Episode 414 - Wombling Free

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:23Melissa Ellis: Welcome to episode 414 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name is Melissa Ellis and I'm coming to you from Wurundjeri Country.

00:00:37Tony O'Connell: And my name is TOC and I'm coming to you from Bunurong Country.

00:00:42Melissa Ellis: TOC the moonlighter.

00:00:46Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I've been out on other podcasts now. You have?

00:00:50Melissa Ellis: You're cheating on me. At least I told you I was cheating on you. You did yours all under stealth.

00:00:57Tony O'Connell: Yes, very much stealth mode. We had our episode last week where the adventurers was all very quiet with our mystery guest. And so I went off and was a mystery guest on another podcast all about parkrun and all about life.

00:01:13Melissa Ellis: I enjoyed hearing you very much. So well done. I am a regular listener to With Me Now. Have we said? It was With Me Now.

00:01:22Tony O'Connell: It was actually quite a fun experience. I caught up with Danny a couple of years ago when I was over on the continent. It was actually good to just sit down and have a chat. And as you know, Mel, as hosts, we tend to have a bit of a yarn before we start recording. I think tonight we've been talking for nearly an hour now. So, yeah, no, it was really great to catch up with Danny. Have a great chat. And, yeah, then help out with the With Me Now. I think I last helped out on With Me Now early in 2020 during the COVID pause when Danny was doing the weekly episodes about Not parkrun.

00:01:58Melissa Ellis: We've had a bit of crossover with them over the years, haven't we? Fabulous.

00:02:01Tony O'Connell: We certainly have.

00:02:03Melissa Ellis: And did you get a surprise with my mystery guest, my mystery co-host?

00:02:06Tony O'Connell: I certainly did. I did not pick that it was going to be Peter. We've been running almost like a sweepstake between a few of us that you didn't know about. But we were running a bit of a sweat trying to work out who your mystery host was going to be. We were throwing names from everywhere. And Peter Pohlman was certainly not one that we'd given any thought to.

00:02:29Melissa Ellis: And one thing I realised is we didn't really go into who Peter Pohlman is in very much detail. He is the other half to Sonja Pohlman and they are involved with the Beaches. Sonja is the ED, is that right? ED at the Beaches, yes. Out there at the Beaches. Sonja and Peter, as was referenced, regularly do...

00:02:55Tony O'Connell: tourist videos that are posted on the Aussie tourism page so he's well known from there as well and he is the former ed of Callaghan parkrun he is I was trying to think of the name I could just think it was in a university and I was struggling to think of the name so yeah no we've met Peter and Sonja and and their two kids a number of times over the over the years we've run into them at different events They've attended Palm a couple of times. So, yeah, no, it was really good to hear Peter jump in. And I think everyone really enjoyed a different voice. So maybe you need to sack me and get Peter a bit more off.

00:03:35Melissa Ellis: Well, it's always good to have some emergencies in the back pocket, isn't it? It is. For those occasions where you fellas are off doing, I don't know, backyard ultras or in countries where you can't get to parkrun. Yeah.

00:03:48Tony O'Connell: No, look, it was really good, Mel. I always enjoy hearing different voices on the podcast and, like, with our roving reporters, having the different voices there. Yeah, no, it was just a little bit of interest, a different perspective. I agree. Very much a surprise, though. When I saw the pod come out, the first thing I did, we were out on a walk and I've opened up my pod app and played the first 30 seconds and I thought, it's Reginald. Oh, wow. That's going to be difficult to edit. And it's going to be interesting to see whether Reginald actually turns up later in the episode.

00:04:25Melissa Ellis: I know. They might have their nose out of joint. Hard to tell. I'm sure they will extract revenge in some form or the other.

00:04:33Tony O'Connell: Let's listen in and see if Reginald does turn up at a later point.

00:04:37Melissa Ellis: Yes, but TOC, would you like to share what you got up to on Saturday?

00:04:42Tony O'Connell: Well, Mel, as we all know, it was Tutu Day being February the 22nd. I very infrequently wear tutus. I'm not very outgoing. So it gave me the opportunity to dress up in a tutu. And it was also Run Down Under Day or Run the World Day, as it's become now, where Run the World donate some money to parkrun for each person that turns up in a Run the World T-shirt at parkrun. And so at Inverloch, I think we end up with about 15 people in T-shirts wearing We had tutus everywhere. Just a good fun day. They're always a little bit of fun, the tutu days. The public, when they drive past, must look and think, what on earth is going on here? But we're all comfortable with that. Inverloch had 161 finishers. And look, one of the things I love about our community that we've developed at Inverloch, we put a new roster up on the wall. We do a 10-week roster at a time. We put a new roster up on the wall and we filled 34 spots on that roster without actually asking people. Everyone wanders up, puts their name up somewhere. It's really sensational. I love that community that we've got there.

00:06:00Melissa Ellis: Now, I've seen that great big giant roster. Would you like to explain to people just how big it is?

00:06:06Tony O'Connell: For those that are familiar with large plans, it's about A1 size. So it's actually about 90 centimetres long and about 70 centimetres high. So it's quite a large sheet of paper. It's actually done on tear-proof and waterproof paper, so we can just put it up every week. And if it gets wet, it doesn't matter. But, you know, it's a bit of a feature of Inverloch is getting your name up on the roster and filling some dots out.

00:06:31Melissa Ellis: And how many weeks does it cover? Yeah.

00:06:34Tony O'Connell: This one's 10 weeks.

00:06:35Melissa Ellis: Wow. Okay. And you have people putting their names on the roster 10 weeks out?

00:06:40Tony O'Connell: We certainly do. And different people tend to align themselves with certain Run Directors. So you'll see certain names pop up all the time with the same Run Director. Yeah, but we've got people on our roster now. I think the obvious positions, you know, the Tail Walker, Event Day Course Check and that they fill up or throughout that 10 week roster. But I would hazard a guess and say we've probably got 60% or 70% of our Timekeepers and Barcode Scanners in for the 10 weeks as well. So, you know, we still have to ask occasionally for an extra person to fill in a roster, but I'm just logged into our page, you know, the public-facing page, and I reckon we've got half a dozen spots in the next six weeks now. And typically one of our hardest roles to fill is actually photographer. No one wants to take happy snaps. Everyone loves to get the happy snaps, but no one loves to take them.

00:07:40Melissa Ellis: I think there's the pressure that you might do a bad job of it and people won't be happy.

00:07:45Tony O'Connell: There is. And look, we run a double Timekeeper at Inverloch. We're only a smallish event, but we've always found it easier to fill two Timekeepers than it is to fill one because people don't feel like there's any pressure to get it absolutely right. Not that it's a difficult job, but we've always run two Timekeepers right since launch.

00:08:06Melissa Ellis: It's interesting to have a little chat about this. I know we didn't necessarily script it. And from my experience being an Event Director at Juniors, I used to just schedule my Run Director's on a six weekly rotation. If I had six Run Directors, I would just in order every six weeks, put them on the roster. And then I just say in our group chat, look, if the date doesn't suit anybody, is it okay if you just discuss amongst yourselves and swap? And I just found that made my job a lot easier and it seemed to work really well for us. But tell me, do you do something similar at Inverloch? Because I know events do it different ways. Yeah.

