Episode 408 - Back to the Office

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:23Tony O'Connell: Welcome to episode 408 of the parkrun adventurers Podcast, a podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name's TOC and I'm coming to you from Boon Wurrung Country.

00:00:34Melissa Ellis: And my name's Melissa and I'm coming from Wurundjeri Country. And hasn't it been a nice hot old summer here in Victoria? But you haven't been in Victoria, TOC.

00:00:45Tony O'Connell: No, Mel, I've been out on the West Side and it has been exceedingly hot for a Victorian over there. I think most days, I think the coldest day we had was 32 during the day and it was up to about 39. So, yeah, for a little Victorian, it was fairly warm over in the West Side.

00:01:03Melissa Ellis: I wouldn't think it's been awfully lot cooler here, although I also was interstate for a good period.

00:01:10Tony O'Connell: part of the Christmas break but anyway it would explain your nice tan you are looking very brown Tony O'Connell yes I think we've come back um one of the advantages of being on the West Side apparently is you get to swim in the beach every day even if you don't want to but we certainly wanted to it's beautiful down at south beach uh swimming right beside the parkrun start line basically Mel every day for a

00:01:35Melissa Ellis: It's probably best that you launch into a bit of a recap then and tell us what you got up to over the long break. Righty-o, Mel.

00:01:43Tony O'Connell: We decided that we were going to catch up on a couple of little alphabet letters that we really wanted to get hold of. And so we headed to the West Side because it offered us a large array and we'd heard so much about how good the West Side was. So we thought we'd go over and experience it for ourselves. As I said, hot every day. Most mornings we'd go out for a walk, and by the time we finished our walk, it was hot. So you'd go walk down the beach, have a swim, and by the time you walked home, it was hot. One of the things I'll say about people on the West Side is they're all up and about early. You get up at half past five, and there's people out everywhere, swimming, walking, but later on in the day, the numbers sort of dwindled a bit. But they're up and about really early, Mel. So we ventured over, had a great time. Didn't go too far, just explored the local area in great detail. And thanks to our Flinders Island crew for getting me going on city strides. That's been chaotic, but we've had a big get around. Lots of breweries in Fremantle. We had three or four breweries within probably a kilometre of us, so certainly sport for choice if you wanted to go for a walk for an evening bevy before tea. One of them, Running with Thieves, had a really great running theme going about, and they actually have a running club that runs out of the brewery, which is pretty cool, combining a couple of things that I like, but parkrun warriors Mel we got over there flew over on Boxing Day and I'm going to butcher these names and apparently that's what I do best butchering town names but yokine was where we went to on the 28th and 12th and it was great to see a lot of our pod friends turn up out there Dave and Chloe turned up Sarah and Matt and Andrew yeatman were there so there were a few names and Mel there was a couple of pod adventurers that were there or parkrun adventurers that Didn't get to meet, but when you flick through the results and you see the adventurers and you think, oh, I've missed an opportunity to say g'day to somebody. But New Year's Day went up to Quinns Rocks, which is a bit of a drive if you're staying in Fremantle. It's only 50, 55 minutes, which almost makes it local for some of us. Once again, Dave and Chloe turned up, Sarah and Matt, Andrew Yeatman, and we had some guest appearances from Gareth Arnold and Abdul, who graced us with his poo suit. It was stinking hot and Abdul turned up and ran in the poo suit. Now that's the extreme parkrun. Several other adventurers were in attendance. We had Lloyd Stridham, Dave Allmark, Lisa Mundy, Kerry O'Keefe and Daria Kiran. We had a very fine frond. I think we had 14 people rock up, so we clocked out the numbers there. And after parkrun, we had the mandatory swim in the ocean, which is right beside the course. Following Saturday, moving down south this time. We went about 50 minutes south of where we were staying to Jarrahdale Heritage parkrun. It's a bit of a trail parkrun, and I've got to say... It'd be a great area to explore on a day that wasn't 38 degrees. Big heritage area with, obviously, you know, the clues in the name. They had lots of... Well, they did a lot of timber farming there. So there's old railways through there. There's a lot of museums. There's a great national park there with a set of waterfall that people go in. There's a big water hole that you go in to swim there. Lots of stuff to do. And once again, Andrew Yeatman rocked down to there and met us down there and Rhianna come down as well. So we had a great... A couple of days, a couple of parkrun days where we got to catch up with a lot of our friends from WA and just have a general ball. And while we're going, Mel, let's have a listen to the other Mel, who was the RD at Quinns on the day.

Roving report Tony O'Connell — Quinns Rocks parkrun

00:05:50Tony O'Connell: Howdy parkrunners, it's TOC from Inverloch and today I've ventured over to West Side and apparently West is best and I'm here with today's Run Director, Mel. Mel, where are we today?

00:06:01Mel: We are on definitely the best side, the West Side. We're at Quinns Rocks parkrun which is right on the coast in the northern suburbs of Perth.

00:06:08Tony O'Connell: Mel, we couldn't get much closer to the coast. I'm looking at the border and it's only about 20 metres away. So it's a sensational course from that point of view.

00:06:17Mel: It is. And there is a shark net as well. So after your run with our three hills, you can jump in the sea and you will still be safe.

00:06:23Tony O'Connell: So Mel, give us a bit of a course description about Quinns Rocks parkrun.

00:06:27Mel: Yep, so we're a little bit of a challenging run. So many people come to get us the queue here and they're pleasantly surprised. We have a coastal run with three out and back hills and then we actually have to run past the finish line for another K or so and then double back. So that also throws people.

00:06:44Tony O'Connell: And the whole lot, you can basically, apart from those little out and backs, you can see the water the whole way. And even coming down the out and backs, because you've climbed a bit, you get that elevation, you get a sensational view out over the water. It's stunning. You've got everything. So it's a stunning parkrun.

00:06:55[crosstalk]

00:06:58Mel: It is stunning. And then in the winter, if you like a little bit of a challenge, you get, you know, the storms coming in from the sea as well.

00:07:05Tony O'Connell: And how did Quinns Rocks parkrun come about?

00:07:09Mel: It was the previous Run Directors that we had started it up. About five years, I think. No, more, more.

00:07:15Tony O'Connell: And what about you? What was your involvement with parkrun? How did you get involved?

00:07:19Mel: My involvement was catching up with a friend, finding out about a run that you could actually track your times. So I know it's not a race, and it is not a race, but I love the fact that we can track our times and we can do challenges, which is awesome. So I've been doing this about five years now.

00:07:35Tony O'Connell: Excellent. No, look, it's an awesome run. We've had a great bit of fun today out walking. I did park walking today and met a couple of the locals and had a really good chat with them, which I really love about the park walk role is you do meet people that you ordinarily wouldn't see and wouldn't talk to. So that's been a bit of a highlight today. The views are just the big highlight. You could sell this place on the views alone. Yeah.

00:07:58Mel: You can. And it's just such a nice community, you know. We're not a massive parkrun. We've just, last week, just got over 200 runners. But normally we sit at about 180 or so. So people know each other. It's a really nice community. Very good community.

00:08:12Tony O'Connell: Well, time for swimming that shark net, as you promised.

00:08:12[crosstalk]

00:08:14Mel: Yep, go get in there. Awesome. And we hope to see all of you guys come down to Quinns Rocks in WA.

00:08:19Tony O'Connell: Thanks, Mel.

00:08:20Mel: Cheers.

00:08:21Tony O'Connell: So Mel, that pretty well wraps up our trip. Hot, hot, swimming, hot, swimming, hot. How about you? Where did you get to? I think you had an adventure as well.

