Episode 376 - palm24

Welcome

00:00:00Unidentified speaker: Hello.

00:01:44Melissa Ellis: Okay, we're ready to go again. We like to start each of our recordings by acknowledging the traditional owners of the country in which we run and record and do all our parkrun fun. So, Lyndell, as one of our roving reporters and somebody who always does the acknowledgement when you're out doing your roving reports, Would you like to give the acknowledgement for us?

00:02:14Lyndell Murray: That would be my absolute honour. So I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners who are the Jagera, Giabal and the Jarowair tribes, who are the traditional owners on the lands where we gather today. And I'd like to pay the respect to elders, both past, present and emerging. Thank you very much.

00:02:32Melissa Ellis: Everybody, this is Lyndell the Legendary.

00:02:40Oliver Spake: So everyone, welcome to episode 376 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, our seventh Palm event. A podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. I am Ollie Spake and I am joined by many co-hosts today. I am Melissa Ellis. I'm Simon Mackley. And I'm Toc. And as I said, we'd like to welcome you all to our special live recording, whether it lives on in the airwaves or whether it's just for the people who join us here in person. Welcome to palm24, live from Toowoomba after South Toowoomba parkrun.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:03:32Oliver Spake: Now, you've heard from the hosts already, but we're also joined by some of the Channel 5 News crew. So could we ask some of the Channel 5 News crew to come up? In particular, Sarah from the West Side. Two, two. Tracey in a Tutu. Got to get the right Tracey there. Absolutely. Because we'd like to throw out a few more thank yous, everyone.

00:03:51Sarah Jefferson: Fingers crossed. Good morning everyone, I'm Sarah from the West Side and I have the honour today in thanking all of the 34 volunteers who made this morning's event possible, so thank you. Special shout out to our photographer who has come all the way from Western Australia, thank you. And Eman, what a great job reviewer, what a great job you've done. Thank you for putting on this morning's event.

00:04:29Tracey Wood: Good morning, parkrunners. It's Tracey in a Tutu. I am looking for Robbie and Margie. Where are they? Robbie's here. Is Margie here? Okay. We would just like to do a special shout-out to you both for hosting, for South Toowoomba hosting us all today. So thank you very much. And a very happy birthday to South Toowoomba parkrun. So... Could we please have three cheers for South Womba. Hip hip.

00:05:01Unidentified speaker: Hooray.

00:05:02Tracey Wood: Hip hip.

00:05:02Unidentified speaker: Hooray.

00:05:03Tracey Wood: Hip hip.

00:05:04Unidentified speaker: Hooray.

00:05:05Lyndell Murray: G'day. G'day, everybody. It's Lyndell. And I have the job of thanking everybody who has travelled. So do we have any visitors here today? Thank you all for coming. Now, I know that there's people from as far away as Tasmania and Western Australia. Are there any international tourists here? OK, maybe next time. We know we have had international tourists before at our palms. I'd also like to thank all of the other contributors to the podcast. There are many, many others, apart from us here, who do their little bit for the podcast. You know who you are. And also, most importantly, our listeners. Thank you for listening and thank you for coming. APPLAUSE

00:05:54Oliver Spake: Thank you, Lyndell the legendary. Sorry, I did miss you earlier on too. But yes, we will have a lot of thank yous, and I think in our outro we'll have to make sure of mentioning many of the names. We've got a couple of coffee call-outs here, so everyone listening online to the one of our recordings that's still working, then yeah, you'll hear that mentioned from time to time. So Palm, Palm is as old as South Toowoomba parkrun and it's a tradition that was started by our fantastic inaugural hosts, Scotty and Mel, and we're forever indebted to them. And the other instigators of Palm, Gary Murphy amongst many other great people that have been behind this and brought us all together. But speaking of bringing us together, we'd like to see, as best we can, a bit of a show of hands. How many palms people have been to? So team, please feel free to jump in if you want to sort of keep me in order and keep my visual assessments honest. But let's see from a show of hands in the room. And I don't know how many people we've got in the room. I'm thinking, what have we got? Any guesses as to how many people are here? 400? 800? 259? 100. Let's go with 100. It's a nice round number. Okay, hands up. Who's been to One Palm as of today? Excellent. Excellent. It's still a special privilege for those that can make it. There are many of our listeners that we know that can't make the journey or that can't attend. So thank you all again for joining us. But hands up again if you have been to Two Palms. Two Palms. What about three palms? Three palms. I haven't been counting the numbers. I've given up on counting the numbers, but I think we're less than 50% for three palms now. So it's great to see so many of you joining us for the very first or second time at the parkrun Adventure Listener Meetup. What about four palms? Four palms. We've still got a healthy contingent of hands up. Five palms. Does anyone know how many we've had, by the way? Seven. Six palms. We've got a couple of hands up still. Six palms. Caro, your hands up. And seven palms. Who's been to seven? There's Jackie. Brendan, where are you? There's Brendan. Office Lady. She wasn't. will keep us honest with the numbers later on. But yes, seven palms, so it is in fact our sixth year as well, if I've got my maths right. Kind of seven, kind of six. We started about the same age as South Toowoomba parkrun, so that's kind of nice. But yeah, as we've acknowledged, there are plenty of attendees that have come far and wide. So we want to capture the moment. This will be interesting. We're going to grab a selfie. So as best you can, put your smiles on your faces, hands up at the back for a selfie on the podcast. Excellent. Thank you, everyone. And we look forward to sharing the pictures. But now I'm going to hand over to Toc with a little more about what we've got coming up in this morning's live episode. And please bear with us because you're seeing the behind the curtains real stuff here and in any of our parkrun news, Toc.

00:07:30[background music]

00:09:38Tony O'Connell: Thanks and welcome along everybody. This is the behind the scenes. Normally when we do an interview or a recording, we've actually started using video, which is really cool because you get to see some facial expressions when some bombs get dropped and all the stuff that gets edited out, which is really cool. Today we're going to have a quick recap of the course later. We've got interviews with Eman and Robbie. We have the quiz. The quiz is the highlight of Palm as far as I'm concerned. I love the quiz. So the quiz master is along this year, which is fantastic. Normally, as we roll through our run list for a recording, we go to the Dazza's, but this week we have an actual cafe. This is really great. We're catching up with everyone for coffee, and you're going to see the coffee's coming out, and I'm going to get my hand up and try to get another one coming through.

parkrun news bulletin

00:10:33Tony O'Connell: parkrun news this week. Normally, because we record a little bit later, like on a Monday, you've got the weekend and you see all the Facebook posts, you catch the news, you get some items. But just a couple of things I want to cover off today.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:10:47Tony O'Connell: We missed a launch or two launches last week because we didn't have a pod. So we had a new one in New Zealand and one in the USA. But today we have two parkruns launching in Australia. We had Whyalla Foreshore, which launched 8.30 our time, so it's well and truly run and done. They had 79 people for their first event. And we're going to have a new parkrun born in about 12 minutes for the Western Australians. So WA time, there is a new one launching at Ridley Place Foreshore. So I reckon if you've got 12 minutes, you could probably get out there now, jump on a plane, and yeah, good luck with that. But there's a couple of new ones there. It's really great to see new events starting and coming along. And that is me. I am going to throw over to these wonderful people.