00:08:49Tony O'Connell: No, look, at Inverloch, we've got our group chat, and I tend to throw up a list of, you know, 10 or 12 dates, and people just pick the dates, and we add them in. Everyone tends to work roughly on that 8 or 10 weeks, but, yeah, you work around events and that. I think we've got our Run Directors now in through to probably September in the roster, where a couple of us have just gone, I'm going to do this week, this week, and this week, and I've gone... logged all my ones in on ems through to Christmas um already and everyone else has sort of jumped in and done the same excellent that's a good situation for us to be in and Mel how about you how was your parkrun day

00:09:34Melissa Ellis: Well, I ran for the ninth time at Wilson Botanic parkrun on the lands of the Boon Wurrung peoples at event 372 with Dave and 92 other participants. The event was RD'd expertly by the lovely Kerry Russell and nine fellow high-vis heroes, many of which I knew from my time living in the city of Casey. Now, I've recapped Wilson Botanic on previous visits, so I won't go into detail other than to say it's a two lapper within a small botanic park in the southeast suburb of Berwick, Victoria. It has some serious ascent, which must be tackled twice, with Dave declaring it harder than Brimbank. Now, I did question him to make sure I was getting my facts right. He claims Brimbank is in the vicinity of 70 metres ascent or elevation, which you only do once, but... Wilson Botanic is 70 metres over a shorter distance that you do twice. So that was his reasoning there. Now, it was wonderful to see that the park is well utilised by other locals, with many dog walkers out enjoying the good weather, as well as a group enjoying a shady spot with yoga mats and a travelling football club doing laps of the grounds. Oh, and a tightrope walker, would you believe? LAUGHTER

00:10:56Tony O'Connell: Have not seen a tightrope water parkrun before.

00:10:59Melissa Ellis: Like, what are the odds? I'm looking out over the view, you know, the course as you're up high, just making your way back down on the second half of the course. There's a view out towards Melbourne. If it's a very clear day, you can see the skyline. So I was admiring all that. And then I'm like, hang on a minute. What's that man doing? He's walking a tightrope. Quite bizarre. Anyway, now my choice to go to Wilson Botanic was more about sharing the lovely event with Dave than anything else because I was out in the southeast. It's obviously a fave of mine because it was my ninth visit. Afterwards we grabbed coffee at Gather Food Coffee & Co which operates from a converted container within the park and is very close to the start finish area. Now, that wrapped up February for me with zero from four new events, which I will admit has been a bit hard. I am definitely missing my adventures, but I am looking forward to a couple more in March and, of course, Palm in April.

00:12:05Tony O'Connell: Mel, you talk about the lovely course there and the little bit of elevation on the course. You didn't actually give it the common name that Wilson Botanic's been renamed, which would be Wilson Satanic, because everyone reckons when you get to that second hill, it's a bit like hell. Yeah.

00:12:24Melissa Ellis: It is, yes. No, that is indeed its nickname. And I had to walk the hills, I'm not too ashamed to say. I don't have the fitness I once had previously, but it is what it is.

00:12:40Tony O'Connell: It is a lovely course, yep.

00:12:41Kate Corner: No shame in walking.

00:12:44Melissa Ellis: Now, I've got a correction from last week, TOC. With my interview with Daryl, I mixed up the names of two of the original Junior parkrun events, which was pointed out to me, and I'm quite happy to be corrected because I do not like getting things wrong. The Airlie Beach event, which was started originally by Tim Oberg, was actually Cannonvale Juniors, and it was Southport Juniors that relocated and became Bellevue Juniors. So there is my public service announcement. I'm actually surprised that only one person picked it up.

00:13:20Tony O'Connell: I did pick the Cannonvale one up listening into the podcast and I thought you might have had a few more, well, we might have had a few more emails come in or a few comments in on that one. Very surprised that we didn't. Now, also in response to last week's episode, Ali Sheppard commented... Fantastic episode and great to hear the fabulous surprise presenter who I met on my visit to Australia last year. I had a eureka moment when listening to Mel talk about the gums along the riverbank. In the UK, gums are in your mouth and hold your teeth in place. So when I heard about Scribbly Gums parkrun, I thought it sounded like a fantastic but bizarre name for a parkrun. I put it on my bucket list because of the name and tried to see if I could fit it into my Aussie visit, but sadly it was too far. My eureka moment was that I realised that gums must be trees, right? As in gum trees. And then just when I'm thinking about getting the hang of this Aussie lingo, you start talking about another word for the selfie frames which I couldn't catch. Something like corfu or corflute. What is it? Please enlighten me. And we had a little thinking emoji. And also from Ruth Perkins, love the pod, thank you. I think Treviso is the closest parkrun to Venice, the city of love. That might warrant a loose Valentine's connection.

00:14:43Melissa Ellis: Oh, there's a couple of points I'm happy to discuss with you here, Toc. How many people, except for Peter Pohlman, have you ever heard refer to the selfie frame as the event corflute?

00:14:54Tony O'Connell: It's just a selfie frame normally.

00:14:56Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:14:58Melissa Ellis: Thank you for coming to my survey.

00:15:01Tony O'Connell: It's made from corflute. I buy lots of products from corflute, but it's a selfie frame.

00:15:06Melissa Ellis: Back in the day when my daughter used to do HPV, which is the little pedal cars, they were made from corflute, so I'm very well versed with the product and its uses. But, yes. Oh, and also, thank you, Ruth, for pointing out that Treviso is the closest parkrun to Venice. It's definitely probably a better reason for its attendance than the fact that Tiramisu is...

00:15:36Tony O'Connell: Either. Love tiramisu. I love tiramisu, so we're on a roll either way.

00:15:44Melissa Ellis: Anyway, yes, thank you to all the people that gave us feedback on the episode and said how much they enjoyed it. Now, what is this one? I think this was an email. Okay, we had email feedback as well, and it came to us from Ali Sheppard, and she said, Hi, Mel and team. I thought I'd add some more context to my suggestion for an animal farm club, which you read out in the last pod episode, and tell you a bit more about Harleston Magpies parkrun. Insert theme.

00:16:12[18 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:16:30Melissa Ellis: The club is named after the nearby Harleston Magpies pub where the inaugural meeting took place. And of course, its kit is black and white and very similar to Collingwood's uniform. What are the odds? After the parkrun, Park Faf takes place in the clubhouse, which was built in 1976. If parkrun did twinning, it would be great to twin Harleston Magpies with the nearest parkrun to Collingwood Magpies. Oh, TOC. I'm going to have to look that up.

00:16:59Tony O'Connell: I think that'd have to be Studley Park, wouldn't it, the closest to Collingwood?

00:17:02Melissa Ellis: It would. Now, back to Ali. Whilst on the subject of clubs, I think Reginald may be wrong with their assertion that there can only ever be one Funnel Manager. On Christmas Day, I was at Bushy parkrun where we had nearly 3,000 people. There were four funnels and 16 Funnel Managers on the roster. As bushy as the home at parkrun, I wouldn't think they would get it wrong, would they? Also, the role of number check is as Reginald described, but also a number of parkruns in the UK utilise a person in this role who select, say, every 20th person just after they've collected their finish token and ask for their name and barcode number, which they then write down next to their finishing position number. At the end of the parkrun, they will have a list of a random sample of people with their finished positions and barcode numbers, and this can be used as a reference point by the RD if something goes awry with the results. At other parkruns, I've seen the Funnel Manager and Number Checker being done by the same person, who runs between the Timekeepers and finished tokens, checking that they are in sync and that no one has funneled out. Keep up the good work. Loving the pod, Ali.

00:18:11Tony O'Connell: It's one of the things I love about the smaller parkruns, Mel, is that your Timekeepers and your finish token person can actually yell at each other with the number that they're up to. And as the Run Director on the day, you can just keep a track of that so you have that reference point. Yeah.

00:18:27Melissa Ellis: Now, thank you very much, Ali, because this was this description of the Number Checker being somebody who actually takes people's names and barcode numbers down with their token number. That is what I had in my head. Now, I've obviously picked that up somehow in the past, listening probably to With Me Now, I would assume. That was just the idea I had as something they do in the UK to deal with large numbers and when there's multiple funnels. So I guess it's something that evolves and it's good for events to get these tips. Like some of our Australian events that experiencing large numbers could go, oh, that's a good idea. Maybe we'll do that too.

