Episode 418 - Yeah Nah

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:24Melissa Ellis: Welcome to episode 418 of the parkrun adventurers podcast. Podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name is Melissa Ellis and I'm coming to you from Wurundjeri Country.

00:00:36Tony O'Connell: And my name is TOC and I'm coming to you from Bunurong Country. How are you, Mel?

00:00:41Melissa Ellis: I'm good. And we're back in the comfy chairs this week after having Sarah and Simon join us last week. Thanks to those guys. They got a bit cheeky, didn't they, Toc?

00:00:53Tony O'Connell: They did. I was sort of wondering if that was a bit of the baby brain kicking in there or not, but I don't know what Simon's excuse was, but... Now, Sarah got a little bit cheeky there with her challenge to swim in Queenstown. And I'm not sure if she noticed the temperature at parkrun time over in Queenstown, but it's going to be probably around six or seven degrees Celsius. And I'm thinking, when did the last time one of that Kahuna group in WA actually swim with an air temperature below 10 degrees? Because I don't even know if they get below 10 degrees over there.

00:01:29Melissa Ellis: I just happened to see in the news this week that WA is going into another bit of a heat wave. So considering we're in April, they are having unusually warm temperatures. No, we're not in April yet. Nearly. We're nearly in April. But what I mean is autumn, of course. Well, we're just going to have to show those young ones, aren't we, Toc? We'll have to find a way.

00:01:55Tony O'Connell: I think so. I think us... Us of the more mature generation are going to have to lead by example.

00:02:03Melissa Ellis: Are you Gen X like me?

00:02:06Tony O'Connell: Mel, I've got to own up. I don't even know what a Gen X is. Oh, Tony. I'm just old. I think I might be a baby boomer.

00:02:14Melissa Ellis: I don't think you're a baby boomer. No. So Gen X is the kids of the baby boomers.

00:02:21Tony O'Connell: Oh, I don't know. What are we talking about? What time period?

00:02:24Melissa Ellis: Well, the generation that was born post-World War II were the baby boomers.

00:02:28Tony O'Connell: Oh, well, that's not me then. I was born post-World War II, but by a few years.

00:02:34Melissa Ellis: We are the kids of the baby boomers. Anyway, somewhere where there's also water for swimming is Eildon Pondage, Tony. Yeah.