00:08:31Melissa Ellis: Oh, well, I did. And during the New Year break, I travelled to the Eyre Peninsula with Martine Barrot and Andrew Johnston, where we completed Port Augusta on the 28th of December, Yeldulknie Weir Trail on New Year's Day and Whyalla Foreshore on the 4th of January on the traditional lands of the Barngarla people. Now, the Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It's bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east and the Great Australian Bight on the west and the Gawler Ranges to the north and is named after explorer Edward John Eyre, who explored parts of the peninsula in 1839 to 1841. Why did you choose these events, Mel? Well, I'm glad you asked, TOC. The three events were chosen as they are situated three and a half to five and a half hours from Adelaide Airport, which meant that we had more time to travel out there over the holiday period and spend time exploring the area. We based ourselves in Whyalla for eight nights and travelled out for the other parkruns and the sightseeing. We discovered painted silo art and the Big Galah, some World War II maritime history, took a steelworks tour, saw dolphins, swam in the sea, spotted painted rocks and took up rock painting. We found the 33rd parallel north, gate crashed Errol Poole's 500th parkrun and experienced a very faint aurora. What we did not spot was any emus despite our very best efforts. Now a funny story about Errol's 500th milestone. I had been tipped off that it was occurring over the New Year period and would coincide with Errol regaining his South Australian statesmanship. So that was a very convenient fact because it made it easy for us to stalk him to identify which event he was left to run. So it turned out it was Whyalla Foreshore. No way! What are the odds it was going to occur in the very place where we were staying? But we weren't planning to run Whyalla until the 4th of January and we assumed Errol would complete the milestone on New Year's Day. He didn't. He volunteered at Traralgon parkrun in Victoria. So it was too much for me by then. So I reached out to Errol to ask if he would be completing it on the 4th and he was. So that was the very luckiest of coincidences that we were in place to celebrate the achievement. I even painted him a special limited edition, one-of-a-kind 500th rock. I know, how lucky. Now, Errol was joined at Whyalla by his three kids, Chloe, Brenton and Joel, who were all parkrun adventurers too, meaning that with Martine and Andrew, we had a frond of seven. The Pools all wore matching blue shirts and goodas and Errol donned a blue tutu because that's just what you do, right? I grabbed a short bit of audio with Errol, so let's have a quick listen to that.

00:11:10[background music]

Roving report Melissa Ellis — Whyalla Foreshore parkrun

00:11:15Unidentified speaker: Okay. Hello, everybody.

00:11:17Melissa Ellis: I am here at Whyalla Foreshore parkrun and I'm here with the man at the moment, Errol Poole. Good morning, Errol.

00:11:23Errol Poole: Good morning, Mel.

00:11:24Melissa Ellis: Would you like to tell everybody what you are doing here this morning at Whyalla?

00:11:28Errol Poole: Yeah, certainly can. I'm doing my 500 milestone, which is terrific, and also regaining my statesmanship.

00:11:37Melissa Ellis: That's pretty cool. And who is with you here this morning?

00:11:40Errol Poole: I've got my three children, Chloe, Joel and Brenton. And we've got Andrew and Martine and your lovely self. And me.

00:11:49Melissa Ellis: So that's a pretty big thing. You've got your three kids here. And being that you live in... Do you live in Victoria?

00:11:56Errol Poole: No, Brisbane at the moment. What?

00:11:58Melissa Ellis: You live in Brisbane. One of your sons lives in Victoria and you've got two kids that are local.

00:12:00[background music]

00:12:03Errol Poole: Yes, yep.

00:12:04Melissa Ellis: So they've made the effort to come out here today.

00:12:06Errol Poole: Yep, yeah. Joel, because I was over in Victoria, so Joel... drove over with me, and he's going to fly back tomorrow, back to Victoria. Fabulous.

00:12:17Melissa Ellis: Now, Chloe's made you a special T-shirt.

00:12:19Errol Poole: Yeah, she certainly has. She's good at doing that, yeah.

00:12:22Melissa Ellis: Can you describe what it is?

00:12:24Errol Poole: It's a blue shirt, of course. It's got 500 parkruns on the front and on the back. It's got how many? 2,500 kilometres written on it, as well as 304 locations and 74 volunteers.

00:12:41Melissa Ellis: Yes, and SA statesmanship back, so that's great. Now, you're also a big tourist because you're up above me on the most events list, aren't you? Where do you sit now?

00:12:53Errol Poole: I've been checked for a while, but I don't know, fourth or fifth, I think, yeah.

00:12:57Melissa Ellis: You're a modest man, Errol. You've done a lot of SA because you previously lived here, right?

00:13:02Errol Poole: Yes, for 10 years, yep.

00:13:04Melissa Ellis: You're cheating the system by living in Brisbane.

00:13:06Errol Poole: Yeah, that's right.

00:13:08[crosstalk]

00:13:08Melissa Ellis: How can we compete?

00:13:09Errol Poole: I don't know.

00:13:10Melissa Ellis: No, it's great. We're really happy for you. And I was pretty chuffed to realise that you were going to be doing it here today. So that's great.

00:13:16[crosstalk]

00:13:16Errol Poole: Yes. No, it worked out very well, actually. We've got a frond. Yes. Yep. Awesome.

00:13:21Melissa Ellis: All right. Well, you enjoy your run and congratulations.

00:13:24Errol Poole: Yep. Thank you very much, Mel.

00:13:27Melissa Ellis: So there you go. You can hear how Errol had a very lovely morning. Now, Whyalla Foreshore parkrun was profiled after Event 7 back in Episode 382, What's in a Name, when Janet spoke to ED's Julia, Kristen and Mel. We were at Event 41 and were amongst a crowd of 143 for the first Saturday in January 2025. It was mighty warm with the mercury hitting 28 degrees Celsius by 8 a.m., So very similar weather. Well, maybe it was hotter by your parkrun time. I don't know, Tony, but it was 33 degrees by 9am. So that was a lot hotter than what us Victorians are used to running parkrun in. Errol took adventure a line on us in 10th position. I managed my best time since May last year. I don't even know how I did that. And Chloe Poole ran her arbitrary 200th, which she kept very quiet. So well done, Chloe. Obviously, I ran at more events over the break, but I'll keep my recap to the most memorable. Thanks again to my parkrun besties, Andrew and Martine, for putting up with me on the adventure. Time to start planning next year, TOC.

00:14:33Tony O'Connell: It's not next year, Mel. It's this year. Oh, it is.

00:14:36Melissa Ellis: Oh, my goodness. That seems weird.

00:14:39Tony O'Connell: So it is really time to start planning it. In fact, the spreadsheet gurus were out on the weekend plotting and filling out spreadsheets and getting it all started. And I know some of our friends have had spreadsheets going for months already planning this year, but I've only just started mine.

00:14:56Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I've got a few things already penciled in because that's just what you do, isn't it? But who else was busy? I think you've got a budgie update. Yeah.

00:15:07Tony O'Connell: I have Mel, Budgie has been exceedingly busy. Budgie has been here, there and everywhere. After Whitemark, Budgie went to inner Melbourne and visited Kirkdale parkrun with Dan O'Connell. Budgie made it to the stump before deciding was the place to be for Christmas and who wouldn't want to be at the stump at Christmas. After Christmas, Budgie caught a ride with myself and Jacqui over to the West Side, where the first port of call was Yokine, and Chloe and Dave Bravos took Budgie over and took him under their wing. Budgie then went to Quinns Rocks, where they hitched a ride with Gareth Arnold. So a very quick changeover, only a couple of days. And a couple of days after that, Budgie went to Kadina Trail and is now... in the safekeeping of Andrew Yeatman.

00:15:59Melissa Ellis: I wouldn't know if that's safekeeping, actually, if you've been looking at the social media talk.

00:16:05Tony O'Connell: So Budgie has had a very big adventure in a week and is now flitting around with Andrew and it's going to be interesting to see who Andrew manages to pass Budgie over to.

00:16:18Melissa Ellis: Okay. I thought we had a chance. I really thought we had a crack at getting Budgie over to the UK. Hopefully that's still on the cards.