00:19:12Tony O'Connell: It's actually something that's being shared amongst some of the Australian events. I know in some of our Slack channels, so the communication between events in Slack, there's a couple of the larger events that are sharing some tips and tricks on managing the funnel and Number Checker positions and things because as events are growing, we're seeing events like Gardiners Creek and Karkarook that have gone from 200 people to 500 people in a very short time. And so they're able to learn from events like Albert that have grown. So it's really good to see events actually sharing that sort of information between them. Now, we have a budgie update. We do. The good news is Nicola from With Me Now and Poppy took Budgie to Scotland to Lochend Woods.

00:20:04Melissa Ellis: And I actually did miss an email, TOC, from Gareth with photos of his handover to Nicola on a Freedo at Woodhouse Moor parkrun. Now, if you aren't familiar with the With Me Now podcast, Nicola is the co-host that does all the work and Woodhouse Moor is her local event in Leeds. Leeds, Leeds, Leeds. We are very excited that Budgie has made his way as far as Nicola and Poppy, even if he has bent the rules by changing over on a Freedo. We're going to overlook it this one time. On the topic of rules, it is true that we had hoped Budgie would travel to all the states and territories in Australia before he headed overseas. He did in fact narrowly miss a trip to the ACT and also did not make it to the Northern Territory. Oh, well. And as far as what comes next, perhaps we'll leave that in your hands, Danny. If Budgie does make it to you, deal with him as you see fit.

00:21:00Tony O'Connell: Well, it's good that you point out that Nicola does all the work on the With Me Now podcast and all the editing and all the in-depth work behind it. I'm sure Danny will appreciate that we've acknowledged Nicola for all that hard work.

00:21:13Melissa Ellis: I thought he'd get a laugh out of that.

00:21:17Tony O'Connell: We also have some stats coming from our Kiwi correspondent. Our over-the-ditch correspondent has told us that there were 11,715 finishers in New Zealand this week. They were supported by 936 volunteers, which is still a large number and still not quite at their record level, but the numbers are still maintaining, over in New Zealand. The largest event was Hagley with 632, and East Otago High School is the place to go if you want to get a low position bingo number. They had 30 finishers. Four of their events set attendance records, including Puarenga, which is Ellison's home parkrun, and that is probably because the Tarawera Trail Running Festival was on on the weekend, and Puarenga is about as close to the finish line of Tarawera, as you can get, it's probably half a kilometre away from parts of the course. So you're almost, in fact, when you run Tarawera, you actually run along the parkrun course to get to the finish line.

00:22:27Melissa Ellis: Who wasn't Tarawera the week before? Because I say that, and here's a lovely little serendipity. The lovely Kerry Russell that I mentioned, who was RD on Saturday at Wilson Botanic, ran Tarawera the week before.

00:22:42Tony O'Connell: You are very correct. I'm just thinking about that. And my social media is obviously still full of Tarawera because it's such an awesome event. You're correct. So in which case, Puarenga set an attendance record the week after Tarawera.

00:22:56Melissa Ellis: so well done either way because people have stayed on they're making the most of their holiday and they missed a parkrun day so they've or did they is it is it it is it's a Saturday event yes definitely yeah so they've stayed on just so that they can do the parkrun there you go there's all the explanation so across Australia we had three events set attendance records only three in the whole of Australia only three There was Rockingham in WA, Kedron in Queensland. Meanwhile, Lillydale Lake in Victoria jumped from 359 to 555, a leap of 196 finishes. What was going on at Lillydale? This was no doubt helped by both being their 500th event and the two local events, Emerald Lake and Birdsland Reserve, being cancelled due to total fire bans in national parks. Ha-ha, yes, that makes sense. There were Birdsland, parkrunners also at Wilson Botanics.

00:23:55Tony O'Connell: So for our listeners overseas, we have a lot of our events take place in national parks and days of total fire ban and Saturday, for example, was going to be up around 40 degrees. A lot of the national parks shut down and they don't encourage people to go out into the bush because of the potential of a fire going through. So the national parks tend to shut down. So some of our events that are held in national parks, all their people go elsewhere touristing.

00:24:22Melissa Ellis: And as an aside, Eynesbury Juniors also cancelled on Sunday, also due to the total fire ban risk. But we are not in a national park, but it was just for concerns for community safety.

00:24:38Tony O'Connell: Yeah, some of the events that are out in the grasslands and that, and it is very dry over here at the moment. if anything did happen to start. We have a lot of fires actually burning around Australia at the moment, particularly at the moment down in Tasmania. It's just a good safety protocol.

00:24:55[background music]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:24:55Tony O'Connell: But people that did get out and about, Mel, let's have a listen to a couple of roving reports.

Roving report Calum Burrell — Holyrood parkrun

00:25:06Calum Burrell: Good morning parkrun adventurers it's Calum and a bit of a special one for me today as I'm doing the last parkrun in my current age category and what I've decided to do is I've come to the parkrun which is closest to where I was actually born so I'm in Edinburgh So I'll repeat, Edinburgh, as that's how it's pronounced. Just a little note for Peter who struggled with the pronunciation this week. And yeah, so I'm at Holyrood parkrun and it's event 122. I emphasise the 22 because It's the 22nd of February, 2-2-2. I'm wearing my 2-2 and Lindsay's doing barcode scanning in her 2-2. All the stars are aligning. We've literally just started our park walk and I'm here with today's Tail Walker, Jackie. So Jackie, welcome along to the parkrun adventurers. Tell us about today, what we can expect from Holyrood parkrun.

00:26:12Jackie: Well, we've just started. We're on the famous one mile uphill. It's basically one loop around Arthur's seat. Although my American mother-in-law likes to call it Arthur's butt. It's a volcano. It used to be a volcano, millions of years ago and it's a big landmark in the centre of Edinburgh. People love to come and climb it. So this basically takes the road the whole way round. And today the sun is shining, which it's been raining all week, so we're very lucky, showing off Edinburgh at its best.

00:26:51Calum Burrell: Yeah, really looking forward. So we have literally chosen the stunner of the day. We're literally not a cloud in the sky. I can't believe it. For Scotland in February, we were doing well. So I'm up here, not only for, as I say, my last image category, up here for a few days. I'm doing the, I think it's the Innocent Half I'm doing tomorrow. Yeah, I can hear the birds singing in the trees. It's a glorious day. Looking forward to seeing some big leaders get some stunning views across the city on this parkrun. So how many part runs have you done then, Jackie?

00:27:18Jackie: This is 67.

00:27:19Calum Burrell: 67, brilliant.

00:27:21[crosstalk]

00:27:21Jackie: And I was born in 67. Oh, wow.

00:27:24Calum Burrell: Stars are aligning for you. Brilliant. So how many different locations have you done? uh 42 42 ah okay so you're heading to getting towards your co your 50th event yeah have you planned anything planned for your 50th event no because I don't know exactly when it's going to be ah okay so a bit still a bit of planning later on in the year for that yeah yeah fab okay well what are your top three parkruns that you've done in the 42 that you've done and you can include this one if you want or you can include others you choose so what what would be your top three moments events and parkrun

00:27:44[crosstalk]

00:27:59Jackie: I did Black Park the day after my dad's funeral because he was a Black Park events team. Oh, right.

00:28:07Calum Burrell: OK.

00:28:09Jackie: So that was very special. That actually got me back into parkrunning. I hadn't parkrun for 10 years. Where's Black Park? It's in Buckinghamshire. Right. Near Slough. And it's really a fabulous one. It's one lap in a country park. So I did that and then that just got me hooked again and I've pretty much run every Saturday since then and that was over a year ago. So that's a very special parkrun.

00:28:36Calum Burrell: Yeah.

00:28:37Jackie: I went to Inis Meáin.

00:28:38Calum Burrell: Oh lovely.

00:28:39Jackie: Yeah that was very special.