00:02:42Tony O'Connell: There it is, Mel. And I was very fortunate this week to go to the launch of Eildon Pondage parkrun. I was very fortunate in that I'm the ambassador for Eildon and... Over a period of some time, I've been working with the team to get it up and going. The team down there have been brilliant to work with as an ambassador. So good, in fact, they've had regular meetings at a pub. Fair enough. They've had Fort Notley meetings. They've gone out for tea. And I had the privilege a number of times of zooming in briefly to their meetings. And they look like they're enjoying them. From the original expression of interest to the parkrun headquarters, it's been about an 18-month process to get Eildon up and going. And that process has been full of difficulties, primarily around our course selection and the fact that at parkrun we can't cross roads, we can't go near roads and a number of other things. And Eildon, of course, is around a pondage area. And it's got boat ramps running in everywhere, people back right up to the edge of it and fish out of the back of their utes. So you've got cars going over all the tracks. We nearly got a course identified, only to find that there were two car parks that flowed onto the walking track and the fishermen regularly just drove over the walking track to get as close to the lake as they could. We were at the point where... we'd nearly given up we're actually looking at other towns around the area the event team had decided they'd look at other places and they'd really reach a point where I thought that it was just going to become one of those prospects it never occurs and out of the blue a heap of boulders dropped from the sky around the car park and They delineated the walking track from the car park. No idea where they came from. They arrived midweek unexpectedly. No one knew that they were coming. I'm sure someone did because they were delivered. They were spread out and placed by a backhoe that no one seems to know ever existed. And while Houston, we have liftoff, we have a parkrun, the team rang me on the midweek and said, we've got rocks. They sent me photos. And Jack and I actually decided to go up and do a parkrun in Melbourne the following weekend to drive up to Eildon, which is about a three and a half hour trip for us each way, to have a look at the rocks and make sure I could sign off on the course, which we did. Eildon is a township on the edge of Lake Eildon, population of about 944, so a very small town, very holiday-centric town, so there's a lot of holiday houses, the population swells, primarily at Easter, more so than Christmas. It's great camping, whether the locals tell me, whereas Christmas gets a bit warm up there, and people just come out in masses for the tents. Traditional custodians of the land are the Taungurung people, and... The township itself was actually built to provide a home for the workers at the Sugarloaf Dam, which was built as a storage dam. Turned out... Not long after they built it, they realised it wasn't big enough, so they extended the capacity by over 90%. So they actually built Lake Eildon on top of Sugarloaf Reservoir, and it became quite a big catchment. At its peak, the town had a population of about 4,000 workers, and a lot of those actually lived in tents, and that area would be pretty harsh. In summer, it would be blistering hot, and in winter, you're talking, you know, snowline-type conditions living in a tent. The lake itself has a shoreline of 515 kilometres around the lake, so it's massive, it's huge, and it holds the equivalent storage of about six times the capacity of Sydney Harbour, so it's a big body of water. The course itself is a double out and back along the trails along the edge of the lower pondage. The lower pondage was created... with a dam wall to house a hydroelectric power station. So you actually run over the weir past the power station twice on the course. The course has plenty of parking. It's got a long drop toilet, which for our friends overseas, you've probably not experienced a long drop before. Basically a big hole in the ground with a shed over it. and about a kilometre drive to the cafe for coffee and breakfast. But just, I've got to say, out of all the communities I've helped set up with parkruns, Eildon was just something really special. They have people coming out offering to help, which we do at all parkruns, but just the number of people that were coming out and the sense of community. You see a parkrun established and over a... Over a period of time, they built up their community around the parkrun where people started to hang around and talk. Eildon started with that community there. Once the event was finished, there were 74 people at the launch and we still had most of those people hanging around talking afterwards. People weren't in a rush to go off. They were catching up with friends and neighbours and that sort of thing. So it's really great to see a new parkrun up and going that starts with a community already embedded.

00:07:55Melissa Ellis: And another E for Victoria. We don't have a lot of Es.

00:07:59Tony O'Connell: That's actually our third E for Victoria, Mel. So we're doing pretty well there, I think.

00:08:03Melissa Ellis: Well, that's not lots. Like, I'm sure we've got more Ds and Cs.

00:08:08Tony O'Connell: We have an abnormal amount of Ds and Cs and things, but... No, look, another great one and one that almost could have had another letter in front of it, but we were super happy to get it as Eildon Pondage.

00:08:23Melissa Ellis: Yeah, fabulous. I would class that as high country, would you say? It would be high country, yeah. It's up around that Mansfield, Bonnie Doon kind of alpine area. Yeah.

00:08:34Tony O'Connell: Yeah, Mansfield's actually their closest parkrun, Mel, but it's across the other side of Lake Eildon and probably a good hour, hour and a half drive or probably, I don't know, 10km if you could fly.

00:08:46Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I love that area. I used to holiday a lot and had a caravan at Bonny Doon. So Lake Eildon, I love and I have been to Eildon.

00:08:56Tony O'Connell: No, look, just a sensational event, Mel. Really, you know, we have these events that fill our parkrun Cup and I've come away from Eildon and I was just really super pumped. It's a great event and I'm really looking forward to it. Fantastic. Well, that's my weekend. How about yours?