00:16:27Tony O'Connell: Yeah, very close, but things happened. And yeah, Budgie gets to travel a little bit more of the Australian countryside before heading off for the cooler climate. And certainly after last Saturday, you'd have to say the UK was much cooler, particularly up... you know, in the north central area where I believe, at last count anyway, I had 325 of the UK parkruns that actually cancelled due to ice.

00:16:54Melissa Ellis: Yeah, just a seasonal... We didn't have a lot in Australia affected this year by bushfires, but I shouldn't talk too soon, should I?

00:17:04Tony O'Connell: No, we're only in early January, so we still have some time to go, but... We've been very fortunate. I think Australia had 21 cancellations on the weekend, which was for a whole variety of reasons. Some of it weather related, some this time of year, typically you have a lot of agricultural shows taking over ovals and things like that. So events that can't get onto their traditional home. But yeah, in the UK, it was certainly a lot of ice. And once again, the UK people were very creative with some of their naming of their reasons for cancellations, but I didn't actually screenshot them this time. So we'll have to let that one slide.

00:17:46Melissa Ellis: Now, in other news, we have had an announcement over the break that the adventurers shirts are once again available. And we actually haven't remiss of us. Thanked Carol, our agency temp, who stepped in over the summer break and doing all our social media. So thank you, Carol. You were fabulous. Even if you were a little bit lacking in parkrun knowledge, you did really well there. Yeah, and Carol has opened up our portal to make our adventurers shirts open for you all to buy if you would so wish. Now, they're still the same design, sky blue Adventurers shirt with our yellow logo, Zoomy logo. Yellow and purple, isn't it? And the portal is going to be open until Friday, the 7th of February. So you can find the link to the portal on our Facebook page in the Facebook feed of the parkrun adventurers. If you scroll back a little bit, if you do have trouble, just reach out to us, and we can tag it for you now remember the shirts are made to order so they won't be made until after the cutoff date so we have to wait till the portal closes and then it'll be approximately I think it's about five weeks after the portal closes that they will be available so even if you've already ordered them production won't start until after the portal's shut so there you go you're welcome

00:19:11Tony O'Connell: And I think it's very important to remember, Mel, that the shirts hopefully will be out before Palm. So once again, it gives everyone the opportunity to get out in the sky blue. The fabric is a little bit different this year. It's the fabric that a lot of the Ugly Christmas Shirts are made out of. So people seem to enjoy that one. I know I prefer that one to the adventurers one last year. So I'm going to have to jump on board and get myself a new parkrun adventurers shirt in the new fabric because it's really nice to run in.

00:19:41Melissa Ellis: Yes, and I think even though we are a separate entity to the elves that make and produce the Ugly Christmas Singlets, we do share the same supplier and we share the same sizing because it's the same supplier. So if you do have an ugly shirt, singlet or T-shirt, the sizing is the same. That is my understanding with hopefully, fingers crossed, our production this year coming out in the same size, fabric and yes very strategically planned so that they will be ready in time for anybody who is going to be joining us in Queenstown now what other news do we have out in the uh out in the world well we don't have any baby news yet for anybody who might be wondering how Sarah Jefferson is progressing she is progressing very well but there's no news yet Well, they could be by the time this pod comes out. Who only knows? But at time of recording, there isn't. But what there is, is movement over at the 5K app that's been causing a stir, Tony.

00:20:39Tony O'Connell: There is. It's been very interesting to see it on the socials. They've announced the return of the most events table in version 3.13 of the app. So that's the listing of who's been to the most different events and you'll find that in the main menu under utilities most events. Not everybody is appearing in that list at this stage. It's only the people that get onto 5K regularly. The most events table used to be on each country's web page, and you could look it up to see who'd done the most events in each particular country. So it's basically the same concept as what was on the old web pages.

00:21:21Melissa Ellis: Except this one is a global most events list.

00:21:24Tony O'Connell: This one is a global and it also gives you the option to include your volunteering and have that counting in there as well, I believe.

00:21:33Melissa Ellis: Ah, okay. I always turn that off for my stats, my volunteering.

00:21:37Tony O'Connell: Yeah.

00:21:37Melissa Ellis: I like my stats to be only my run stats, but that's a personal preference. No shade on anybody else.

00:21:44Tony O'Connell: Yeah, some people like to have their volunteering on because we've got some wonderful people out there that predominantly volunteer and they don't actually go out and run.

00:21:53Melissa Ellis: I know. And it's not fair for us runners and walkers to have all the fun with the stats, is it?

00:21:57Tony O'Connell: No, no, we want everyone to get involved in their stats and looking at the 5K apps. When you're sitting around in your group and someone pulls out their phone and everyone starts, oh, look at that, look at that. It's really good fun. It's a really great way to start a conversation going too.

00:22:10Melissa Ellis: It is.

00:22:11Tony O'Connell: So for the people that are going in and having a look, the table is going to refresh every Sunday evening and it also indicates whether you've lost or gained ground in the positions for that week. So there's just a little bit of... interest of something that's out there um particularly for the stats people that um I know we have a lot of those in parkrun world that's funny I just realised remember when Paul used to do his list he used to have your fluctuation in a red or a green arrow didn't he it did you've gone up and down interesting our Victorian list and you're always trying to get up to the top of the list and

00:22:47Melissa Ellis: all that yeah I've been really good I am trying not to look at stats anymore I'm still a little bit obsessed with visiting new events although I'm doing a lot less of that but I've got the blinkers on a bit when it comes to lists it's for my own mental health

00:23:06Tony O'Connell: Now, I admit I spend far too much time in a week, particularly on a weekend, looking at stats and to the point where I generally drive to parkrun and Jacqui generally drives home because I'm sitting staring at a little screen as we're driving home. And when you've got a couple of hours to kill, that's a lot of time staring at stats.

00:23:26Melissa Ellis: Well, that's OK, as long as it brings you joy, TOC.

00:23:29Tony O'Connell: It does, Mel. And speaking of stats, Australia this week hit a new record. We had 91,502 people participate at the 5K parkruns last week. That's a huge number. That includes our runners, our walkers and our volunteers. But the fact that we had 91,000 out of our population turn up to a parkrun on Saturday, that's just a huge number.

00:23:55Melissa Ellis: What I can see is that big 100,000 is going to be looming and that people are going to be watching for that to occur. I wonder if that will happen this year or we've got to wait for next summer.

00:24:05Tony O'Connell: I don't know. I think I certainly know anecdotally from an Inverloch point of view, we set a record just after Christmas. Two weeks ago it was a little bit quieter, last week was a bit quieter, but for Inverloch who average 100 people a year, we've had 1,000 people now at our last three weeks in total. So we've been over 300 each week for three weeks, which is really big for a small community like Inverloch on a smaller path like Inverloch. So, yeah, I imagine there's a lot of events that are feeling the same. I know Albert Park last weekend blew their record away. They had 1,114 finishes for the week, which wasn't a huge jump in percentage for Albert Park, but when you try to visualise, you know, 1,100 people at an Australian parkrun, if you've done the Pilgrimage to Bushy or somewhere, you get big numbers and you've seen it, but... You know, just visualising 1,100 people all running around a park, for me, that's like, you know, Melbourne Marathon fun run. It's huge.

00:25:09Melissa Ellis: I've been thinking about getting back to Albert Park soon. I might wait till after the Oz Open, actually, because that always, major events in Melbourne will always have an impact, as we know, and we've also had Test Cricket...

00:25:22Tony O'Connell: And so Albert Park will drop back to, what, 850, 900 people? Yeah, true. We know the New Year's resolutions are pretty well in effect across Australia. Last weekend, 23 Australian parkruns set their attendance records, and that probably reflects the number of 91,500 people. You know, it's growing and growing. Across the ditch, I know 10 parkruns. You know, on a smaller scale, they've got 52 events, I think. 10 of them set...