00:28:41Calum Burrell: Yeah, the one that starts at 11 o'clock, is it? Yeah.

00:28:43[crosstalk]

00:28:45Jackie: On an island off the west coast of Ireland. So that was fun.

00:28:50Calum Burrell: I'd love to, yeah, I think that's a bucket list. To be honest, this is a bucket list for me, for obvious reasons. But yeah, another one to add to the list is definitely Inis Meáin. Just because you need to get the boat to get out there, don't you?

00:29:02Jackie: Yeah, that takes some planning.

00:29:03Calum Burrell: Yeah. And go what would be your third?

00:29:06Jackie: I went to Lithuania to do the... Vilnius.

00:29:09[crosstalk]

00:29:10Calum Burrell: Yeah.

00:29:10Jackie: And that was the sixth one they had there. Brilliant. I went for a few days with my son, like five days. So we had... That was fun. But to be honest, I like any parkrun. I love travelling. I love seeing new towns. I've enjoyed all the Scottish ones because I live in Scotland now. Dunfermline. I enjoy small town ones where you go to a town you might not otherwise go to.

00:29:34Calum Burrell: Uh-huh, and then have a lovely day out yes yeah I like them all brilliant thank you Jackie and uh I think we'll call a wrap there because we want to obviously we haven't quite got to where you can basically see lots of trees and we can see actually looking to the left the left there we can actually see what's like there's a cruise ship in yeah that'll be a cruise ship yeah I can see a cruise ship just at Leith Port which is just on the kind of estuary of the it's almost like the Firth of Forth isn't it that is the Yeah, I wonder if you can actually see other parkruns from here. I guess you can probably see Crammond a bit further on, can you? I'm not sure if you can.

00:29:54[crosstalk]

00:30:09Jackie: Well, if you can see, we'll probably see the Forth Bridges.

00:30:12Calum Burrell: Oh, brilliant.

00:30:12Jackie: And Crammond is near there.

00:30:14Calum Burrell: And Portobello is sort of that way, I think, is it?

00:30:17Jackie: Portobello's over that way.

00:30:18Calum Burrell: Yeah, so there is a vantage point for seeing other parkruns, potentially, from this large lump in the centre of Edinburgh. If anyone's been to Edinburgh, they'll know Arthur's Seat and the... there the hilly range but yeah anyway looking forward to the rest of this parkrun yeah Calum Bloom Park walking with Jackie here over and out thank you

Roving report Paul Kitching — Drage Reserve parkrun

00:30:39Paul Kitching: Good morning, parkrun adventurers. PK here checking in from South Australia. A new parkrun in South Australia, which is fantastic. Finally, I can adventure to a new one here at Drage Reserve. I think that's how you pronounce it. We'll find out in a minute. Which is along the Linear Park and the river, the Torrens River. And it is fantastic. It's not far from Lochiel, another parkrun here. And it's great to be here. I'm going to go and chat to some of the crew who... part of the team here. I think I might be patient zero for Rachel Spivey, who is one of the EDs here, but can't seem to find her. But we might chat to Cecile if I can. One moment. I've found Cecile. Congratulations, Cecile. This is a beautiful parkrun.

00:31:24Cecile: Thank you so much.

00:31:24[crosstalk]

00:31:24Paul Kitching: You are one of the Co-Event Directors here. I am, yes. Along with Rachel.

00:31:28Cecile: Rachel Spivey.

00:31:28Paul Kitching: Yeah, indeed. Why did you decide to do this parkrun here?

00:31:33Cecile: You know what? I'm going to give all the kudos to Rachel. Her and I were one day at Lochiel and we were chatting and she's like, oh, you know, her and Darren have had a chat and there's a nice spot on the other side and do I reckon that this is possible? I'm like, let me just speak to my people and find out about the rules around that. And yes, spoke of our amazing RA, Kate Corner, as we all know her. And yeah, and it was confirmed that there's no rule around how close parkruns are allowed to be or not to be. And that was all we needed to know. And then Rachel and I decided, why not? Let's have a go.

00:31:44[crosstalk]

00:32:02[crosstalk]

00:32:06Paul Kitching: It's good, isn't it? And it's not too far from the other one, which is good as well, because I mean, that's not a problem as we know from parkruns around the world, especially, you know, in Australia, concentrated areas you don't lose out if not you actually get more people

00:32:18Cecile: Absolutely. And we found, I think even Lochiel, their numbers are still around about 300, 350. Wow. Our numbers at the moment are over 300. Wow. And mainly because we do have a lot of first-timers coming through. But I actually think it attracts more people and it just creates more awareness. Yes, we love it. That feeling of like, I'm going to go out on a Saturday morning, do five kilometres and have my day to myself after.

00:32:40[crosstalk]

00:32:42Paul Kitching: Oh my gosh, I know, right? And enjoy yourself. Yes. Well, speaking of which, I'm going to go and chat with some others. But thank you so much for everything you do for parkrun.

00:32:49[crosstalk]

00:32:50Cecile: No worries. Thank you, PK. Thanks for coming out to Drage Reserve today.

00:32:53Paul Kitching: Love it. There you go. That was Cecile. I reckon I can see Kate C, who Cecile just mentioned. So let's see if I can go and find her. I said I'd chat to a few legends, and I happened to find the South Australian Regional Ambassador. Is that right?

00:33:09[crosstalk]

00:33:09Kate Corner: That is. Hello, Kate. Good morning. How are you, PK?

00:33:11Paul Kitching: Kate C. Yeah. I am great. Wow, this is a beautiful course. And, yeah, tell me more about it. So were you involved with setting this up?

00:33:22Kate Corner: Only on a peripheral level, but yeah, mostly down to the event directing team and their event ambassador, and I've just kind of supported from the edges, but it's certainly one of my local courses, so yeah, I've been involved in helping beta test the course and adjust it as needed, so yeah. Beautiful.

00:33:41Paul Kitching: And we're calling it Drage Reserve? Drage Reserve, yes. Not drug or dragy or whatever. Drage, yes. D-R-A-G-E, Drage Reserve. Not far from Lochiel, which is a great thing, really, isn't it?

00:33:43[crosstalk]

00:33:50[crosstalk]

00:33:51Kate Corner: Yeah, in fact, it's within a kilometre. So we've been marvelling that over the first three weeks of the event, we've had 700 parkrun participants within a kilometre of each other each week, which is fantastic.

00:33:59Paul Kitching: That is phenomenal, isn't it? Yeah, beautiful part of the world and great course out there. Love it. Tell me, so why do you do parkrun?

00:34:09Kate Corner: I do parkrun for so many different reasons. You know, the fitness side of it is certainly one thing. But more than that, it's the social side and the mental well-being side of it. I participate with my son, my nearly nine-year-old, almost every week.

00:34:19[crosstalk]

00:34:20Paul Kitching: Rocking an awesome mullet there.

00:34:21Kate Corner: Yes, rocking the mullet. And so it's something that we do together. And whether we're volunteering or walking or running or a combination of all three, yeah, it's certainly something that we do together every week. And yeah, which I think is quite special too. There's not too many other activities, um sort of fitness type activities that I can do um with him so yeah I love it and you're also rocking the pins look at those yes got a few and in fact we're talking sorry we're talking about the pins on your hat so the 51 the 100 volunteer the gosh the 250 volunteer pin yep and in fact today is my 249th run or walk um parkrun so I've been sitting on the in the 240s for about six months oh my gosh So today is 249. I'm very excited that next week I'm finally going to tick over 250 runs.

00:34:38[crosstalk]

00:35:00[crosstalk]

00:35:05Paul Kitching: Yeah, well, yeah, because you've done a trillion more volunteering runs.

00:35:09Kate Corner: Yes, there has been lots of volunteering. So that'll be exciting.

00:35:12Paul Kitching: Fantastic. Well, thank you for everything you do for parkrun and how nice that we've got more areas for us to do parkrun in South Australia. Thank you.