00:09:13Melissa Ellis: Where did you get to? Well, I was at event eight of Drage Reserve parkrun on the lands of the Kaurna people. And Drage Reserve is in the Adelaide suburb of Felixstowe, approximately six kilometres from the Adelaide CBD. Now, this was a self-indulgent solo trip with my soul yearning for a long car trip to have thinking time. This is something that I have discovered over my parkrun journey that I value. Time on the road to think. No shade on Dave or our new relationship. And I'm lucky that he understands my need to take my sabbaticals to work through my sometimes overwhelming thoughts, the ones that only a very long drive on the open road can address. Now, Toc, I hope you can indulge me for a moment as I speak to the women in our community, the older women, the ones who are mothers but still daughters and wives who are juggling work life with all the complications that come with caring for children, parents, spouses and careers and trying to keep their s**t together. I think we have a lot of these women in our adventurer community. Fierce women. Women trying their best to keep their families going and having parkrun as their Saturday morning outlet. F***, I know I do. I don't know what I would have done without parkrun over the last 11 years. It's the one constant in my life. It's reliable. It's where my friends are. And I need it. So on my long drive to South Australia after work on Friday, I listened to a podcast called Mid. It's aimed at women who are midlife, mid family, mid sandwich generation for Gen X women. On the seven plus hour drive, I learned so much from Amanda Keller, who taught me to keep doing things that filled my cup. Virginia Trioli, who said, sometimes you have to eat a sandwich. To Casey Chambers, who says, follow your own dreams, listen to your inner foghorn, and marriage breakdown doesn't mean family breakdown. Ali Datto, who said, I'm going to be nice to myself now. And Gina Chick, who looks at the world through such amazing eyes and says, a cloud can never be too cloudy. To all these women and to their stories, thank you. I learnt from you and I feel validated. Now, people have questioned me over the last few years. They've proposed that my adventuring may have been the cause of my marriage breakdown. Yes, people actually said that to my face. Because somehow taking time out from family life as a mother, as a wife, to do something you love by yourself, somehow that's wrong. I call **** to those people. Thank you for your concern, but you are wrong. Why am I telling you this? It's not because I need to explain why I love to adventure, nor do I need to validate my joy that I get from time alone to be in my own head. It's so I can normalise this for others. It's to tell women that it's okay to do things we enjoy. Don't feel guilty. Fill your cup because you can't pour from an empty cup. Okay, I'll move on. Big breath. Okay. So my trip took me, as mentioned, to Drage Reserve parkrun. Chosen because it was an easy one and a quarter hour morning drive from my overnight location at Tailem Bend. I didn't think I'd know anyone there until I did my usual check of the future roster and spied the name Belinda Land on finish tokens. I'd met Belinda on a previous visit to Thorndon Junior, so I thought, great, familiar face to catch up with. On arrival, I discovered a hive of activity and a large number of participants wearing yellow and blue club shirts of the Northern Districts Athletics Club recreational runners. They were mentioned in the run brief and had a large number of members regaining South Australian statesmanship. Now, I wasn't going to do any audio from the event as PK filed a roving report with ED Cecile in episode 414. But due to the numbers of parkrun tourists involved in this club, I decided to seek out one of the head coaches, Steve, for an interview. And we'll hear that a bit later in the roving reports. I was also excited to have listener April Sweet come up and say hello. It was lovely to meet you, April. Plus, also, I saw Mount Gambier parkrunner Justina, who I'd met years ago, on another adventure. I did really enjoy this course, which was along a lovely tree trail out and back in two directions. The event is lucky to have a coffee van in the car park, and we grabbed takeaway just before they packed up. I travelled straight home after my in-situ park faff, marvelling again at just how small our parkrun community is and the wonderful bonds I have and continue to forge from my travels. How lucky are we to have this thing called parkrun in our lives?

00:10:25[background music]

00:12:50[background music]

00:13:36Tony O'Connell: We certainly are, Mel. parkrun certainly can help fill our cup at times. And I'm really happy to hear that you have had that long road journey and that time to think, reflect and consider... without having other noises, other voices, and just have that opportunity to have that thought time. It's something very valuable. Our lives are full of noise, full of demands, full of pressures, and sometimes just the opportunity to have a little bit of me time, is really underrated and I don't think we value that far enough. So yeah, congrats you for getting out and having a long drive.

00:14:14Melissa Ellis: Thank you very much, sir. Now, next on our agenda, let me get away from that deep and meaningful that I got into. Now, in episode 216, TOC, you mentioned a visitor to Inverloch from Namibia and I had wondered if Johan knew him. And Johan actually replied on this topic. Do you want to read it? Because I just feel like I've said a lot.