00:25:52Melissa Ellis: a new benchmark attendance record that's you know 20 of their parkruns setting attendance records it's it's huge to see the growth well thank you for getting us the stats again I always like that you come up with those little pearlers now speaking of new year's resolutions I did make a few I'll ask you yours in a minute but 24 new events in 2025 was one of my goals this year And that was what I did last year. But actually, now that I think about it, it would make more sense to say 25 in 25, wouldn't it?

00:26:23Tony O'Connell: It would do, Mel.

00:26:23Melissa Ellis: And increase it by one extra event. And maybe that one extra event could be when I reach my 500th, which will occur this year.

00:26:31Tony O'Connell: So what are you going to do when you hit 2060, the year 2060? How are you going to get 60 events in a year?

00:26:39Melissa Ellis: I don't think that far ahead. My goodness, will I still be capable of parkrunning? I hope so. No, will I be alive? Oh my God, I'll be 110.

00:26:47Tony O'Connell: That's a big spreadsheet.

00:26:48Melissa Ellis: I'll be 110, Tony. I mean, that is my goal, to live to 110. But I don't think I'll be parkrunning by then. Goodness. But what else did I have? Oh, and a camping adventure in my new car. That is another one of my goals for this year. But I think I made more. But, you know, what about yourself?

00:27:07Tony O'Connell: Yeah, look, mine, probably a little bit more simple. I'd love to get to probably 15 or 16 new events this year. It's basically one a month plus a couple of bonus ones for those trips away, like when we go to Palm and you get two new events in a week. I want to help. at least two events launched this year. Yes. We'd love to see a couple more, and there will be more launches in Victoria, but I'd love to see a couple more go ahead and probably just meet some more different people out in the parkrun world out there. It's one of those things that I'm loving doing, a loving meeting. Gareth Arnold. We see him comment so regularly in our Dazza's and everywhere else. Gareth came out to Quinns. He ran pretty quick. He's like a 17-minute or 18-minute parkrunner. I was parkwalker on the day. Gareth came out and chatted to me for about half an hour. It was fantastic. I love the interactions that you have with people that you would not normally meet ever in your life and you have those little short interactions that builds friendships that down the track you know you'll run into someone somewhere else and you talk about where you've been and those collected experiences and that's one of the great things about parkrun is it gives you that opportunity I mightn't see Gareth for A year or 10 years, I don't know. But we've got that shared experience now that we can get together and have a chat. I love that about parkrun. That's one of my goals is to meet more people and to enjoy my parkruns. You know, I don't like going to a parkrun, jumping in the car and taking off. I like to go for the full park faff afterwards, spend as long as I can talking to people. And sometimes we miss people.

00:28:54Melissa Ellis: little experiences that we had planned because we've spent too long chatting but we're having an experience sitting there chatting so you know that's one of my goals for this year is to meet some more people that I haven't met before you know what I like and this happened to me last weekend I turned up at parkrun I hadn't told anybody where I was going there's no pod so I hadn't announced it I didn't jump on the Friday post and announce where I was going And I turned up and I thought to myself, I won't know anybody. But then I reminded myself how often I will turn up at a parkrun, not expecting to know anybody. And there's some person that I've met at some point in the 10, almost 11 years that I've been doing parkrun, who's randomly there. And I have this unexpected catch up and it's just brilliant. And it happened to me again. It was really good.

00:29:42Tony O'Connell: It's one of those great things about parkrun, isn't it?

00:29:44Melissa Ellis: It is. All righty. Now, that's enough of all that.

00:29:45[background music]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:29:47Melissa Ellis: Time, I think, for us now to listen to some of our roving reports.

Roving report Ali Sheppard — Hellbrunn parkrun

00:30:01Ali Sheppard: G'day adventurers, Ali from the UK here, but today I should say guten tag because I am not in the UK, but I am in Austria and I'm in Salzburg in the grounds of the beautiful Hellbrunn Palace, Schloss Hellbrunn, and I'm here with Gudrun. Servus. Who is the Run Director today. Are you the Event Director? [German: "good day / hello"] [German: "Hellbrunn Palace (Ali gives the English immediately before it)"] [German (Austrian/Bavarian): "Hello. (informal Austrian and Bavarian greeting, used for both hello and goodbye)"]

00:30:23[crosstalk]

00:30:23Gudrun: I am one of the two Event Directors. So you're co-

00:30:26Ali Sheppard: With Georg, fantastic. I've also got Suzanne. Hi. Hello. And I've also got with me Ben, who is not local to Hellbrunn. Tell me where you're from, Ben.

00:30:39Ben: Well, I'm from the UK, but I'm living in Klagenfurt, which is a smaller city in Austria, not so far from here, and moved there via Vienna.

00:30:52Ali Sheppard: And you've been doing parkrunning in Vienna, but you've come here today and had to get up at three in the morning or something?

00:31:00[crosstalk]

00:31:00Ben: About half past three, yeah. A little bit of a trek, but there are people here from Australia, so.

00:31:08[crosstalk]

00:31:08Ali Sheppard: There are. I didn't come so far. There are. So, we are in the grounds of Schloss Hellbrunn and it's just a beautiful parkrun. So, I've come here to parkrun, of course, but also to go to Christmas markets and there are Christmas markets. There's a Christmas market here in the Palace Grounds. So, Gudrun, tell me a little bit about Hellbrunn parkrun.

00:31:31Gudrun: So, Hellbrunn parkrun started a bit over three years ago. It was event number 166. It was started by Roisin and Georg as Event Directors. And there is quite a big English-speaking community in Salzburg. Yes. Because there are some international companies here like Red Bull. Oh, yes. And Aldi, their European headquarters is here. So a lot of the local runners we have are English-speaking community. Yeah. But this is kind of also how I got here. I moved to Salzburg three years ago. Yeah. And was, how do you get to know people? Oh, they have a parkrun. Yeah. Go here. Guten Morgen. Good morning. Oh, everybody's good morning. Very nice. As usual, parkrun community, very welcoming. The park is beautiful. It is. [German: "Good morning. (the speaker immediately glosses it herself: "Good morning.")"]

00:31:51[crosstalk]

00:32:13[crosstalk]

00:32:23Ali Sheppard: And it's about six kilometres south of Salzburg City.

00:32:27Gudrun: Yes, but there's good bus connection here right from the city centre or from the train station. And we do a three, almost three lap course. And the special thing is that you get to see the mountains if it's a nice kid.

00:32:40Ali Sheppard: The mountains today were amazing. They've got snow on them and it's just so impressive. It's like being in the Alps. It's amazing. And also in the grounds of the palace is the gazebo from the Sound of Music where they sang I am 16 going on 17. So it's just amazing. Big attraction, yeah.

00:33:01Gudrun: And a lot of our visitors here, they also go on a Sound of Music tour.

00:33:07Ali Sheppard: tour through the city yes part of that is here is here in the park and it's just amazing and you were um but no what were you doing today you were I was scanner scanner so I'm a scanner um and uh you cycle out from this I do actually I'm very very fortunate I live

00:33:09[crosstalk]

00:33:26Unidentified speaker: two and a half kilometres from here amazing so um yes I bike or I mean this is actually my regular running route yeah my house I run here yeah run a little bit around the park and then I run home and it's like perfect 5k 6k so yes I'm very fortunate I live so close to this beautiful place yeah and you have a wedding business I do I've started salzburg wedding company um about two, three years ago. And I also have a company in Florida, Winter Park Wedding Company that I've been doing for 16 years.

00:33:33[crosstalk]

00:33:43[crosstalk]

00:33:56Ali Sheppard: Amazing. Because I just imagine weddings here would be so beautiful. It's beautiful.