00:35:20Jackie: Nice to talk to you.

00:35:21Paul Kitching: Good on you, Kate. Thank you. And that is Drage Reserve. Just a few quick things. It is, where is Drage Reserve? Well, it is, I think, around Felixstowe, Martin. We're not sure of the exact suburb. It's near Lochiel, like super close to Lochiel for those who have done that before, which is in Campbelltown here in South Australia. It is on Linear Park. I think it's the fourth one on Linear Park in South Australia. Someone may want to correct me on that. But The first one being Torrens. Actually, let's go in order. The first from the ocean being West Beach, along Torrens, along the Linear Park. Then you hit Torrens. Then you would hit Drage. And then super close to that is Lochiel. So the other awesome thing is that finally we have a D in South Australia. So for those doing the unofficial Alphabeteer Challenge, yes, we have a D in South Australia, Drage. It's also the 30th one if you're doing the Adelaidean Challenge, uh in the close to Adelaide and it's the 52nd official parkrun in South Australia so there you go Drage Reserve come and check it out this is pk signing off

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Golden Beach parkrun

00:36:28Lyndell Murray: G'day parkrun adventurers, it's Lyndell yet again. I know you've heard from me a lot lately and every time I go to a parkrun, I'm venturing around a lot lately on my tourist streak. And every week I say to myself, I'm not going to do a roving report this week. But every week I just keep finding interesting people, and today I am at Golden Beach parkrun for their birthday. What better time to come? It's their 11th birthday, and I've got today's Run Director, Deb. Now, Deb, how are you today? I'm well, thanks, Lyndell. How are you? Pretty good. Now, in your run briefing this morning, being an anniversary, you gave a few special shout-outs. Yes. And you focus very much on your volunteers today. And there's a number of volunteers that have done a bunch of volunteers in the last 12 months, including the Run Director team who had done 147 volunteers or something like that between you in the last 12 years. Who else would you like to shout out today?

00:37:28Deb: to Bree Anna who is our wonderful cake maker she has been making our birthday cakes since we were three years old and now we are 11 so and every year she does something within our theme so this year our theme was crazy socks so we have beautiful cake with some crazy socks on it and it always tastes good as well as looks good too

00:37:51Lyndell Murray: Can vouch for that. I have been to Golden Beach Park one before, and I'm pretty sure I had another one of your cakes, Bree.

00:37:57Brianna: I wonder which one it was. Do you remember what the theme was?

00:38:02Lyndell Murray: I wore purple, so I don't know whether it was a purple theme or a pea theme. But anyway, not about me. Purple.

00:38:07[crosstalk]

00:38:09Kate Corner: You know when it was? Hold on.

00:38:11Deb: We did purple for the volunteers because it used to only be the 25 shirt for purple for volunteers.

00:38:15[crosstalk]

00:38:16Brianna: I did a shirt. We did the purple volunteer. I remember that one. So I was talking to Lionel about this earlier. I said, I remember one year I did a shirt. And I said, what would the shirt have been? And I thought it was red, but it was purple. So it was a T-shirt shaped cake. And it was the volunteer theme. You did the 25 volunteer on the thing. That's right.

00:38:24[crosstalk]

00:38:32[crosstalk]

00:38:34Lyndell Murray: A volunteer cake. Brilliant. So there we go. We're trying to work that out. So I can vouch, Bree, your cakes are delicious. Today there was plain mud cake and caramel mud cake with, as Deb has said, topped with a fantastic sock theme. Tell me about... How you got into making cakes? Why do you do it? Do you make cakes for anything else?

00:38:58Brianna: Yes, so three daughters, one son, and I have one daughter. She's a little bit exceptional. She came to me and asked me to do this fancy big three-tiered cake for her 16th birthday. I looked at it and I thought, I don't know. I did a little bit of fondant in year 10 at high school. I think I can wing this. And it actually came out really good. So that was the start of my cake making. So I looked forward to another birthday or another anniversary and I would whip up these amazing cakes. And I think it's just growing from there. I'm just a hobbyist. I don't do them professionally. And I think with Golden Beach... I can't remember, to be precise. I think it might have been Rochelle knew that I had made a few cakes, might have done one for her daughter. I can't remember. But she said, would you mind doing the Golden Beach parkrun cake? And I said, yeah, that's fine. What's the theme? And it was that year was that was the third birthday. And I actually did a cake that was mimicked the course. Are you Yeah, and it actually had the path and the ocean and the turnaround. And I had little printouts, edible ink printouts of little people running. And, of course, there was a female runner coming first across the line. And that was the beginning, yeah.

00:40:06[crosstalk]

00:40:23Lyndell Murray: That is amazing. That's incredible. So there's been obviously a lot of amazing cake creations over the time of Golden Beach. You don't just make cakes here. You do also run here.

00:40:33Brianna: I do run Golden Beach. It's my home run and I'm a little precious about Golden Beach. I don't like to go to the other parkruns on the coast. This is our home.

00:40:43Lyndell Murray: This is the one we love and that's why I enjoy doing the cakes. Excellent. So we would call you a passionista on the podcast. So you're someone who's very passionate about your home parkrun and doesn't really tourist a lot. Yes. Very passionate, not so much regular.

00:40:57Unidentified speaker: Yes.

00:40:59Lyndell Murray: Well, that's because you've got all these cakes to bake. Now, Deb, you're one of the Run Directors here and have been for a little while, I believe.

00:41:08Deb: I think that I have been a Run Director here for nine or ten of the 11 years, yes. So you remember all of these cakes?

00:41:16Lyndell Murray: I do remember and have tasted all of these cakes, yes. Pretty sure I haven't missed a birthday. Brilliant. We did touch a little bit on the course at Golden Beach, being along the water. It is a beautiful parkrun and a lovely community here. Tell me a little bit about the community. As I said, you gave some shout-out to some of the other volunteers. What would you say about the community here at Golden Beach? It is a wonderful community and we've got a real...

00:41:42Deb: big amount of long-term regulars even if they don't come regularly they're still regulars it's definitely a family and you know a lot of people know a lot of people here become a good group of friends that is fantastic that's what parkrun's all about all right

00:41:45[crosstalk]

00:42:00Lyndell Murray: I'm going to wrap up shortly, but I'll just give you both the opportunity. Is there anything else that you would like the parkrun adventurers to know about Golden Beach parkrun or about cake? Whichever you like.

00:42:13Deb: I don't think so. I think we've just wrapped it up with that, that, you know, what a great community it is. And a lot of people visit here and say how friendly everybody is here. So we like that about it.

00:42:23Brianna: Yeah, I think the parkruns that I have been to, I mean, they're all great, but we do have the best volunteers on the coast at our parkrun. So, yeah, if you're in the area, Golden Beach is the one to be at.

00:42:30[crosstalk]

00:42:34Lyndell Murray: Great volunteers. And it is, as I said, a beautiful course right along the water here on the southern part of the Sunshine Coast. All right. I think that is me out from Golden Beach parkrun. So I'll see you next time on the parkrun Adventures.

00:42:45[background music]

00:42:58Melissa Ellis: and thank you to our roving reporters we had Calum at Holyrood parkrun park walking and chatting with Jackie out there I believe Holyrood is in Edinburgh we also had pk coming to us from Drage Reserve now that is south australia's first d he was talking to ed Cecile and rd Kate Corner friend of the pod Within a kilometre of Lochiel, the mothership, that one, Toc. And can I just say congratulations next week to Kate for her 250th. It was interesting, the reference to Linear Park having now four events, Toc. So I believe that must be one long giant park that joins up and runs through Adelaide.