00:11:42Melissa Ellis: Okay. So apparently we're going into how was your parkrun morning. For Simon, how was your morning?

00:11:49Simon Mackley: It was great.

00:11:50Melissa Ellis: Do you want to give a course brief?

00:11:53Simon Mackley: Yeah, so the course description, I must say, I got really confused right at the start. But once you ran it, it was actually really easy. So it's about three laps. Would you agree? Fair. Yeah, with two times you go out and a 500 metre-ish sort of dog leg out. Dog leg, yeah. There were so many people, but what I could hear the entire way was birds. And it's not something I hear a lot at parkrun, because I'm not really concentrating on anything other than my breathing. So yeah, what did you think?

00:12:25Melissa Ellis: So I walked the course today. I made the mistake last year of running when I was at University of WA. Missed some fish, apparently. I didn't want to miss a thing this year, so I soaked it all in, walked the course, got to meet a lot of you. I want to meet everybody. I want to know everybody's name. If I haven't spoken to you already this morning, please come up to me at some point over the weekend and say hello so I don't miss you, because I get upset if that happens, wonderfully hosted, of course, by the brilliant team at South Toowoomba, celebrating their birthday. I feel like we crashed a party. It was nice. There was no cake. Hang on. Where was the cake? Oh, we got cake here. That's all right. So, Ollie, what about your thoughts for the morning?

00:13:13Oliver Spake: Well, I have to say it was a beautiful morning. It was great to see the morning sunlight coming across the field there and seeing the bunnies, the very big bunnies or hares, I'm not sure. The kookaburra and the tree. You didn't see the kookaburra, you didn't see the hares, you didn't see the kookaburra. Are you having a go? And bin chickens too.

00:13:32Unidentified speaker: Before you got there.

00:13:37Oliver Spake: When I said I was going to get on site by about 6.15, 6.20, Mel did suggest we better not miss the photo, so I made it a bit earlier. And apologies to Bec, who got in at about 11.35 last night and then got up to drive us, at 6 a.m. this morning for our arrival, but yeah, beautiful wildlife at the course there, and I was a bit unsure. This is my parkrun return for running. I was a bit unsure, as I said to Simon, about how I was going to go, hoping for, you know, sub-25, and thank you for the positive remarks, Simon. It worked. Thanks to our running guy, Ryan, for running and giving me some encouragement, and certainly some of the locals too. It was a bit of a fast one for me, so stoked to get a sub-22, but my foot is already hurting, so... Aren't you supposed to take it easy, dude? I will take it easy after this, and I will be walking the other freedom walks as we go from here, so...

00:14:32[crosstalk]

00:14:32Melissa Ellis: Okay, and so that leaves Toc to give us some points on his morning.

00:14:39Tony O'Connell: I had the absolute privilege of walking around with Shiltsy and having a good chat with Shiltsy at the tail end. We had the party at the back. It was really great. Got Jodie and Val at the back and a couple of other people. So we had a ball at the back. Mel, one of the things I like about our course recaps are you normally name all the adventurers that you've run with this week. So I'm looking forward to this. Just start. We're going to go away for half an hour. We'll come back. Pass.

00:15:00[background music]

00:15:09Oliver Spake: I'm going to jump in again and say I have to, you know, I have to add that it was a huge boost to see everyone out there, to get some high fives, some encouragement and a bit of distraction as, you know, as I was running and as we were all running, walking and, you know, different paces throughout the morning. So thank you all for the company this morning. It's been great to see you and, like Mel, hope to get a chance to say hello and a bit of a chat through the weekend.

00:15:37Melissa Ellis: And if you want to speak to Simon, you grab him before he leaves here because it's your only opportunity to meet him.

00:15:45Oliver Spake: So I think what I haven't put in the show notes is, of course... Oh, no, I have. That's all right. I've done the notes. I was going to say what's coming up for the rest of the Palm Weekend, but that's in our outro, so... Oh, yep. Yeah, we'll cover that then.

00:15:58Eman Vergara: Next segment? Next segment. See, aren't we polished?

00:16:03Oliver Spake: Now, as Toc did say, we do like to make a habit of speaking with some of the wonderful locals who host us at Palm. A huge part of this podcast for me is hearing people's story, getting a bit of a snapshot of the event, but also people's experience to date through their eyes. So am I going first, Mel? Yes. Yes, I'm going first.

Interview Eman Vergara — Run Director, South Toowoomba parkrun; on-the-ground palm24 organiser

00:16:25Oliver Spake: And with me, I can't go first alone, so I'd like to invite our Run Director for today, Eman. Yes! So Emmanuel Vergara, our Run Director for today, is one of our local hosts. He's a voice for Summer Face and for many of us, a very familiar emailer that we know from the podcast. I first met you at palm21. I think it was the dinner at Kawana when you were part of the crew, Robbie included as well, and a few other familiar faces here, who headed up to join us at Kawana for the fancy dress evening from Toowoomba. And, of course, our Run Director for this morning. So, welcome to the parkrun adventurers. Welcome back to the parkrun adventurers podcast.

00:17:12Eman Vergara: Hey, man. Thanks, Ollie. Thanks, everyone. And... First of all, I'd like to say thanks to everyone for coming to our beautiful city of Toowoomba. We really appreciate your support and enjoying and celebrating a parkrun weekend. Thank you to Ollie and Mel for the podcast and continuing the hosting of it, as well as Simon and TOC. And really appreciate you choosing South Toowoomba this morning to celebrate a joint sixth birthday with the event as well. So really excited to be here this morning and looking forward to the events coming over the next 24 hours.

00:17:54Oliver Spake: And of course, we'll have to throw your name into the thank yous, but we'll have to say thank you very much for your wonderful welcome this morning and the event brief. I thought it was a lovely touch, you know, to include the Auslan interpreter and speaker there. And yeah, just to acknowledge some of the milestones as well. So I suppose from your perspective, Eman, it's been a busy one, but how has the morning been for you? Yeah, it's been really good.

00:18:20Eman Vergara: I think... a lot of the times you kind of feel like it's it's a wedding because so many things are going on at the same time and you're just trying to soak in all you know the enjoyment and the atmosphere I'm really being um you know thankful that we have such an amazing volunteer um you know squad whether it's our local event team or whether it's um our volunteerists and it really makes the morning in the event go smoothly you know typically if you're A Run Director, you're always thinking about a lot of things, but having a good core team and having a lot of experienced volunteers, and I know a lot of the people watching us, Event Directors, know how parkrun works. One of the things that I like about parkrun is when you go to different events, if you It feels the same and the culture and the friendliness is always there. From an organisation perspective, it went really smoothly. It was the first time I had an Auslan interpreter interpret my brief, so I thought that was quite special. I also found out that today is Auslan Day, so great to have that support and the volunteers. Like I said to people, if you haven't volunteered before, I know the people tour a lot here. You do have the option of volunteering. It is a good way to see a different perspective of parkrun because you get to be involved with the local event teams, community and how they operate. So it's a good way to meet friends as well.

00:19:47Oliver Spake: Well said, and it is a highlight, something I haven't enjoyed nearly as much as I'd like to, so I hope to jump on the volunteering bay in the wagon a bit more. South Toowoomba parkrun, I suppose I've got a suspicion about one of the things that appeals to you about the parkrun there, but I suppose what is the appeal of South Toowoomba parkrun that first appealed to you and continues to do so clearly?