00:33:59[crosstalk]

00:34:02Gudrun: We haven't had a parkrun wedding here. Have you not?

00:34:06Ali Sheppard: There is a first. You need to get working on this.

00:34:10Gudrun: We have had visitors here that got married on a parkrun. Yes, we have.

00:34:15Unidentified speaker: But we have a couple that met through parkrun. Do you? Yes. I won't mention their names, just in case.

00:34:21[crosstalk]

00:34:24Gudrun: It's very romantic here. It's very romantic.

00:34:27Unidentified speaker: So hopefully they will get married and there'll be our parkrun marriage.

00:34:31Ali Sheppard: That would be awesome. That would be absolutely amazing. So there's four parkruns in Austria. So there's one in Vienna and there's this one.

00:34:43Gudrun: Salzburg, yeah. Salzburg was the first one that started, then Vienna, then Linz. And then Graz started last year and Ben's got news. Ben has news.

00:34:46[crosstalk]

00:34:52[crosstalk]

00:34:52Ben: And we will soon have five parkruns in Austria.

00:34:55Ali Sheppard: This is an exclusive for the parkrun adventurers podcast.

00:35:00Ben: So Klagenfurt will be the next new parkrun in Austria starting in January 2025. That's amazing. And we will be Europa parkrun.

00:35:12[crosstalk]

00:35:12Ali Sheppard: That's going to be the name of it, is it? Yeah.

00:35:14Ben: Europa E. Beginning with the letter E, in case you're interested in that. And it's, I mean, Klagenfurt, it's a much smaller city, but we're just on the edge of the Wörthersee, so... Lake Werther. Yes. Which is a really beautiful big lake and the parkrun is going to be in the park right beside the lake. Amazing. Again, it's flat and three laps. Yeah. Yeah, especially in the summer. I think it'll be a nice place to come visit and...

00:35:43Ali Sheppard: amazing that will be wonderful so thank you all so much I've had an absolutely amazing fantastic time today and now after we've we're in the cafe at the moment the park cafe and then we've got a Christmas market laid on here so we can go around the Christmas market and then I think tonight I'm going to be doing even more Christmas markets so I will probably be completely Christmas marketed out by the time I go back tomorrow but it's been absolutely wonderful thank you so much thank you everyone thank you for joining us We will do. That's a wrap.

00:36:10[crosstalk]

Roving report Ali Sheppard — Bushy Park parkrun

00:36:17Ali Sheppard: G'day adventurers. I am at Bushy Park in London at the Bushy Pilgrimage. And it's Christmas Day and we have just done a parkrun. And I am with the spirit of Bushy parkrun, Jonathan Dickinson, or as I'm being told to say, Carol's husband.

00:36:38Jonathan Dickinson: Who is the other half of the spirit of parkrun, Carol. So it wasn't just me. She's the boss, definitely. I just do as I'm told.

00:36:46Ali Sheppard: So explain the spirit of parkrun.

00:36:49Jonathan Dickinson: I think it's just kind of everyone just helps. Always be happy. Just kind of whatever goes, just do your best.

00:36:55Ali Sheppard: But you were presented with this award. So explain about this.

00:36:55[crosstalk]

00:37:00Jonathan Dickinson: This was on the anniversary of the 20th birthday. And they just picked something like the volunteer of the year and just someone that's like something. Yes. Just because Carolyn and I have done it for a few years.

00:37:11Ali Sheppard: How many is a few years?

00:37:13Jonathan Dickinson: Well, so we started a year and a half after Paul started it in this car park over there. Awesome. Right. So a year and a half. So we've been doing it for 18 and a half years. So we've done a few.

00:37:16[crosstalk]

00:37:23Ali Sheppard: Fantastic. And you were Run Director on that day, were you? No, not the 20th. Not the 20th.

00:37:27[crosstalk]

00:37:28Jonathan Dickinson: On the 999. Yes. Lots of people turned up. Yes. But luckily it was a bit rainy, so a few people didn't turn up. But then on the 1000th.

00:37:35[crosstalk]

00:37:37Ali Sheppard: Yes. A few extra.

00:37:38Jonathan Dickinson: has turned up a few just a few 6204 approximately I don't know if people might have actually seen a picture of our kitchen yes was that your kitchen that was me Carol took the photo you had to process the results 38 A4 pieces of paper written on both sides each line has an athlete with their finished position we manually started putting them in

00:37:52[crosstalk]

00:37:59[crosstalk]

00:38:08Ali Sheppard: That was incredible.

00:38:09Jonathan Dickinson: But luckily, there were two young people who used... Honestly, this is true. The old people, me, did it manually. And then two young people turned up to come and help us. And they said, why don't we use AI? And we're like, what? Who? And they took pictures of it, turned it into an Excel spreadsheet. No way. And they absolutely got a few things wrong because you couldn't recognise a four and an A. Oh, okay. So you had to do a little bit of typing. But honestly, it took us nine hours. Amazing. But I don't mean it like that. It was so much fun. Yeah, yeah. And we didn't have any fizz until... You'd finished. But we did have some after that.

00:38:33[crosstalk]

00:38:42[crosstalk]

00:38:49Ali Sheppard: I think you always have fizz at Bushy. The first time I came here, there was fizz. I mean, we don't want to be, I think we, yes, we do. You're the fizzy parkrun.

00:38:55[crosstalk]

00:38:59Jonathan Dickinson: It's usually something like that.

00:39:01Ali Sheppard: So today, Christmas Day, it's a special day. How many people do we have today?

00:39:06Jonathan Dickinson: Well, we think about 3,000. We're going to have to, because there's a few people that didn't hang around because they, of Christmas dinner, I think. Yes.

00:39:09[crosstalk]

00:39:14Gudrun: So about 3,000.

00:39:16Jonathan Dickinson: So that'll be the second highest because it was 2,500 just over. Yeah. It was the highest before that 6,000. So this will be the second. So that's fun. That's brilliant. I had to wait a long time, but everyone was cheery. It was lovely. And people like you turned up and it was just someone smiling.

00:39:20[crosstalk]

00:39:30[crosstalk]

00:39:34Ali Sheppard: So, and also I've got Ingrid with me from Dolls Point parkrun, Ingrid Botha. So, hi, Ingrid.

00:39:43Ingrid Botha: Hey, it was great. Thank you for sharing your parkrun with us and thank you for volunteering. Yeah, no worries. Yeah, so, yeah, your first experience of Bushy. Wow, it was everything I'd hoped it would be. It was massive, which I was hoping for. I sort of wasn't expecting such a large one, but just watching everybody in their costumes, so many Santa hats, so many Santa hats. Winding your way across in the distance, just seeing the past sort of be like laid out before us with all these hats and everybody having a great time. Yeah. This is fabulous. Like you just get a real sense of the size of it and then walking along and sort of doing the reflection on, hey, this is where it all started. Yeah, it's

00:40:22Ali Sheppard: pretty cool and we're standing in front of the the tree that's not the tree but a lot of people think it is the parkrun tree a significant tree but not a significant tree and there are people there were people here wearing sort of inflatable dinosaurs and santas and Christmas trees and rumour has it there was a Barcode Scanner dressed as a pudding alley I don't know. One person, one person, very rude person said he was going to pour brandy over me and set fire to me, which I think is a little bit. We all have different ideas of good time. A little bit different for barcode scanning. And so I was one of 10 Barcode Scanners and there were 16 Funnel Managers. That funnel is something to behold. How many funnels did they have open? I didn't even get a chance to look.

00:41:06Ingrid Botha: I heard there were four. So, we walked. So, by the time we were there, they were just closing down the second last one and we were in the last one. And there were still bunches of people around. It was just such a smooth operation.