00:43:45Tony O'Connell: I've actually run that trail, Mel. One of the days that I went out to Lochiel and... Enjoyed the mothership's hospitality. I ran back into Adelaide from Lochiel and it is, it's just right along the river. It's just a continuous park for, I don't know, I ran probably 20 kilometres on it and it was not looking like stopping at that point and it still runs further out beyond Lochiel. So yeah, great little park.

00:44:13Melissa Ellis: And then we also had Lyndell out at Golden Beach, which is in Queensland. It was their 11th birthday and she spoke to RD, Deb and Brianna, the cake maker extraordinaire.

00:44:24Tony O'Connell: And we all need a cake maker extraordinaire. And especially Dazza probably needs a cake maker extraordinaire.

Dazza's

00:44:31Tony O'Connell: This week, Dazza said... 22nd of the 2nd. 2-2 slash 2. Richie Benaud would have said, that's marvellous. But for us, it just means 2-2s. Well, more 2-2s than normal. Did you twirl in town? Were you on point on the point? Maybe you sashayed through the city. Wherever you are, however you did it, and whatever shoes you were in, come on in and tell Dazza how your parkrun the World Day was.

00:45:01Melissa Ellis: And first in the door this week was Cathy Crispin coming to us from New South Wales. She said some of the many tutus celebrating Panania parkrun's 9th anniversary and poses striking a pose. There was a picture of six ballerinas in colourful tutus in a dance pose out there at, I'm guessing, Panania? Yes. Wait, I already said Panania.

00:45:27Tony O'Connell: And over in the UK, Maria Weeks came to us. Fellow adventurer Branca and I travelled like wombles to get to parkrun. Overground train, underground train, wombling free, walking, to get to Walthamstow parkrun for three muddy and friendly laps. Another London parkrun visited. We'd both like an Earl Grey tea with oat milk, please, Dazza. And the pick was Maria and Branca with a pop-up. And thanks, Maria. I now have the Wombles theme song going through my head for the rest of the night.

00:46:00Melissa Ellis: I used to love the Wombles. Now, David Messenger came to us from Tasmania and he said, after planning and booking our holiday over four months ago, travelling by plane over 3,000 kilometres, Perth to Hobart, travelling by hire car a further 3,500 kilometres around Tasmania in 15 days with more than 1,000 kilometres of unplanned backtracking to reschedule our plans after cancellation of Zeehan Golf Club parkrun on the 15th February due to the bushfires, we made it today completed my 202nd different parkrun my second zed my second Australian parkrun alphabet acted as Tail Walker meaning now only two letters remain to complete my volunteer alphabet and they are I and v thanks to Christine brown for sharing this crazy life adventure with me and Dave shared a pic of himself in the zian in the Zeehan pop-up we don't have pop-ups must be the Zeehan selfie frame slash event corflute with the alphabet flag and carmel roll also popped in and finished her second alphabet as in as well so adventure and meetups in Tassie going everywhere and I reckon I know a spot where David Messenger could come and complete his eye for his volunteer alphabet just saying

00:47:23Tony O'Connell: Meanwhile, back in Victoria, not far from the eye in Victoria, Felicity Castellan popped in. Hi Dazza, arrived by car, by myself, face palm, as I was RD. With Tutu and RD using it for event 321. The temperature was 20 degrees, a bit warmer at the finish, but there were zooper-doopers at the finish line. Yum. And Felicity posted a separate picture, so she put a couple of comments into Dazza's, but there's a large group of the Cooney parkrunners all in Run Down Under tops and tutus.

00:47:57Melissa Ellis: Next in the door was Brendan Scholarly coming to us from New South Wales. Em wore her Wonder Woman tutu to Shellharbour parkrun this morning to complete her 27th parkrun and meet Nigel Marsh, who recently interviewed PSH for his Five of My Life podcast. And Brendan also shared a link to the said podcast episode and also a picture of Em in a sparkly blue tutu crossing the finish line.

00:48:24Tony O'Connell: Go across to the West Side Mel and we had the lovely Sarah Jefferson check in with us. Hey Dazza, lots of tutus out on the course today at South Beach Recreation Reserve parkrun and parkrun is better in a tutu. Matt got in the ocean for the obligatory swim. And there was a picture of Sarah and there was a whole swarm of people in tutus with her on the South Beach lawn. And I counted them up and there was 22 people for tutu day. No way! The perfect number of people in tutus for a tutu photo.

00:48:57Melissa Ellis: Next, we had Ian Thompson coming to us from the UK, did a very muddy Oaklands College parkrun, then scanned afterwards. Lots of friends there, including Ali Sheppard, plus I inadvertently abducted the RD's spare shoes as they were seemingly abandoned under a bench. Thankfully, reunited with them. And Ian shared a picture of himself and friends with the Oaklands pop-up.

00:49:21Tony O'Connell: And now next we go to Queensland and Dean Warrick. A short drive down the road, I picked up my 19th location only a stone's throw away at the newly launched Gainsborough Parklands parkrun, joined by my good friend Cassie and her daughter Sabella. There was a marvellous array of tutus and colours on display with the Run Down Under shirts aplenty amongst a crowd of 406 excited finishers. And there was a pic of Dean, his friend Cassie and her daughter Sabella.

00:49:50Melissa Ellis: Fantastic. And, of course, we had lots of people come to Dazza's. I don't think I posted in Dazza's this week, but it doesn't matter.

the Obi Award — Kathy Crispin

00:49:57Tony O'Connell: Now, we had 168 comments this week, but more importantly, do you have the Obi envelope for our favourite comment of the week? Oh, I do.

00:50:07Melissa Ellis: Let me reach for it now. There it is. Oh, maybe I'll... Oh, I had to tear it open. Now, this week's Obi goes to... Kathy Crispin. Yay, go Kathy. Hooray out there with Rocky at Panania.

00:50:20[background music]

00:50:35Tony O'Connell: That was a great photo of the six of them performing dance poses or ballerina poses in their tutus.

Emails

00:50:43Melissa Ellis: Now, Toc, we've got some mail. You've got mail.

00:50:46Tony O'Connell: And we're going to start with Greg Garner as our first email this week. And Greg said, Hi, was just listening to the latest pod and Club Corner with Reginald and their discussions in regards to transport and ways to get to parkrun. The most memorable way for us at Wes Mitchell parkrun was from a couple who arrived on a jet ski wave rider. They were staying at nearby Rainbow Beach and for them it was an eight minute ride on the jet ski wave rider across from there to Tin Can Bay. That one's going to be hard to toss unless we can get someone arriving by helicopter or seaplane. All the best, Greg Garner. And Greg sent two photos of the arrival by water.

00:51:26Melissa Ellis: Yeah, that's pretty impressive.

00:51:28Tony O'Connell: It is a good one, yeah.

00:51:30Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I'd like to go to parkrun by jet ski. Maybe one day. Now, we also heard from Sarah Langley. She said, hi team. It was a joy to visit Hattori Ryokuchi parkrun in Osaka today, Japan's newest event. The course runs through a stunning bamboo forest in the Hattori Green Area Park and is very easy to reach by train from central Osaka. The wonderful volunteers and seeing snowfall later in the morning made it a brilliant experience. It has made the list of my three favourite courses. To answer Mel's question from a few episodes ago about the course description, The course is two laps of a 2.5 kilometre path. Add it to the wishlist, adventurers. Until next time, Sarah L. And Sarah shared a volley photo, which included herself as the Tail Walker. I noted Sarah as Tail Walker was position 29, so it's a small attendance, and she tail walked in 49.02, so that's a pretty snappy tail walk.