00:20:09Eman Vergara: Well, I think on a personal level, what I love about the event was it coincided when we first moved from Sydney to Toowoomba. We actually went there on event number one. I actually didn't know it was event number one because I wasn't into the parkrun rabbit hole as I am right now. So going back, April 2018, it was the first week in Toowoomba. I didn't know anyone in the event team, but I knew that if I wanted to make a lot of new friends and people that shared the same common enjoyment of community and health and fitness, the parkrun would be the way to go. And the funny thing was, when we were staying in an Airbnb, I woke up and as I was about to go to the parkrun, first event, I asked Christine, my wife, my beautiful wife, if she wanted to join me. And she said, nah, I'm sleeping in. So forever she's missed the inaugural event. Anyway, I turned up and what I did was I walked to the gazebo where the first time briefing was and I said, hey guys, I'm Eman, I'm new to Toowoomba, love to volunteer. And the first person that came up to me and shook my hand was Robbie. So, you know, Robbie's been a great guy. He's just so welcoming to a lot of people. So give him a round of applause, Robbie. He just makes a really good first impression to everyone. He helped me meet a lot of friends. Going back to what Ollie's question was, what's special about South Toowoomba is the people. This is quite common to a lot of your personal parkrun journeys. parkrun means a lot of things to different people. For me, it's as much important in terms of getting PBs and fast times as it is to... building and developing close friendships and being part of a local community. So to me, parkrun means a lot and specifically South Toowoomba, we love the people so much so that we ended up building a house just right on the course itself.

00:20:55[laughter]

00:22:12Oliver Spake: Yeah, that was the reason I was actually suspecting the appeal.

00:22:15Eman Vergara: I'm not going to lie, we specifically built a house just on the laneway so that if we ever woke up at 6.57am, we could still roll out of bed and still make it to the start, as Christine will attest to many times.

00:22:32Oliver Spake: Something tells me that's not a common occurrence to just roll out of bed at last minute with your level of organisation behind things. But all right, we are a parkrun that is very much about adventuring. And you have, of course, adventured across a number of international parkruns. I think you've included five countries in your repertoire so far. So what's been the highlight and what's on your list still from the international parkrun side of things?

00:22:59Eman Vergara: Well, I think the good thing about parkrun tourism is it's how you want to build your sort of journey. And for us, international parkruns has been great, but it's not something that I'm specifically trying to take as many as possible. It's just been great that over the last six years that I've started parkrunning, we've been able to visit a few of the countries. So most recently, Queenstown in New Zealand, which is such a flat-out majestic and scenic place. course. If you haven't done Queenstown, it should be on your list. We did Tokyo a couple of months ago, Futakotamagawa, got that right first time. That was a great experience and done one in America in Boston, and in Australia, and also Singapore, that's right. We've done all three in Singapore, and we found out that that's a challenge, it's an achievement, it's called It's a Thing-a-Pool. LAUGHTER That's fantastic. That's great. Yeah, so it's been a great journey so far. I must also mention though that right here with us today is the quiz master, Simon. And my parkrun journey with Christine actually started when we were in Sydney. And the first ever parkrun we did was at Mossman parkrun. And I found out a couple of years later that the RD on that day was none other than Simon. So he gave us birth to the journey.

00:24:29Simon Mackley: And Eman actually came up to me on New Year's Day at Redland Bay. I was up on holidays. And he came up to me, he goes, you're Simon, right? And I'm like, yeah. He goes, you were at my very first parkrun and I haven't stopped since. And I was like, excellent. I'm glad I've had that. So, yeah, it was amazing to meet Eman again. And I had no idea, obviously, that I was the RD on his very first one. Excellent. Thank you.

00:24:53Oliver Spake: I think that's well said. Where's on the list still to come? You mentioned it's not necessarily a goal. Do you have any aspirations internationally?

00:25:03Eman Vergara: Internationally, I think, is not as a focus for us. At the moment, our personal family parkrun goal is to try and tick off each of the capital cities of Australia, obviously over a number of years. With that, we've got six to go to finish Sydney and get the Ray Farah challenge complete. Within Canberra, we've done five out of the nine, so every time we're just in the capital, we'll try and tick one off. And then Brisbane's always a work in progress. In Melbourne, Thank you to Bonza who started flying from Toowoomba to Melbourne. It's very cheap to get down there. We're now working our way, we've done the first five kilometre radius of the CBD. So now we're ticking off the parkruns between five and 10K around Melbourne. So it's a great achievement. We just love meeting new people and the tourists. And I know people are ticking off each of their respective states, which is great. For us, I think Capital Cities is sort of like a five to seven year goal. Excellent.

00:26:07Oliver Spake: Well, I will have to wrap it up so we can give Robbie some air time, but I did want to ask, so you've got your 17-minute PB here. The marathon time is clearly dropping well below the three-hour mark, and congratulations on Canberra. Was it 2.47.59? Yeah. He came 26. 26. APPLAUSE

00:26:31Eman Vergara: And 26th or 27th? 27th. In parkrun speak, I was able to do 20-minute parkruns times eight and a half. So I was super happy with that.

00:26:42Oliver Spake: And completed 244 parkruns, if I'm not mistaken. Keep going. I don't want to spoil the stats, just in case there's a quiz question or something. My question is, is it time for you to hang up your boots and become a part of Juno's support crew as she approaches her solo parkrun debut?

00:26:59Eman Vergara: Yes, I am so looking forward to the day she turns four years old. She's two years, seven months. I think I've been keeping my own spreadsheet. She's done about 60 different parkruns. She's finished first twice because I was pushing her. Riverway parkrun in Townsville and Cyril Curtain Reserve. So very happy with her progress today. So I'm looking forward to actually getting her the barcode so she can get scanning.

00:27:05[laughter]

00:27:25Oliver Spake: Excellent. All right. And we don't have time for reasons. So Eman, give me three top three parkrun names. They can be yours, Christine's or Juno's.

00:27:32Eman Vergara: I think for Christine, one is Queenstown. Definitely scenic. For me, it's Bargara. I just remember driving in and it's in front of a beach and you go through Mon Repos, which is a turtle reserve. Amazing. And Torrens in Adelaide. And the reason why I love Torrens is because you're running along the river and you run under five different bridges. And at the turnaround point, you're actually close to Adelaide Zoo. And sometimes you can actually hear the lions roar. Quite special. Just to run a bit faster. No, thank you very much, Eman.

00:28:01Oliver Spake: Thank you for having us. Thank you for letting us have you. Thanks, guys.

Interview Robbie Hawkswell — Founding Co-Event Director, South Toowoomba parkrun (co-ED with Margie Bryant); makes…

00:28:05Oliver Spake: And over to Mel and the wonderful Robbie.

00:28:09Melissa Ellis: Firstly, we would like to, or the cafe would like to say, has everybody got their meals? Has everybody received everything, food and drink-wise? Hope so. Thank you very much to the staff that have been working very well. Doing a great job. Oh, yeah, feel free to keep ordering. Hi, Robbie. Good morning, Mel. Ollie wrote me some questions.