00:41:18Ali Sheppard: So, I looked across at one point at the funnels and you just see people queuing as far as the eye can see. Just, you know… thousands of people all queuing to get their barcodes it's just incredible and at the start it is quite amazing because it has a super wide if nobody's done the bushy pilgrimage it has this super wide start they just everyone lines up in a great huge long line and then they're off and it's just like this massive stampede it's um it's just a sight to behold colour and joy Yeah, colour and joy is absolutely it. So it's Christmas Day and everything is now packing up. And we're going to have a look for some of the famous bushy deer and stags, which I haven't seen much sight of today. But happy Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas. From Ali and Ingrid. Here on the Bushy Pilgrimage. Hope all the adventurers have had a fantastic Christmas Day and looking forward to a wonderful adventuring 2025. Yay! That's a wrap.

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Gainsborough Greens parkrun

00:42:26Lyndell Murray: G'day parkrun adventurers, it's Lyndell. Happy New Year, happy new parkrunning year. And today, celebrating, I've travelled south of Brisbane to the lands of the Yugambeh and I'm at Gainsborough Greens and I've found today's Run Director. G'day Dave, how are you going today?

00:42:42Dave: I'm good, thank you. How are you?

00:42:44Lyndell Murray: Very, very well. Bright and early here at parkrun on New Year's Day. How else would you start a year?

00:42:50Dave: Yeah, I only heard of one person with a hangover, but no, it's been a good morning.

00:42:55Lyndell Murray: And good numbers here today?

00:42:56Dave: Oh, it's probably our biggest here is 250. Today is probably about 70. But that was in the old days of the double New Year's Day runs. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:43:05Lyndell Murray: All right. Now, to paint the picture, we are in the suburb of Pimpama, which is about 40 minutes, I'd say, south of the Brisbane CBD and just on the northern fringes of the Gold Coast to give the parkrun adventurers a bit of a geographical location.

00:43:22Dave: Near to Dreamworld.

00:43:23Lyndell Murray: Dreamworld, so you can pop in at a theme park on the way home. Tell us about Gainsborough Greens parkrun.

00:43:31Dave: Well, we've been running nearly six years here with a few interruptions from COVID. So I think we're up to about 320 events roughly. But, no, it's a good friendly course, a really good run team that I've got with me. So, yeah, we always have a good time. Numbers typically around 80 to 100, although we got the New Year's boost last year and hit up to about 150. So, yeah.

00:44:00Lyndell Murray: All right. Now, I have been here before for a roving report. I lodged a roving report, I think, when I was here last in 2019. So not long after you launched by the sounds of it. The community's great. You celebrate everybody's milestones. You celebrated my unofficial 300 and a few other official and unofficial milestones. Tell me about the community here at Gainsborough Greens.

00:44:25Dave: Just all a really friendly bunch. We know so many people by name now. I'm gradually getting better at knowing who everyone is and, yeah, a really good bunch of regulars. Generally quite good with volunteering, so that makes life a lot easier for a Run Director when you've got your volunteer roster filled up already for next week.

00:44:44Lyndell Murray: Yes. Now, I was going to get you to do a course recce, but there's not much point because you're moving.

00:44:50Dave: Yes, official announcement. We are relocating. We are ceasing to be in Gainsborough Greens parkrun and in a month or so we'll become Gainsborough Parklands parkrun. So for those that have been here, the biggest issue is lack of parking. You can only park in the residential streets. We've got a few residents who don't like us too much. They think we make a bit too much noise even though we try and be really quiet. So we were originally planned to be at what will be the new location that was going to be parkrun, but the facilities weren't built and the paths and amenities. That's now all done. So we've lodged the application to HQ a few days ago, just waiting on a response and potentially late January, probably early February, we'll be moving on to a new course.

00:45:38Lyndell Murray: All right, so if you haven't been to Gainsborough Greens, you could come to Gainsborough Greens and then come back to Parklands and get two for the price of one.

00:45:45[crosstalk]

00:45:46Dave: Yes, absolutely. And we've got a nice course now, but I think that the new course people will really like. It's much more scenic. We've got a lot of... Since here we are in full sun, the majority of the new course will be in shade through bushland and wetlands. And so it'll be a really picturesque course. So we're looking forward to that.

00:46:08Lyndell Murray: Brilliant. Now, Dave, when I wandered up to you, you recognised my shirt. You said you listened to the podcast. So you know what I'm going to ask you now. I'm going to ask you about your adventuring. Yes. And do you have a top three, not including Gainsborough Greens?

00:46:24Dave: Oh, gee. Yeah. I'm up to, I think, 85 courses now. New Zealand, I've really liked all there. Cornwall Park and Western Springs are really nice in Auckland. Edithburgh in South Oz, absolutely beautiful. Along the coastline there, rugged rocks and that. There were only about 13 or 14 people there, so I got my best ever finish there. I think I was sixth.

00:46:50Lyndell Murray: That's always fun. Yeah.

00:46:54Dave: but oh there's every every event's nice and it's just great you can turn up and there's nice people to meet you know how it's all going to run and there's always someone willing to have a chat yep always always all righty is there anything else that you would like the parkrun adventurers to know about dave's adventuring or Gainsborough Greens parkrun Well, it'll be sad to feel well what we've got here, but we're really looking forward to the new course and we think it'll be a big step up from what we've got now and ability to cater to much bigger numbers than what we've got. So we've got 232 car parking spaces at the new one, disabled facilities, disabled toilets and good clubhouse area where we can do a run brief and things from and so... But overall, it'll be a much better event to run and less chance of any neighbours being annoyed with us.

00:47:50Lyndell Murray: That is always good. Yes. Alrighty. Dave, thank you for talking to me. I think, I'm not sure whether the tail walk has been in yet, but we're pretty close to wrapping up here at Gainsborough Greens.

00:48:00[crosstalk]

00:48:00Mel: Yes.

00:48:01Lyndell Murray: Thank you for talking to me. You're welcome. Thank you for everything you have done for parkrun and Gainsborough Greens. Finding a new home. Can't wait. I'll visit you again in the new year.

00:48:05[background music]

00:48:09Dave: Awesome. We'll see you at the new course. Thanks.

00:48:19Tony O'Connell: Well, Mel, once again, we've had a sensational set of roving reports from our cadet reporters out in the field. Great to hear from Lyndell, who ran her 300th, so happy unofficial 300th, Lyndell. Yes. And a little bit of news there. Gainsborough Greens is going to change, become a new course, changing to Gainsborough Parklands parkrun. Yes. Coming in a month or so. And we also had Ali coming to us from Hellbrunn parkrun in Austria with news that there's a new parkrun coming to Austria, which I believe takes a total to five parkruns. And she also attended Bushy Park for Christmas Day where she ran into her very own Ingrid. And they celebrated Christmas Day with 2,973 other participants. So a really big week over in the UK there as well.

00:49:15Melissa Ellis: Isn't that pushing the numbers at Bushy like up around that other, was it their thousandth event that was sort of the unmanageable numbers?

00:49:24Tony O'Connell: Yeah, this is still probably half of that number. So it's, yeah.

00:49:27[crosstalk]

00:49:29Melissa Ellis: That's all right then. That's good. Just checking, just checking.

00:49:32Tony O'Connell: Just checking, fact checking. Well, we've had our roving reports. Normally we'd rock off to Dazza's at this stage, but Dazza decided that he baked a really nice cheesecake on the weekend. He ate that much cheesecake that he hasn't got time to come back and give us some updates this week. So we're going to have to let Dazza off the hook for another week of holidays.

00:49:53Melissa Ellis: Why couldn't have I had the extra week of holidays? That's what I want to know. I'll tell you who didn't have holidays, our roving reporters. So we've actually got a lot more to bring you in the coming weeks. They've backed up a little bit. So if you've recorded something in the last Christmas period and it hasn't been included this week, don't worry, it's coming. We will get it out soon.

