because, yeah, I'm on holidays.

00:27:19Melissa Erbacher: Time to have a little break. Yeah.

00:27:21Scott Trickett: So this is all me. This is all me next week. We're just not doing a podcast. But we'll be back the week after.

00:27:28Melissa Erbacher: Meanwhile, in the intro, we were talking about the V index, Scotty. Yes. And I would like to give you my update because I did wrap my brain cells around it. And I think I figured out that my V index is five. So, there are 10 events that are 10 events. See, this is me going back to the P index thing. But it's not that. The V index is how many different volunteer roles you have done. across your volunteer history that you can only get from your email. It's never going to be a badge. Well, I assume it would never be a badge. So please don't harass the Running Challenges guys because they're not going to want or be able to do that for anyone. But, yeah, I've done 10 events. 10 events. I just did it again. 10 volunteer roles, 10 different volunteer roles, at least five times each. I've done one, two, three, four, five. I've done eight, six times each. So I've got two roles, finished tokens and Token Sorting that I've done five times. If I do one of those a sixth time, then my V index will go up to six. So I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pursue. I know there's all these people out there that are pursuing P-indexes and stuff. I'm going to pursue the V-index.

00:28:50Scott Trickett: Why not? Why not? Manufacture these challenges to suit your parkrun experience. And at the moment, for you, that's volunteering every week.

00:29:00Melissa Erbacher: Exactly. And why should the volunteers miss out on doing fun stuff?

00:29:06Scott Trickett: You said last week. Now, I'm not sure if anyone was listening to last week's episode. We ended abruptly, so I'm not sure if we talked about this on the pod or if I cut it out, but you were going to do some work around getting some volunteer stats. Can you give us an update there, Mel?

00:29:24Melissa Erbacher: Oh, was I going to do some work around getting said stats? No, I think I just said we really needed to have more.

00:29:31Scott Trickett: Oh, okay. That was an official statement.

00:29:33Melissa Erbacher: No, I don't recall actually, you know, dedicating any pursuit to doing that myself. Okay. Yeah. But maybe, no, no, I'm not going to get, you're luring me into a trap is what you're doing. You're baiting me, Scotty.

00:29:52Scott Trickett: I'm trying to keep your mind occupied and, you know, you're off work, you're looking for stuff to do.

00:29:58Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, you know, the fact that I've got a two-year-old means I'm never technically off work or an almost two-year-old anyway. But yeah. Yeah.

00:30:10Scott Trickett: Don't age him prematurely. He's still one. Let him enjoy the last years of being one.

00:30:14Melissa Erbacher: The last days, the last hours.

00:30:16Scott Trickett: Last days, yeah. I'm getting my weeks, days, years all mixed up today.

00:30:21Melissa Erbacher: It sounds like you need a holiday, Scotty.

Sign-off

00:30:22Scott Trickett: It does. It does. And should it sound like we should wrap up 158? Yeah.

00:30:29Melissa Erbacher: Let's head off, shall we?

00:30:31Scott Trickett: Yep.

00:30:32Melissa Erbacher: Thanks for joining me this week, Scotty.

00:30:34Scott Trickett: Yeah, it's been a treat. A pleasure as always. Hopefully see you in person next week. Listeners won't get to hear that meeting. But it will happen.

00:30:46Melissa Erbacher: Yes, and we'll chat again soon.