00:28:41Robbie Hawkswell: Did you lose them? I love that. I can relate to that. I often have thoughts about what I'm going to ask people. It changes.

00:28:53Melissa Ellis: Thanks for hosting us here at South Toowoomba. We know that you're co-ED with Margie Bryant, who isn't here with us today. Well, she was here this morning, but she's not at the cafe. And Eman is one of your RDs, correct?

00:29:00[background music]

00:29:06Robbie Hawkswell: Yes, indeed. Eman's one of the crew.

00:29:08Melissa Ellis: He's a great guy, isn't he? Yeah, we've got to say that, don't we? Everybody loves him.

00:29:15Robbie Hawkswell: Everyone does, indeed, yeah.

00:29:16Melissa Ellis: He's been very successful with his running.

00:29:18Robbie Hawkswell: Have you heard about how fast he is?

00:29:21Melissa Ellis: He has a perfect family.

00:29:23Robbie Hawkswell: Everything is perfect with Eman.

00:29:25Melissa Ellis: It's really annoying, isn't it?

00:29:29Robbie Hawkswell: These are all Ollie's questions. You've done well here, Ollie.

00:29:31Melissa Ellis: Anyway, OK, jokes aside, your parkrun journey began back in July 2013, but not at South Toowoomba.

00:29:40Robbie Hawkswell: No, not at all. South Toowoomba wasn't thought of back then.

00:29:43Melissa Ellis: No.

00:29:44Robbie Hawkswell: I ventured down to Gatton parkrun. That was my very first parkrun. So Gatton does hold a special place in my heart. I actually love Gatton parkrun.

00:29:54Melissa Ellis: I haven't done that.

00:29:55Robbie Hawkswell: You haven't done it? No. It's beautiful. You've just got to get the right day. OK.

00:29:59Melissa Ellis: Okay. But as of today, did you run today?

00:30:03Robbie Hawkswell: No.

00:30:04Melissa Ellis: Oh. I helped you, man. Okay. So 440 parkruns. Yeah. And 440 volunteer occasions.

00:30:12Robbie Hawkswell: Well, I didn't realise that, but yeah.

00:30:17Melissa Ellis: That's very impressive. Well done. Would you like to tell us a story of how you got involved in parkrun?

00:30:24Robbie Hawkswell: Um... I was actually really into running at the time, really into it. And my life wasn't as busy as it is now. My daughter was, my daughter would have been six, maybe just turned seven. And I had a lot of spare time in my life. Things have changed. But yeah, no, I was running with a couple of people in Toowoomba and they'd tell me about this thing called parkrun. What's parkrun? This is back pre-2013 when we launched in Toowoomba. And Gatton started first, so we'd hop in the car and we'd go down to Gatton and parkrun. And I didn't go consistently when it did start, because when I got really into parkrun, I was consistent. It's only probably in the last 12 months that I don't go every Saturday anymore.

00:31:12Melissa Ellis: Okay. I've heard you were quite involved in facilitating trips that involved buses.

00:31:20Robbie Hawkswell: Oh, yeah, back in the day. Yeah, every New Year's Day we would host an event or we would always charter a bus. It started out as a minibus, then it got a bigger bus, then it got to the stage of two buses. I think that was our biggest was two buses, two charter coaches.

00:31:39Melissa Ellis: So 100 people?

00:31:41Robbie Hawkswell: Yeah, roughly, yeah.

00:31:42Melissa Ellis: Wow.

00:31:42Robbie Hawkswell: It's huge. That was in the day when we could do two events.

00:31:46[crosstalk]

00:31:46Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:31:48Robbie Hawkswell: Good old days. Thanks, Sonia. But we got to visit a lot of local outer laying parkruns. Warwick and Stanthorpe, we did that one. Jeez, I can't even remember every parkrun trip we did. But it was very, very awesome. Thank you.

00:32:07Melissa Ellis: So most of your tourism was on those occasions where you ventured away from South Toowoomba?

00:32:14Robbie Hawkswell: Yeah, originally when I started parkrun and Queen's Park, Toowoomba parkrun was home. So I'd never really venture from there at all. I'd be there every Saturday. Well, I used to set up. I set up the first event at Queen's Park and I did that religiously for five years, probably 4.5 years, sorry. And yeah, that was where South Toowoomba was born out of that event.

00:32:36Melissa Ellis: Okay. So you've done 20 different events. So, you know, you're on the, well.

00:32:43Robbie Hawkswell: Just made it to the list.

00:32:45[background music]

00:32:45Melissa Ellis: Don't talk about the war. What are your top three?

00:32:51Robbie Hawkswell: Gatton, number one. Yep. Just special because, you know, there's a lot of people here today that are from Gatton. It's an awesome parkrun. And it was probably, talk about Event Directors and Run Directors. Ingrid was the Event Director. She's just a lovely host. And actually, I still do things in our parkrun that she taught me without teaching me.

00:33:14Unidentified speaker: Okay.

00:33:15Robbie Hawkswell: Just such a good, friendly host, and it just left a mark on me, and it was just an experience. And South Toowoomba's really special, because something that you launch... No, no, no, no.

00:33:24Melissa Ellis: There's a rule. You can't say your own park.

00:33:26Robbie Hawkswell: Truly. Okay. Yes. Toowoomba parkrun. It is a very scenic parkrun. If you come here during carnival time, you run through the botanical gardens. It's a really nice parkrun. And above that, I'd probably go Sandgate, because I loved running along the beach there.

00:33:42Melissa Ellis: Okay. Okay. Nice. All righty. So you're usually on the other side of the interviewing, as you've already alluded to, and you interviewed Shultzy back in December. I watched it, and it was quite emotional.

00:33:55Robbie Hawkswell: Sorry?

00:33:56Melissa Ellis: Shultzy.

00:33:57Robbie Hawkswell: Oh, Shultzy, yeah.

00:33:58[crosstalk]

00:33:58Melissa Ellis: Is he here?

00:33:59Robbie Hawkswell: Yeah, he's just here.

00:33:59Melissa Ellis: Okay, excellent. Oh, there he is. So what I was going to ask you is, of all the people that you interview at South Toowoomba, is there any memorable occasions?

00:34:12Robbie Hawkswell: Different people touch you in different ways. Like, she'll see... I mean, like, it's, you know, how you feel about things and... I do get emotional about that sort of thing, but Shiltsy was really touching because Shiltsy's a parkrun stalwart. He is parkrun. But also, I have probably interviewed one of the fastest men in Australia.

00:34:34Melissa Ellis: Yeah?

00:34:35Robbie Hawkswell: Pat Tiernan. You don't know him?

00:34:36[crosstalk]

00:34:38Melissa Ellis: He's not an adventurer.

00:34:44Robbie Hawkswell: Fine.

00:34:45[laughter]

00:34:45Unidentified speaker: I've interviewed Eman.

00:34:48Melissa Ellis: Oh, yes.

00:34:49Robbie Hawkswell: Does that wash?

00:34:53Melissa Ellis: We all have.

00:34:56Unidentified speaker: I did it first.

00:35:01Robbie Hawkswell: But there's been that many over the years. Like, we started doing the post-parkrun interviews. Brett has always been my cameraman.