00:50:15Tony O'Connell: We do have a bit of a backlog of roving reports, Mel, and it's great to hear all the different voices and coming to us now from all over the world. That's really sensational.

00:50:25Melissa Ellis: It is. We love them. We love them.

Emails

00:50:27Melissa Ellis: But this week, what we do have is emails.

00:50:31Ali Sheppard: You've got mail.

00:50:32Melissa Ellis: So this week, we heard from Sarah Jantscher, and she said, Hi, parkrun adventurers. Hope you all managed to start the new year with a parkrun. Now that summer is in full swing down under, parkrun has released the volunteer milestone vests. I haven't seen any official announcements from parkrun, but came across them while browsing the global shop. Might be good to mention when the pot is back. As I know, many parkrunners down under have been waiting for those to be released. I did order my V100 vest and it's gone through. Now it's time to stalk the post person. Happy parkrunning and looking forward to the return of the pod. Sarah. And Sarah did include a link to the shop, which we can pass on for anybody who has trouble locating it. But good news there, TOC, for those runners who prefer to run in a vest or also known as a singlet.

00:51:23Tony O'Connell: That's right, Mel. It always throws me when we talk about vests, and I know where all the references come from, but I've always referred to them as a singlet. The vest always to me is the volunteer vest, the one that we pull on and put the bit of Velcro on. But no, great to see that we've got the full suite of T-shirts and vests available in both the participation and the volunteering milestones. So once again, back on equal footing.

00:51:53Melissa Ellis: Isn't it funny? So, yes, we do call them singlet tops when I was a teenager. They were a singlet top. But a vest, to me, is like a woolly jumper kind of knitted thing. Or my hydration vest. That's what I would have called a vest.

00:52:07Tony O'Connell: Yeah, well, that's another good point. Certainly a good point there, Mel.

00:52:10Melissa Ellis: Yeah. Anyway, funny. Words are funny, aren't they? They really are. Anyway, that is good news. But that is the extent of our news and emails and this section of the pod.

Club Corner

00:52:24Melissa Ellis: But who is back this year, TOC? Reginald is back and they are going to give you a little bit of some Club Corner. So let's have a listen now.

00:52:25[background music]

00:52:40Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: This is Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III with Club Corner. And today from Arrernte Country, we are celebrating a second anniversary of Club Corner. Hoot hoot. That was a celebratory noise. Hoot hoot. When the logs were checked during the absence of podding, yes, of course I have a log, I realised that it has been two years and it is time for a moment of reflection from the more than 60 podcasts to which Club Corner has contributed. Club Corner began with definitions of various club keywords, like milestones, alphabet, namely, etc. We moved through some basic clubs like Pioneers, Wilson Index, and Bingos. We then took a step to the side and introduced club-adjacent topics, like all beach events, juniors, and course design to get us through year one. Year two began with a review of other parkrun podcasts. Does anyone actually listen to them bro? And then a big stretch working through the main club resource in the unofficial parkrun Australia Tourism Group, through clubs well-known and completely obscure, like Pirate, Compass, Milestone Events, Professor, various regional aka geographically based clubs, and things like Top of the Pops. Year 2 concluded with a new voice and a new series, this time focusing on the backbone of parkrunning, our volunteers. There have been seven pods worth of volunteer topics to date, and likely that many again, as there is such a wide variety of roles, and they are all interesting in their own way. Do you have any memories of Club Corner, whether from Rachel or Reginald? Are there any clubs missing to date? Do you want more joke segments? Write in to the pod via parkrunadventurers, one word, at gmail.com. Next time, we shall resume our regular parkrun life, so stay tuned for our future Club Corners. End of Hoot Hoot.

00:54:37Tony O'Connell: Mel, coming back to us from Club Corner, where we had Reginald getting deep on the history of Club Corner and possibly overloading their circuits with the Hoot Hoots at the end, the middle, and at the start. So there's a lot of hooting going on there.

00:54:51Melissa Ellis: I know. What's with that? I don't know.

Consolidated Club Report — New South Wales (gold medal winners, 52 events)

00:54:53Melissa Ellis: I don't understand. But what I do understand is the Consolidated Club report for Saturday. And, oh, I've deleted the date. But Saturday was the 11th, I believe. It was the 11th. The 11th of January 2025. Of a total of 735 members, 553 took part on this date in 11 countries across 273 locations. In the UK, there were adventures at 51 events. There were seven in South Africa and one in Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore and Sweden. Now, I got a feeling, I got a feeling, TOC, that when I compiled the Consolidated Club Report stats, they were actually updated when the Belinda Fairy did them online. So I'm going to go with New South Wales. Was New South Wales 52? Can you confirm? Can you confirm or deny on our Facebook page?

00:55:52Tony O'Connell: I don't know, and I'm rapidly looking it up. Okay.

00:55:54Melissa Ellis: All right. Well, I believe New South Wales on 52 events, Victoria on 50, 46 in Queensland, 19 in South Australia, 13 in Western Australia, 10 in Tassie, the North Island had 8, ACT 7, 3 on the South Island, and none in the Northern Territory.

00:56:11Tony O'Connell: And I am looking at our Consolidated Club report that the Belinda Fairy did, and New South Wales had 52 events.

00:56:19Melissa Ellis: Yes, so they are the gold medal winners this week.

00:56:24Tony O'Connell: They were outstanding. And our other gold medal winners, our largest international frond was a frond of 5 at Mura di Lucca in Italy. And they consisted of Christopher Miles, Ali Soppa, Andy Simpson, Rhiannon Taylor and Andy Erie. Woohoo, that's pretty good.

00:56:42Melissa Ellis: And the pilgrimage, we had Andrew Banner running his pilgrimage at Bushy. Now, I've decided I'm going to delve a little bit deeper into the pilgrimage each week so that I can be sure that people are... actually doing it for the very first time. And so I looked up, I stalked, well, yes, it was a bit stalky. I looked up Andrew Banner on the 5K app. It turns out he's from North Wollongong. So he was a tourist in the UK and he also ran his 50th parkrun. So congratulations if you are indeed a listener, Andrew Banner.

00:57:16Tony O'Connell: That's a pretty cool place to run your 50th parkrun, Mel.

00:57:19Melissa Ellis: It is. Now, largest fronds in Australia and New Zealand. So we had a frond of 13 at Birtinya Island in Queensland. We had a frond of nine at Schlaba. And there were eight at Zeehan Golf Club in Tasmania. Now... This is an interesting one, this frond of eight, because they are completely from one family. They are John, Vicky, Daryl, Thomas, Donna, Charlotte, Catherine and Joshua Smith. So well done to the Travelling Smiths. And remember, you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile. If you need help doing that, just reach out to us and we can give you a hand.

00:58:00Tony O'Connell: It's very simple to add it in, isn't it, Mel? And I actually got some people to change over on the weekend. So, yep, if you're having any issues at all, feel free to reach out and we'll step you through it.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:58:11Tony O'Connell: Now, we've had four weeks off. And in that time, there's been a plethora of launches across the world. And we're going to start and we're going to recap all of them going back a few weeks. And we go back to the 14th of December 2024, which seems like so long ago, but it was in fact only about four weeks ago. And we had virtual playing fields in the UK kick off.

00:58:38Melissa Ellis: And also on the 14th, on the very same day, we had Ingrebourne Hill in the UK, however that is pronounced. Choose your own adventure.

00:58:47Tony O'Connell: Yeah, very much so, Mel. As we know, my pronunciation is not the best, but on the 21st of December, we had Rainhill Farm in South Africa, and I'd like to thank them for having a very simple name to pronounce.

00:59:00Melissa Ellis: Yes, and thank you very much. On the 28th of December, we had Zalew Borki in Poland. Yes.

00:59:06Tony O'Connell: another one of our Polish events. It's great to see them expanding again. The 4th of January 2025, we had Ivydale in South Africa.