00:52:31Tony O'Connell: It is a reasonable paced tail walk. We also had an email from Michael Blain. For the second week in a row, Michael's come to us. He must love his emails. Hi, Mel and TOC. And then in brackets, this week, I think. Yes, you got that absolutely correct. Sir Reginald has asked for feedback on how we'll get to parkrun. His name is so aristocratic, I just assumed he was a knight. Like many, I suspect I drive too often. This week, however, on my touristing to the mothership Lochiel, I managed to catch a bus from Adelaide CBD and was thoroughly intrigued hurtling down the O-Bahn. With the 1,200 metre walk from the bus interchange to the event start, it was a lovely way to arrive at the event. However, the craziest transport mode I've ever used to get to parkrun was in the winter of 2024 to attend Tannum Sands parkrun on the coast of central Queensland. I was on a holiday on a fishing trip in a fishing shack on an island about 10km from the event. Now, of course, like many, I don't like to miss parkrun. I had proposed taking one of the tinnies, which is a small dinghy, and travelling by boat to the event as it starts in a park above a beach. When conditions are good and the tide's right, this would be a simple 30 minute boat ride. However, the wind was up, it was winter and dark at 5.45am, so I made the call not to proceed in the rough water. So I grabbed one of the four-wheel drives and drove up the beach about seven kilometres, parked up the vehicle, I then walked another kilometre or so, and you remember I said I was on an island, with my trainers and socks, towel and dry shorts in plastic bags above my head into the surf I go and wade and swim about 400 metres across the mouth of the creek to Tannum Sands main beach. It certainly freshened me up in the dawn light, walk up the beach to have a cold shower, dry off and dress for parkrun, walk and jog the last two kilometres to the event, I was certainly warmed up by then. A bit of fun. My run wasn't that good that day as I think I used all my energy up by the time I arrived. To go back to the fishing shack after parkrun, I had to do it all in reverse and the tide was further so the swim was a bit longer. Regards, Michael Blain. Oh my goodness.

00:54:53Melissa Ellis: That is impressive.

00:54:54Tony O'Connell: That's like doing a... Duathlon? Yeah, I was trying to think of the name for it. A duathlon. It's more than a duathlon, though. It's more than a triathlon. We've got swims, we've got walks, we've got runs, we've got wades, we've got all sorts of things going on there. So that's a big effort to get to parkrun.

00:55:11Melissa Ellis: Yeah, and it was a bit like a car rally as well. If he was driving up the beach, oh, that would be fun. Yeah.

00:55:18Tony O'Connell: One way to get to that.

00:55:19Melissa Ellis: Okay. That's it for our emails. Thank you, everybody, who provided us with a little bit more content this week. And good job, Peter, for helping us in that respect.

Club Corner

00:55:31Melissa Ellis: Now, it's time for us to hear what Reginald's got to say.

00:55:35[background music]

00:55:43Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: Hello, this is Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III here again with Club Corner, coming to you from Arrernte Country. I am honestly unsure how to accept the accolades that were contained in the comments of the weekly Facebook post. Many people were complimentary of the mystery host, and one can only assume that those highly intelligent people recognised my contributions for what they were, smiley face. And as for the newly awarded Sir Status, as assigned in Michael's email and then riffed upon my Mel and Peter, thank you, but no thank you. I am a disembodied voice of the people, not a member of the near peerage, and I certainly will not be bending the knee, one cannot expect to wield supreme power just because some watery parkrunner threw a sword at one. So, freshly returned from my pod hosting duties, I am back into our focus on volunteering. This week we have a couple of fun roles, barcode scanning, aka registration, and Token Sorting. Barcode scanning is a role which has become a much easier prospect now that we have the virtual volunteer app at our disposal. In these contemporary times, one only needs set up at a suitable location, and then scan people's barcode and finished token as they present themselves at the conclusion of their time on course. It can be a very gregarious role, where you get to briefly chat to many if it is busy or have a better natter when things are slow. The finished tokens are retained at the scanning station, whether by hand or bucket or sorting board. And then a role that I greatly admire kicks in, Token Sorting. My favourite method is to sort in hundreds, then sort into tens, then being careful not to sort into reverse order, one places the tokens into the final sequential order, to be ready for the next parkrun. That is all that there is for these roles. They are simple, yet important roles. And they are essential to the functioning of parkrun, both on the day and to be ready for the next event. They are also both excellent introductory roles for newer or younger volunteers. There is typically support and camaraderie in and around these tasks, so they are also nicely social. And remember, in parkrun life, all non-milestone clubs are unofficial and unsupported by parkrun, so stay tuned for our future club corners.

00:57:52Melissa Ellis: Good to hear from Sir Reginald once again. I think that's going to stick now, TOC. But I must say, referencing barcode scanning and token sorter, one tip, and I don't know if I've mentioned this before, I might well have, but I always take a photo of my token after I finish, before I hand it in. And this has been a long time habit after early days out at Berwick Springs. I think there was some sort of timing issue or loss of results for the Barcode Scanners in any case they did a call out if anybody could help them out and and this kind of almost ties in with the Number Checkers if anybody from the day could say what number token they were and give their sort of Garmin time. And so on that occasion, I had no idea what position number I finished. So from then on in every week, I always take a photo of my token. Should I ever need to prove what number I came again, I have photo evidence.

00:59:01Tony O'Connell: I don't take a photo myself, Mel, but I always really have a good look at my finish token for much the same reason. And having been on an event team back in the early days with the Juntz stopwatches where batteries fell out the back and with Barcode Scanners that had a habit of... throwing a hissy fit and deciding they weren't going to upload or they weren't going to work for the week. And being on an event team where you had to rebuild results by asking people for times and that, that idea of taking the photo is not a bad one.

00:59:34Melissa Ellis: I guess it doesn't happen so much now that we have the app, but we also have come across times where people delete their results before they're uploaded.

00:59:44Tony O'Connell: Yes, we had that at Inverloch about a year ago where someone hit clear results instead of upload results.

Consolidated Club Report

00:59:52Melissa Ellis: So anyway, it's our favourite time of the pod where we talk about the adventurers Consolidated Club Report for Saturday, the 21st of February 2025. Of a total of 754 members, 563 took part in nine countries across 262 locations. In the UK, they were adventurers at 51 events. There were six in South Africa, three in Poland, two in Ireland, Japan and the USA, and one in Italy. I wonder if it was Treviso. Locally, we had adventurers at 46 events in Queensland, 43 in New South Wales and Victoria, 18 in Australia, 16 in South Australia, 11 in Tassie. The ACT had six events. The North Island had 10. Whoopsie, I put them out of order. And the South Island and the Northern Territory had one.

the Frond

01:00:47Tony O'Connell: Now, our largest international fronds this week, we had two events that had fronds of five. So it's really great to see those larger fronds starting to form overseas. We had Doddington Hall, where there was Helen Rudder, Andy Rudder, Sunil Chamund, Andy Poole and Wendella Poole. And we also had Oaklands College, where we had Ian Thompson, Chris Kopis, Alexander Thompson, Mark Penny and Susan Cartwright.

01:01:16Melissa Ellis: And the pilgrimage was, again, nobody managing to get out to Bushy. But on the largest frond front, there were... a frond of 15 at Gainsborough Parklands in Australia there was a frond of nine at schlaba there was a frond of eight at four events which was Aintree Reserve Burrum Heads Beach The Ponds and Wyndham Vale But I decided to highlight our friends out at Shellharbour. And that was Housemate Lance, Stephen and Helen Davis, Hannah Newton, James Thomas, Delvene McKenzie, Kirsten McKenzie, M. Scholarie and Brendan. Now, of course, we heard from Brendan earlier in Dazza's.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:02:01Tony O'Connell: Now, launches this week and Australia has led the world again. We had two launches around the world and both of them were up in Queensland. Our first one was the relaunch, of Gainsborough Greens which is now Gainsborough Parklands it's a two lapper on concrete and there was 405 people at the launch 39 volunteers and a fun fact Mel 405 finishes by five kilometres equals 2025 kilometres for the year 2025 you're welcome and did they go back to event one They did. Yes. So they've reset as a complete new event.