00:35:08Melissa Ellis: Oh, that was one of my questions. Who holds the camera?

00:35:11Robbie Hawkswell: Brett. Brett, he's down the back. There he is in the hat. See with his hand up? And I always ask him every time, because one time he didn't start the camera.

00:35:22Unidentified speaker: Oh.

00:35:23Robbie Hawkswell: So every time we do one. One job, right? I've got one favourite thing I say to him. I say, did you start it? Every time we finish, did you start it? But he's basically 90% of all the camera work is Brett. But that's just something that I decided that we'd do to try and capture a milestone. Because you can take all the photos in the world, but unless you've got the video of it. And so many good stories. Like the story there today, one lady, she's done her 50th parkrun. She did her first parkrun in an hour and one minute. And her PB is 39 minutes. Oh, wow.

00:35:58Melissa Ellis: Yeah.

00:35:58Robbie Hawkswell: And see, she didn't think she could do parkrun.

00:36:00Melissa Ellis: Yeah. No, it's good and it's heartwarming and it's very unique to South Toowoomba, what you do. So you've left a legacy.

00:36:07Robbie Hawkswell: Yeah, I have heard from parkrun hierarchy that no one else does it. Oh.

00:36:13Melissa Ellis: So we also like to often ask, what does parkrun mean to you?

00:36:17Robbie Hawkswell: Community. It's all community. The more people you can get to it, the more people that can tell the story. And the other thing at South Toowoomba is your experience at South Toowoomba is you shouldn't be able to come to South Toowoomba and leave without saying something because the barcode is normally prepped to always make sure they speak to every runner. So if you're trying to break some sort of cycle, because a lot of people are going through a lot of different things in life. So sometimes parkruns their outlet and hopefully if they come to South Toowoomba, they shouldn't be able to get through this shoot without speaking.

00:36:52Melissa Ellis: Excellent.

00:36:53Robbie Hawkswell: Oh, that's wonderful. I like that. Just a little South Toowoomba thing that we try and prep our Barcode Scanners, you know, because you're reading their name.

00:37:02Melissa Ellis: Yeah.

00:37:02Robbie Hawkswell: You've got it in front of you. How can you not say hello?

00:37:04Melissa Ellis: Yeah, exactly.

00:37:05Robbie Hawkswell: Just a little thing.

00:37:06Melissa Ellis: So we probably need to wrap up but one last question Robbie. Do you have any parkrun goals or dreams? What's next for Robbie Hawkswell?

00:37:16Robbie Hawkswell: Oh, I don't have a goal to be honest. No? Like if I can turn up when I want to and, you know, 500s within sight. I should have done 500 by now but I don't kind of, you know. I'd love to do 1,000 before I die.

00:37:29Melissa Ellis: Okay, that's a goal.

00:37:30Robbie Hawkswell: That'd be awesome, yeah, to do 1,000 parkruns, yeah.

00:37:33Melissa Ellis: Get that new yellow shirt.

00:37:35Robbie Hawkswell: Yeah, anything. But I'm happy just that South Toowoomba's a very healthy parkrun and that means probably a lot to me. But the people that come to South Toowoomba make South Toowoomba what it is. It's our community.

00:37:48Melissa Ellis: Yeah, it's the community. Well, thank you very much, Robbie. It was lovely talking to you. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.

00:37:52Robbie Hawkswell: Thank you for supporting Toowoomba. Supporting Eman and South Toowoomba parkrun. Thank you.

00:37:57Melissa Ellis: Okay.

00:37:59Oliver Spake: So thank you very much to our guests. Thank you very much to everyone for... for being a part of all the fun so far. Just to let you know, one of those recordings isn't working, so the live stream we've got going here and the backup recording are all we've got between this event and the reliance on your minds to carry this with you. We're going to take a five-minute break. This is your chance to order some more coffee. I've just done it. I highly recommend it. A bit more food, take a rest stop. We've got the quiz coming up with the quiz master and the crew, so let's take a five-minute break. We'll let you know when we get back underway. Thanks, everyone. All right. Could we have all of our hosts to the front, please? Hosts to the front. There is a quiz to be had. Now, before we get back underway, just a quick check. Do we have anyone from South Toowoomba parkrun here? I know I'm asking a silly question, but it's for a reason. Excellent.

00:38:35[background music]

00:39:14Tracey Wood: Robbie. Robbie.

00:39:16Oliver Spake: There's a guy called Ben. Ben was my Uber driver this morning as I came from parkrun to the cafe here because I wanted to be on hand here. Ben did not know what parkrun is, did not know what the podcast is. I forgave him. But... Ben, as he explained, since moving out in the last couple of years from Sri Lanka, he's trying to sort of make connections with the community, he's trying to get established in new areas of work, and was looking for opportunities to connect. So we had a great chat, and you might get a guy called Ben showing up at parkrun as a first timer next week, so if you do find him, please make him welcome, and I have recommended that, yeah, he use it to make a few friends. Yes. Yeah, I did recommend brunch as well, brekkie and brunch.

Palm quiz — Brendan Peel

00:40:09Simon Mackley: Alrighty, let's get underway. So, I know that Mel always calls it Kingsland, but for right now, we're going to call it Quizland. So I'm gonna get the four contestants up. I'm hoping that they've been prepped. So we're looking for the multiple winner. Brendan Peel. Brendan. Okay, cool, no problem. Sonia. Yep. So sorry, Brendan's representing Victoria. Let's call it its proper name. Sonia is representing New South Wales.

00:40:56Unidentified speaker: Oh, that's awkward. Well... That is so awkward.

00:41:01Simon Mackley: Now, Dave's right in front of me, but oh, no, he might be free now. So, Dave, can you come up, representing WA.

00:41:13Melissa Ellis: Simon, are you going to brief about Dave?

00:41:17Simon Mackley: I'm getting there. Okay. I'm getting there. And last one is Eman. So he's going to be representing Quizland. Okay. So Brendan has already picked up his favoured implement, which is the triangle. Can we try it out? Beautiful, it's working. Eman has the bell. Dave has the maraca. That is what it is, isn't it? It's not a castanet. No, it's a maraca. And Sonia has busted everyone's ears.

00:42:04Sonia: Minus ten points.

00:42:08Simon Mackley: Okay. Alrighty, so I've got some multiple choice questions. I've got some, where am I? Oh, sorry, I've got a, where am I? A, who am I? And I have a tie breaker if it actually gets to that. And if it doesn't, I'm still gonna ask it. Okay, so it's first one to buzz in gets to answer the question. If you answer it wrong, I'm gonna throw it to someone else. TOC is gonna be helping me here with the microphone, and Sarah is over here being very teacherly, and she's gonna score check. Alrighty, so first question. How many registered parkrunners worldwide have the first name South? Is it A, one, B, two, three, sorry, C, three, or D, zero?

00:43:13Tracey Wood: Three.

00:43:14Simon Mackley: Incorrect. Eman? B. Incorrect. B was two.

00:43:26Unidentified speaker: Zero.

00:43:27Simon Mackley: Incorrect. So Dave automatically gets it. There is one person with the first name of South.

00:43:36Unidentified speaker: Interestingly.