00:59:17Melissa Ellis: And on the 11th, there is four of these. So the first of the four on the 11th of January, Birtinya Island aforementioned on the Sunshine Coast, just east from Harmony Boulevard.

00:59:29Tony O'Connell: Also on the 11th of the 1st, we had Grahamstown Aquatic Centre, and that's another one that expands the region of runners up around the Newcastle area. And once again, hopefully they're beating their quest, Robbo's quest that he always had of having more parkruns in the area than McDonald's. Yeah.

00:59:47Melissa Ellis: that's good yes and obviously local knowledge those last two are Australian events now uh the third of the four on the 11th of the first was Akwen Tropicana parkrun also in Poland tropicana nice I like that name and rounding out the 11th of the first we had Greendale Farm Shop parkrun in the UK so one for the United Kingdom there One for the colour wheel club.

01:00:13Tony O'Connell: That's it.

01:00:14Melissa Ellis: Alrighty. So there are launches. We didn't go into great detail just because there were so many and you would have got really, really bored. But no doubt we will have news of a couple of those new events from our roving reporters in the weeks to come. Now don't forget looking forward that we are entering a team for the Bellarine Sunset Run in Portarlington on the 8th of February. I'm signed up, you're signed up TOC and we want everybody to come on down and take part or just come and spectate and you can have some cider. Now there are half marathon distances 10k and four available and walkers are welcome. So the entry fee for the 10k includes the bus trip to the start line And the event is a coastal run between Portarlington and St Leonards. Now, our team, if you would like to sign up, is The adventurers. So have a look. Come on down and let's make a little frond at this event. It is an evening event, TOC.

01:01:14Tony O'Connell: It is, and it'd be great to see a few more people in the team running along. Looking forward to that night. Yeah, anyone that's going to be around Victoria at the time, feel free to jump on board.

01:01:25Melissa Ellis: And we can do Portarlington parkrun in the morning, and we can walk. We can walk and save our legs.

01:01:31Tony O'Connell: Now, a thing of interest that popped up today in my mail, not in my email, in my postal mail, which is very rare these days, is I've ordered a book from parkrun UK and I got the calendar arrived. The calendar is sent out with the book as a bonus and also a copy of the parkrun magazine as a bonus. I opened it up and flicked through it and thought, oh, that's nice, that's nice. Yep, nice big format calendar. My wife Jacqui opened it up and the first thing she looked at in January, she looked at one of the pictures of Norway parkrun and she said, that's Carolyn McRae. So one of our very own Victorian parkrunners is featured in the UK calendar.

01:02:13Melissa Ellis: Our very own adventurer.

01:02:14Tony O'Connell: Yes, a very regular adventurer too. I wonder if Carolyn knows? I would imagine that she probably would know. So that led me to delve deeper and scroll through all the other pictures trying to spot somebody else that I knew and no one jumped out. So if you're in the calendar, write in and let us know because I didn't pick you out.

01:02:34Melissa Ellis: Isn't that like, what is it, the separation? Seven degrees of separation. So in that whole calendar, we know one person.

01:02:45Tony O'Connell: And most funny is January and it's in a snow-covered field in Norway and Carolyn lives in north-central Victoria where it's very hot at the moment and probably in the mid-30s or 40s and she features in a January calendar with snow.

01:03:02Melissa Ellis: That's pretty cool. I look forward to getting my calendar also. I have also ordered Paul Sinton-Hewitt's book, which I'm excited to get whenever it comes out.

01:03:11Tony O'Connell: Yes, they come out about April, I believe.

01:03:14Melissa Ellis: April. Oh, I will have forgotten all about it by then.

01:03:17Tony O'Connell: It'll be a nice surprise. And if interest's sake, that'll be the second book that I have that is personally signed by Paul.

01:03:23Melissa Ellis: Oh, aren't you special? Wow. Well done.

01:03:28Tony O'Connell: You've just got to shop in the right places.

parkrun adventure challengelistener challenge

01:03:32Melissa Ellis: Fair enough. Now, we are going back to our listener challenges. I know, it's exciting, isn't it, TOC? And I've come up with this one this week, and I don't know if you're completely on board, but we're going with it.

01:03:46Tony O'Connell: Well, I'm right on board this one, Mel. I've just decided in the last 30 seconds because I'm Run Director this week at the start. Oh!

01:03:57Melissa Ellis: Who's going to Inverloch this week? Okay, Adventurers, your challenge is, with consent, we would like you to hug a volunteer and take a selfie. But please ask permission before you touch anybody, but yes. Get up close and personal and show some appreciation. And if you're going to Inverloch, TOC's all up for the hugs.

01:04:19Tony O'Connell: Come on down to Inverloch.

01:04:21Melissa Ellis: Three hugs. Am I volunteering? Where am I going? I don't even know. I do know. That's the next thing on the agenda. Where are we going this week? Oh, you just did.

01:04:32Tony O'Connell: I'm glad you asked, Mel. Where are you going this week?

01:04:37Melissa Ellis: Well, we know where you're going. You're the Run Director at Inverloch. You've just told us. And what is it? Takeover day?

01:04:43Tony O'Connell: Take over day. Residents of one of the estates, the estate that we live in, have taken over. Inverloch normally functions with about nine or ten volunteers. We've built that up in the last couple of weeks. We've put a few more Marshals on, a few Barcode Scanners, because being up in the 300s and 350s. This week I put it out on my little neighbourhood Facebook page. Who wants to come along and volunteer at parkrun? And I think I've got 19 volunteers out of the estate at this stage. So we're almost going to line the course with volunteers, I think. God bless them. And that's a challenge I'd like to put out there to the adventurers because I've also been recruiting amongst my people in the estate. We started up an estate running team on our parkrun profiles and I've actually got several of them to sign up for the adventurers as well so we're in fact going to have probably seven or eight adventurers at a minimum on the roster this week volunteering I want to throw a challenge out there to the listeners how many adventurers can you get on the roster oh very good bit of a challenge yeah no in all of my going on there did you tell us where you were going no I didn't

01:05:52[crosstalk]

01:05:54Melissa Ellis: No, I did not. Where are you going, Mel? Oh, so I'm glad you asked, Tony. At this stage, I am planning to go out to Dixon Field parkrun. It is only about half an hour or so from Meltown. I've only been there once before. And Dave hasn't been there and might have an interstate guest who's keen to get a D. So that's what I've got penciled in. Of course, you know, sometimes we change our minds. So no promises if you think you might head along to catch up with me. If you do plan to do that, maybe reach out first and confirm I'm going. But at this stage, because it's only Monday, that's the plan.

Sign-off

01:06:36Tony O'Connell: And now next week. Next week, moving along, next week we have yourself back in the hot seat with Simon. We do, because Sarah Jefferson might be a little bit busy. Sarah might have other things going.

01:06:48Melissa Ellis: She might be just a little bit too hot and bothered to be bothered with recording silly little podcasts. Or she might be busy looking after a brand new baby. So let's wait and find out next week. We might have news. Let's hope we have news. Anyway, I think that's it.

01:07:03Tony O'Connell: Thank you for joining me. Welcome back to potting. It's a pleasure, Mel. Always good. It's been a long break. I was actually starting to look forward to getting back and having a chat with you. So it's good to be back.

01:07:16Melissa Ellis: Oh, that's good. Yes, it was lovely to catch up with you. But it was also nice to have a break. I really did enjoy the break, I must say. But anyway, we're back in the swing of things now, back onto weekly pods. So no foreseeable break in the future, except when it comes to maybe the blue moon, we might want to skip a few when it comes to the blue moon this year.

01:07:38Ingrid Botha: Yep.

01:07:39Melissa Ellis: Anyway, Adventurers, you can contact us via parkrun adventurers on Facebook or our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. That's it for another week. We'll see you all next week for more adventures.