01:02:43Melissa Ellis: Excellent. Good job. Now, the second event to launch up there in Queensland was Burrum Heads Beach. And it is located south of Bundaberg, approximately 300 kilometres north of Brisbane. The course is an out and back, almost completely on the sand, except for a couple of hundred metres. The launch had 226 people with 17 volunteers. Ooh. So it's a rival to the Beaches.

01:03:10Tony O'Connell: It is, Mel. The first roughly 150, 200 metres are across grass onto the beach, and then you basically do 2.3km out along the beach, back, and then finish on the grass again.

Watching the Numbers

01:03:24Melissa Ellis: Very good. Now, the ongoing segment that we are calling Watching the Numbers at Patinia Island is This week they had 247 at event seven. So that is up by one from event six. And so it looks like they might be levelling out at around that 250 ballpark. Of the 250, Toc, there were 97 tourists slash visitors and 16 first time ever parkrunners.

Palm update

01:03:55Tony O'Connell: Mel, and other exciting news, more exciting than a launch, because we all love exciting news, we have a Palm update. Hooray! Palm is rapidly approaching on us now. It's only about six weeks away, and... Our theme night for the dress-up, as has been previously announced, is Queens, but we can give you a little bit more of the program. This year, because Queenstown is not located with other parkruns around it, we're having a little bit of a different year for Palm. So Friday night, we're going to do a group walk up Queenstown Hill, and it's followed by the nighttime festivities at Winnie's Pizza, which was recommended to us by one of the Queenstown parkrunners. The pod recording is going to take place on Saturday afternoon this year. So after parkrun, people have time to actually socialise and have breakfast and do whatever they like around Queenstown. Santiago, we're going to record in the Queenstown Bolo. And then Saturday night, we have our dress-up extravaganza at Smith's Craft Beer, which is also located right in the middle of Queenstown. So very easy to get to locations. So that's going to pretty well fill out our weekend, Mel.

01:05:13Melissa Ellis: It is. I'm very nervous about trying to think up a unique dress-up for the night. But we do have a bit of a public service announcement about the dress-ups, don't we, Tony? Yes.

01:05:24Tony O'Connell: We do, Mel. I spoke to the Smith's Craft Beer on the phone because I was having a little bit of trouble with getting emails to them and booked in for our group or booked in for a group. We still need to confirm numbers. I said to him, now, is it going to be a bit of an issue if some of us turn up in fancy dress? And his basic comment was, no, we're pretty relaxed and liberal here as long as you're wearing underwear. So I would request everyone that's turning up to Palm, please wear underwear. He specifically asked us, probably no mankinis. Not sure how you get mankinis into a queen theme anyway, but I guess the request is there.

01:06:08Melissa Ellis: Just in case anybody's thinking of being a drag queen in a mankini, not a good idea.

01:06:17Tony O'Connell: No, we might be asked to relocate, but that's the first time I've booked a venue for Palm and been asked to ask people to wear underwear.

01:06:25Melissa Ellis: DFY you, don't forget your undies.

01:06:33Tony O'Connell: Oh dear, have you got a buck? No, no.

01:06:35Melissa Ellis: But what else are we looking forward to, Toc?

01:06:40Tony O'Connell: Look, Mel, as I said last time, my next event that I'm looking forward to, it's only a bit under three weeks away now, and that's the Inverloch Running Festival. A few people coming down from Queensland that we know. It's going to be a great little event. Lots of different distances for people. I know they were certifying the course this afternoon, so they've actually got course certification on it. And there's a fun little 14k from Cape Pat along the coast road, which is going to be completely shut to traffic for the day. So it's not often you get to run along a stretch of coast as beautiful as what we've got here with completely no cars. They're absolutely shutting the road and making people divert through Wonthaggi. Well, how about you? What are you looking forward to?

01:07:26Melissa Ellis: Well, this is more of a public service announcement. Now, we know we like to hear about our octogenarian meetups and here's some news. Save the date and join Rhodes parkrun for an over 80s celebration parkrun on the 5th of April. And Rhodes parkrun posted that they will be hosting an over 80s celebration day at 8am on Saturday the 5th of April. and you are invited we would love to see as many parkrunners as possible who are in their 80s or older and their friends and families for this wonderful celebration of parkrun participation parkrun will take place as normal and the aim for the day is to encourage as many older people as possible to take part showing that age is no barrier to parkrun participation Please feel free to extend this invitation to anyone you know who might be interested. Everyone is welcome, whether you choose to walk, run, volunteer or support. And we would encourage you to join us for a coffee and breakfast following the parkrun at Three Spoons Cafe. So there you go. Tell everyone.

01:08:30Tony O'Connell: That sounds like a great day out, Mel. Feeling like I'm almost over 80 at the moment. I'm not quite there yet, but another couple of years and I might be able to participate in some of those.

01:08:44Melissa Ellis: I hope they get some good numbers out there. We will watch with interest. Better mark it in the calendar.

01:08:50Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I have seen them in the past. I've seen a couple of the different over 80s ones. They do seem to get a fairly big crowd of people over 80, which is a great demographic to be turning up to parkrun.

01:09:02Melissa Ellis: They have their own little over 80s group, I think, and they do sort of have meetups. So that might be what this is. Do you think? Hosted at Rhodes?

01:09:12Tony O'Connell: Not 100% sure. Okay. But, no, great idea and one that we should be supporting.

parkrun adventure challengelistener challenge

01:09:19Melissa Ellis: You know what we didn't do, Toc? We didn't discuss this before about a listener challenge. So, now we're getting caught on the fly to think of something to ask our listeners to put into their Facebook Dazza's. Now, do you think we should go with an emoji? Because that might be the quickest thing to come up with.

01:09:52Tony O'Connell: or as many different ways as you've got to a parkrun. So if you've flown to a parkrun, put a plane in. If you've driven, put a car in. If you've done all of the above, put all the emojis in.

Sign-off

01:10:04Melissa Ellis: Excellent. I like that idea. I'm just trying to think what, oh, I know exactly what I'm going to put, but why don't you first tell us where you are planning to be this weekend?

01:10:15Tony O'Connell: Now, I have absolutely no idea this weekend. I need to be at Geelong on Saturday night for a family birthday party. So it's going to be somewhere between Cape Patterson and Geelong. So it's going to be in Victoria, but I'm not yet decided.

01:10:32Melissa Ellis: Ooh, Toc, why don't you join me at Albert Melbourne? I'm hoping that Albert Melbourne has their once a year change to their course where they actually run out onto the Grand Prix circuit because we're getting close to Grand Prix time. There's two weeks now before they are closed for the Grand Prix. And in the past, historically, they have had their alternate course on the Grand Prix track closed, running for two weeks now I believe last year they only did it for one week so I could get tripped up and it might not go ahead but anyway I'm hopeful that'll be something to keep an eye on the Albert Melbourne

01:11:08Tony O'Connell: parkrun Facebook page Mel to uh have a look at before you travel over to make sure they're not cancelled yeah to make sure they're not cancelled and also it it'd be a bit of an interest running around the gp track it'd be uh fun I know they've started to put a lot of the grandstands and all that up so you get a

01:11:32Melissa Ellis: Next week, hopefully Simon's back from his gallivanting in Japan.

01:11:36Tony O'Connell: And hopefully he's got some tales of warm weather. I know Japan is very cold at the moment, so he's not going to come back with tales of warm weather.

01:11:44Melissa Ellis: Did he go skiing? I don't even know. I don't even think I've seen any photos on Facebook.

01:11:49Tony O'Connell: No, I think it might have been a work visit or something because he has been very silent on that front.

01:11:54Melissa Ellis: Simon, where are you? He'll tell us next week.

01:11:58Tony O'Connell: Yeah. And listeners, as always, you can contact us via the parkrun adventurers on Facebook or our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. That's it for another week. We'll see you next week for more adventures.

01:12:05[outro theme playing]

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