00:43:39Simon Mackley: He's on the board. Interestingly, their surname is actually only T, the letter T. I have no idea. It might be a test, it could be something, but yeah, South T. All right, next question. Name the four current Aussie compass points. Brendan.

00:44:00Unidentified speaker: Baxter is the western one, Geeveston is the southern one, Kingscliff is the eastern one and Nightcliff is the northern one.

00:44:08Simon Mackley: Correct. Brendan has one point. Queensland has just one custodial parkrun event. During COVID it changed. Can you name both the old and new event names of that custodial event? Oh, Sonia.

00:44:20[background music]

00:44:35Sonia: Do we get 50%?

00:44:37Simon Mackley: Sure.

00:44:37Sonia: Wacol?

00:44:38Simon Mackley: Wacol was the one that, yes, it left Wacol and went to? Spring Creek. Spring Creek. So Sonia gets half. Okay. No. I'm going to be harsh there and say no. Okay. The who am I question. I started my parkrun journey in 2013 and have since run 304 times at 110 different events in eight countries. My best finished position is fifth and I've come first female four times. My current tourist streak is 11 and is only two away from my longest streak. I'm often mentioned on the pod along with my partner in crime. Mayath?

00:45:31Unidentified speaker: Brent? Sarah.

00:45:32Simon Mackley: Well done. It was Sarah Jefferson. Did you know that was you?

00:45:38Sarah Jefferson: I was when you said the same thing.

00:45:43Simon Mackley: Okay. Prior to Palm, which episode number is Ollie's last as a regular host? Is it A, 370, B, 371, C, 372, or D, 376?

00:46:00Sonia: 372.

00:46:02Simon Mackley: Incorrect. Oh, I think Eman got that. 376. Incorrect.

00:46:11Unidentified speaker: 370.

00:46:13Simon Mackley: Incorrect. Well done, Brennan. 371. I might have made the questions too hard this year. Okay, can we have a score check, Sarah?

00:46:27Sarah Jefferson: Okay, so we've got Sonia on half a point. Yay! And we've got Dave on one. Eman, yet to get off the mark. And Brendan, striking ahead on three.

00:46:39Simon Mackley: Ooh. Okay, next one is where am I? My course is 5,000 metres long. The course takes in grass, boardwalk and concrete paths. Today we had event 580. Our average attendance is about 433 participants each week, although last week we had 564. My location was originally covered in bush and lagoon. It's seen convict labourers work there, jockeys ride there under the name of the Moreton Bay Jockey Club, and was later acquired by Brisbane City Council. Brendan. Redland Bay. Incorrect. The traditional owners called me Binkin Bar. I'm a member of the successor club located on the banks of the Brisbane River. I am second event in Queensland. Come on.

00:47:44Unidentified speaker: Is that New Farm?

00:47:45Simon Mackley: It is New Farm. Well done, Dave. That obviously got very stressful because my watch just started telling me I had an abnormal heart rate. Okay. How many registered parkrunners worldwide have the surname Toowoomba? Is it A, zero, B, one, C, three, or D, six? Eman. Zero. Incorrect. Brendan. One. Incorrect. Dave. Three. Incorrect. One. Sonia? The other one.

00:48:26[crosstalk]

00:48:37Unidentified speaker: Six, yeah.

00:48:40Simon Mackley: The reason for that is in custodial events, somebody who's inside a custodial event gets the surname of their town. It's got text. And just so that you know, there's one person who's registered as Toowoomba and has the surname Toowoomba.

00:48:58Unidentified speaker: So it's one of you.

00:49:01Sarah Jefferson: Score check, Sarah. Okay, so we've got Dave on two, Sonia on one and a half, Eman yet to score. Come on, Eman, you can do it. And Brendan's still on three.

00:49:13Simon Mackley: Excellent. Okay, now this is all about me, this one. I'm really self-conscious that I repeat a particular word when I'm recording the podcast with Mel, and Mel's noticed it as well. Is it A, okay, B, right, C, indeed, or D, interesting? Brendan? Indeed. It is indeed, indeed. Okay.

00:49:44Unidentified speaker: Did you just say indeed?

00:49:47Simon Mackley: I did say that. I love saying indeed. Okay. Please wait for the end of this one. What's the correct order of the co-hosting duty? Is it A, Toc, Olly, Simon, Olly? Is it Olly, Toc, Simon, Olly? Simon, Toc, Olly, Olly? Or is it Mel, Mel, Mel, Mel, Mel? Does anyone want to answer it? It's the order in which we co-host. So between TOC, Ollie and I, I'll go over it again.

00:50:30Unidentified speaker: Thank you.

00:50:31Simon Mackley: Is it TOC, Ollie, Simon, Ollie? Ollie, TOC, Simon, Ollie? Simon, TOC, Ollie, Ollie? Or Mel, Mel, Mel, Mel, Mel?

00:50:42Eman Vergara: The second one. The second option.

00:50:45Simon Mackley: Incorrect.

00:50:52Sonia: Sonia? The one with the two Ollies at the end. Sorry? The one with the two Ollies at the end. Incorrect.

00:51:01Simon Mackley: That only leaves two.

00:51:04Unidentified speaker: Is it TOC, Ollie, Simon, Ollie?

00:51:06Simon Mackley: It is correct.

00:51:07Unidentified speaker: OK, score check.

00:51:13Sarah Jefferson: Okay, we've got Sonia on one and a half, Dave on three, Brendan on four, and Eman. Yeah, I know you know. Bring it home quick, Eman.

00:51:24Eman Vergara: Bring it home.

00:51:27Simon Mackley: We believe in you, Eman. For a five-point question, this was the tiebreaker. So we know that Brendan actually won, okay? End of the day, Brendan won, but we'll see if Eman can actually overtake him. All right, so I'm, this one's a little bit hard, I've made it very, very difficult, but, so, what I want is the closest number to how many parkruns have all of the hosts collectively run, jogged, walked, or crawled at. Okay, Brendan, you go first.

00:52:13Unidentified speaker: Sorry, was that events or was it different events?

00:52:17Simon Mackley: No, it's how many runs. Runs, walks, whatever.

00:52:23Unidentified speaker: Just say a number.

00:52:27Eman Vergara: I'll go 1600.

00:52:31Simon Mackley: It's lower. Dave, Sonia, who wants to go next?

00:52:38Sonia: OK, I will go... 1120.

00:52:46Unidentified speaker: Higher. 1375.

00:52:52Simon Mackley: Just a little too high. 1376.

00:52:54Unidentified speaker: 1376.

00:52:55Simon Mackley: No, that was higher, and the answer's lower. 1372. Lower.

00:53:07Sonia: Lower than 1372. Sorry, it's in 1372, but higher than, what did I say, 10?

00:53:14[crosstalk]

00:53:14Simon Mackley: You said 11-something. Oh, did I? Okay. So, World O5. Much higher.

00:53:23Unidentified speaker: 1360.

00:53:25Simon Mackley: Incorrect. But you are, it's higher. 1361. 1361. So, Brendan took it out anyway. LAUGHTER So yeah, Mel's had $429, Ollie $227, TOC $367, and me $338. And that is the end of the quiz. We have prizes, and so Brendan gets to go first. And he's taking it out of, what are we calling it? It's not the Obilope, it's the, what are we calling the envelope?

00:54:06Oliver Spake: It's the Obi parcel today.

00:54:08Simon Mackley: The Obi parcel. So Brendan gets to pick the first one. He gets the... Yeah. The first and only one, it's Dazza. Brendan, did we have the other prize? Yes, they're behind Ian. Well done, Brendan. Thank you very much.

00:54:33Melissa Ellis: We've got a selection of prizes so we can go in order of winner to choose, but it might be a bit boring for content.

00:54:41Simon Mackley: Indeed. Audio format not so good.

00:54:50Tony O'Connell: While we sort the prizes out, just The final scores, by the way, were...

00:54:56Sarah Jefferson: Okay, so we had winner Brendan on nine, Sonia on one and a half, Dave was on three, so Dave came second, Sonia came third, and Eman came fourth.

00:55:08Unidentified speaker: How many points? Uh, yeah.

00:55:12Sarah Jefferson: Eman or...? Well, Sonia was a one and a half. Participation points, that's right.

00:55:19Simon Mackley: While they're choosing their gifts, I am going to thank our party planner and the support crew, Eman. Thank you for everything you've done to get this weekend going.

00:55:36Melissa Ellis: Okay, I've got a very special thank you. So you all know her. She's been everywhere so far and she hasn't stopped yet, the Office Lady. I don't know what we would do without her. She looks after us so much. This is very much a team production, putting this all together. Sam, we love you and we appreciate you.

00:55:55Simon Mackley: Thanks, Sam. I'm next gonna thank our most anonymous person of our team, which is Rachel and the birthday boy. So whoever you are, thank you very much for everything you've done for us in the last year.

00:56:23Melissa Ellis: Oh, and the news crew. So they're not all here today. We should name them all. Should we? He's a fun guy. So, okay. Well, the three that are here, we've got Lyndell the Legendary, Tracey in a Tutu and Sarah from the West Side. We're so pleased that you could join us at palm24. We also have Marvellous Mark in the ACT. We've got PK and Greta in South Australia. I don't think we've got any South Australian representatives here with us today. And Dave Moss. Yes. Okay. And, of course, TOC stepped up. He's staff now. Oh, and international, Johan, are you up? And Alison. Thank you. Yeah, so that's them, and we appreciate all the reports that they bring you as listeners every week and help us put together this little podcast. What's next, boss?

00:57:34Simon Mackley: All right, and we really want to thank South Toowoomba parkrun, the event crew, and all of the volunteers who helped run today.

00:57:46Oliver Spake: And for those playing at home, we're still going on the Channel 5 news crew. Thank you, Caveman Cam. Has anyone else picked up anyone else we've missed? No, this is what happens when Ollie does the show notes.

00:58:02Simon Mackley: And of course, we want to thank the cafe who have been amazing this morning.

00:58:12Oliver Spake: I'll keep going. Thank you to Anish from Toowoomba AV. Without Anish, our backup recording option wouldn't have been possible. So if you are hearing this as a podcast, it's all down to Anish. Please support him. He's just started the business and highly recommend it because he's got good ideas. Thank you to all of our contributors in terms of the prizes and the goodies as well to Venn too, of course. And thank you to all of those contributors. Thank you in particular, we did mention their names earlier on, Scotty and Mel. Always a big thank you to Scotty and Mel and to all of the hosts and contributors to our wonderful podcast over the years. All right, we're gonna skip to the next section as I know it's approaching 11. Hello.

00:59:01Tony O'Connell: Hey! Technology and me, not a good mix.

Palm audience Q&A

00:59:06Tony O'Connell: One of the bits I usually enjoy each year is we give the audience an opportunity to ask, are there any questions you want to ask of the hosts, of the Channel 5 News crew, of the cafe? We'll get them up if they really want to come and answer questions. Has anyone got any questions in the crowd? Any comments? Any feedback?

00:59:29Oliver Spake: Let's see if the mic works down there.

00:59:30[crosstalk]

00:59:35Greg: This one's to Mel. Mel, can we go back to back this year in the AFL?

00:59:44Melissa Ellis: Do we have that song? Absolutely we can. Thanks, Greg. I'll make sure I add it in the post-production. Any other questions? Anybody want to know anything behind the scenes type, how we – well, you've had a good insight today, if you haven't been to a recording before, about the chaos that does occur with the live recordings. Oh, Rex.

00:59:50[background music]

01:00:26Rex: How long does it usually take you to put it together on a weekly basis?

01:00:31Unidentified speaker: Oh. Really good question.

01:00:33Oliver Spake: Is this the bit that we do or the bit that Mel does?

01:00:38Melissa Ellis: Well, we will start on a Sunday, starting to put together show notes from the results over the weekend. Of course, the Consolidated Club Report I put together with the help of a spreadsheet that Dave produces. Sarah, help me out. What's Dave from WA... Messenger, Dave Messenger helps me out to collate, because parkrun does do a consolidated club report, but it doesn't have the information in the right order that I want it in. I want to have that state rivalry. So I think I've been successful in creating that. So, yeah, that starts on Sunday, and we start prepping the show notes, so everybody who has access to our show notes jumps in. Some people put surprises in there.

01:01:25Oliver Spake: Can I just interject and say, I know I've been missing for a few weeks, but thank you to Karen, to Bec, to Brendan. Brendan's behind Shellharbour April Fools, but I've noticed Shellharbour's been mentioned virtually every episode.

01:01:43Melissa Ellis: They're never going to go away. Of course, we love Shellharbour and it's all just a joke. So any of the banter that you hear, we just play it up a little bit for theatrics. We really love Shellharbour and their beautiful parkrun course. If you haven't been there, highly recommend.

01:01:59Unidentified speaker: What was that?

01:02:00[background music]

01:02:00Melissa Ellis: So Stoll's Point, I believe. So anyway... The actual recording, we record on a Monday night. We start usually around 7 o'clock. We usually just talk crap for an hour.

01:02:16Simon Mackley: Or two.

01:02:17Melissa Ellis: We can say crap. We can actually say worse than crap, but we are mindful that there's children in the room and in the cars when listening, so we are careful. Yeah, so our recording usually wraps up by 9, 9.30, and we usually end up with roughly an hour of content. Is that not true? Do we go longer sometimes? Yeah, well, Mel's lonely. So then after that, the post-production, which is me, and I've cut it down heaps. I used to be a lot more careful with turning down breaths and sniffs, and cutting out things but I've just for necessity I work full time now so I've had to cut a lot that out so what you get is a lot more raw but we add music we add sound effects do you like the sound effects okay we haven't had Tooting Common for a while oh except the song I'll add it in more okay anyway does that answer your question yeah it's probably there's probably three or four hours maybe more of post-production after recording night Yeah, and, of course, Sam looks after, the Office Lady looks after all our social media. Response to everybody that puts messages in Dazza's. We like that engagement. We love to see the community. I read every Dazza's post every week. That's how we draw the ones that we... put into the podcast, the ones that will create a talking point for us, the ones that we try to celebrate all our adventurers' milestones or special things that have happened. We actually put a lot of thought into who we select and what we can bring to you each week.

01:04:08Simon Mackley: And we read them all as well. Up until Monday night recording, we read all of them.

01:04:13Melissa Ellis: Yes, we do.

01:04:15Simon Mackley: Absolutely.

01:04:15Melissa Ellis: And we're mindful that the international ones are coming through later and they're always at the bottom, so we always try to include that. I have been lately trying to include Dazza's... posts from every state and territory in the country, plus the different countries represented around the world to make sure we have a wide coverage. We love all our international listeners as well. We try to bring them and include them in more. We're aware that it's very Australian-centric, but our adventures travel overseas too. So, actually, we would really love a UK Channel 5 News crew person. If anybody would like to apply, you might have a challenge. Did you have anything else to add?

01:04:20[background music]

01:05:02Tony O'Connell: No, I just think it is important that it is a bit of a team effort, especially on the Sunday afternoons. We all seem to jump in and type into the show notes and add different bits and pieces. One of the beauties, I think, of the podcast is all the different co-hosts come in with a little bit of a different angle on things, and I think that's one of the things that makes our podcast a little bit unique is that we're all different people, different personalities, different interests, and that's one of the things I really love about it, so...

01:05:31Oliver Spake: I'm going to go on top of that and say, yeah, I think that's been one of my favourite things about the podcast as well, hearing the roving reporters and the different angles, the different experiences, the different touches that they all bring. And, of course, all of the other contributors. You don't have to be a roving reporter to contribute. We love hearing and experiencing, particularly those of us that don't adventure as much. We love hearing your experiences. And I'm sure for those that are travelling those long distances and connecting while you're on the road, it's good to hear those familiar faces.

01:06:02Melissa Ellis: I've got another one too. A special thing that I like is the Aboriginal country. I like to always acknowledge, and I've already mentioned it today, Lyndell's very good always doing that. I encourage everybody to learn the Aboriginal lands and where you run and include that if you feel happy to do that. Just as a personal anecdote, I was at work this week and I was reading a newsletter, let's call it that, that didn't state where it was from, but it mentioned the Ngunnawal Theatre. And I knew straight away, oh, it's in the ACT. So, yeah, I just like... I hear Dharawal and I think of this man. I know Banyarong and Quandamooka. So I hope you're all learning that and you're getting that out of the podcast as well. OK?

01:06:52Simon Mackley: Now... We've got a question from Em. Hang on.

01:06:56Em: Is there any veracity to the rumour that palm25 is going to be held in Victoria?

01:07:08Simon Mackley: What a segue that was, and it wasn't even planned.

01:07:14Tony O'Connell: Right, I'm moving right along because... We have five minutes before we have to be out of the cafe. Coming up this Palm weekend, we still have a number of events. So two o'clock this afternoon, we're doing a freedom walk, run, skip or jump at the Toowoomba course, which is at Queen's Park, about 500 metres that way. Or for those not geographically challenged, probably east. Tomorrow morning, we have one at nine o'clock at Highfields. I'm going to put a chair between us, a bit of safety. Tomorrow morning, Highfields, 9 o'clock. We have another one that is to the north. And our big party night tonight, our costume night, is at the Toowoomba Sports Club, which is about 100 metres that way, which is another geographical reference. It's that way. Looking forward to some of the costumes. Apparently one of the hosts has a costume that's... I'm not going to go there. It might get him locked up. It might... I don't know. Well, let's see what happens. Have we got any glimpses of other costumes out there yet, or is it all a big reveal tonight?

01:07:30[laughter]

01:08:33Unidentified speaker: Big reveal.

01:08:34Tony O'Connell: Big reveal. Okay, beautiful.

01:08:37Unidentified speaker: No, no, no, keep it going.

01:08:42Tony O'Connell: Oh, we've got communication. Oh, I'll keep going. So moving right along, palm25. Good question, Em. Em, you're nowhere near the money. Come on, palm25 at this stage is going to be in the land of the clouds over in New Zealand. The date will be revealed fairly shortly. We're just coordinating calendars and working out. We're getting our people to talk to their people and all that sort of thing. But that is the big hot rumour for the day. It's not a rumour, it's fact. And with that, I'll pass it over to these guys.

Sign-off

01:09:35Oliver Spake: Well, that was fun. We're done. Have we missed anything? No. Well, I mean, apologies. I suppose we probably should have mentioned, hi, Dazza, hi, Rachel, hi, birthday boy. Sorry you're not joining us today, but thank you, everyone else, very much for joining us. That's another one. Yeah, that's it for another Palm. That's it for palm24. Of course, with the exception of everything else still to come. You can contact us, as Eman would know, at theparkrunadventurers at gmail.com via email or at parkrunadventurers on our socials, which include Facebook and Instagram. Do we have any other socials running at the moment? We do have X, but I gave up on that. Yeah, we don't X, Mark, so go for the others. You can send in a roving report any time. You can send a message. We do love hearing from you. We'll be back on the airwave sometime after Palm once we work out if this recording has actually worked. But that is it for another Palm. That is it for another week. We will see you all next week and this afternoon for more adventures. Just for those keeping count at home, yes, we did have the live usual recording method fail almost immediately. The other one's still picking up sound, though, so we hold great hope that this will go to the airwaves. Thank you, everyone. I know in the past we've had time for any off-the-record Q&A, but you've got the weekend to catch up with us. Thank you. Please have more coffee, more food. Thank you.

01:10:20[crosstalk]

01:11:10[background music]

Club Corner

01:11:30Rachel: question what is palm answer something that will never be held in Victoria but seriously this is Rachel with club corner where we talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs and I am coming to you from Arrernte Country this week is all about palm the parkrun adventurers podcast listener meetup it's a step up from a frond there have been seven palms beginning in 2018 with Shellharbour Palm then moved to Newcastle in New South Wales hosted at The Beaches parkrun in 2019 then going on to Adelaide, hosted at Mount Barker parkrun in 2020. In 2021 we headed to the Greatest State and hit up the Sunshine Coast at Nambour parkrun. 2022 we went down south and headed to Bellerive parkrun in Tasmania, before 2023 going west to WA and UWA parkrun. 2024 was all about South Toowoomba parkrun and hosted on the Darling Downs, and once again in the Greatest State. And for those who have been listening and picking up the news, 2025 is planned for New Zealand. Every year, Palm follows a similar format. People arrive into the host city on the Friday, and late in the day there is a freedom run. Friday night is an informal dinner, with people taking the chance to catch up, sometimes for the first time since last year. Saturday morning is all about parkrun, with a live pod recording happening mid-morning. Sometimes we have proof that this happened, and sometimes not. Winky face. In the afternoon there is another freedom run, before the main event, the dress-up party on Saturday night. I think that I have the dress up things right, but feel free to correct me, but I think that we have had hats, parkrun, the 20s, come as your parkrun, the letter P, go western this year, flower power. Sunday morning sees many slash most back up for a third freedom run, and a final chance for a group photo and fond farewells. In some years there is a local running event on the schedule, it just depends on the town and the time of year, and how many alternate events are close by. All in all, Palm is a great exercise in organised chaos, with many like-minded, yet different people, coming together to revel in getting some close attention from the pod crew. And given that the pod is an audio thing, it's nice to put a face to the voice. That will do for this week, and stay tuned for our future Club Corners.

01:13:35[outro theme playing]

01:14:36Unidentified speaker: Bye.