00:14:39Tony O'Connell: Certainly, Mel. Johan's reply was, I had a good chuckle at the maybe Johan knows Mornay comment from Mel. We're quite often from the USA with questions like, I sat in an aeroplane next to someone from Africa. Do you know him? Mornay without a surname is almost just like somebody roughly South Africa has 60 million people and Namibia has 3 million. That's steep odds for knowing someone. Between the two countries, there are a million parkrun registrations. Now, that's better odds than any lotto or the slots, but still a tough hurdle. There are about 40 to 50K weekly participants in 225 locations in Southern Africa at the moment, which narrows things down a bit further. But yeah, still a lot. Now, where things come into the realm of possible is that a quick look at Inverloch's results identified Mornay's surname, Honeyball, and that he has 133 parkruns in Swakopmund. Swakopmund over seven years has had 4,296 different parkrunners ever and 1,175 in the past year. They have logged 32,489 and 4,956 parkruns in those periods. I go to Swakopmund about two or three times a year, but I've only participated at Swakopmund six times. Comparing profiles on the 5K app, it turns out that four of those six times, Mornay was also there, and at one of those occasions, we both volunteered. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Whilst I don't know Mornay well, we have met and chatted once or twice. And he had a laughy face. The family is recently located to Australia. And, Mel, I think acknowledging the massive population and all the rest of it, it's funny that we do tend to work in circles where, although there's 60 million people in the southern part of Africa and all the rest of that, Johan goes to a lot of parkruns. Mornay seemed to be very versed in parkrun. So you just sort of think that's a much smaller sample size. He was a tourist, of course.

00:16:46Melissa Ellis: Johan would know him.

00:16:48Tony O'Connell: LAUGHTER

00:16:49Melissa Ellis: That's so good. I got such a thrill out of that. And thank you to Johan for sending us the story. It was really good.

00:16:56Tony O'Connell: But it is funny that out of all the people in all the world, he actually knew who we were talking about.

00:17:02Melissa Ellis: He did. He tried to trick us.

00:17:04Tony O'Connell: Which is really funny. Now, speaking of tourists and other parts of the world, in New Zealand this week, there were 57 events hosting 10,822 finishes, facilitated by 927 volunteers. Curiously, with it being Tutu Day, two events, and they were Queenstown and Taupō, had 222 finishes. What's the odds of that? Yeah. Across New Zealand, the University of Waikato set an attendance record of 226. They were the only ones with a record this week. Well, Mangawhero River Walk was the most intimate parkrun with 21 finishers. Hagley topped out with a neat 800 finishers again.

00:17:49Melissa Ellis: Oh, Hagley's at the top again. Very good. Now, in Australia, Toc, we had 483 events with 78,028 finishers supported by 5,999 volunteers. Now, I must say, I think maybe that there's been some pending results come in after that because that didn't quite line up with what Parker in Australia posted this evening. But anyway, there were 11,929 PB set and we had 3,692 genuine first-timers. Attendance records were set at eight events, two in WA, two in New South Wales and one each in Vic, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania. The longest standing of those was Wentworth Common that had stood for 60 weeks.

00:18:36Tony O'Connell: And yes, I must add that those stats that we put in are put in on the Sunday while we're preparing pod notes. So there's always plus pending results I probably should add in there. Meanwhile, Mel, back over the ditch, Queenstown parkrun posted on the 19th of March, congratulations to Sam Ruth for being the first 15-year-old and youngest person ever to run a sub-four-minute mile. Just... Work that out, Mel. That's four minutes for a mile. That blows me away. He ran it in three minutes, 58.35. So it's 1.6 Ks in that time. There's a pic in 2023 where Sam and his dad, Ben, came to Queenstown parkrun. Sam ran 17 minutes and 12 seconds at the age of 13 that day. It was only seconds behind his dad. There's still his only logged parkrun to date, and his little sister Daisy was the first female on that day.

00:19:34Melissa Ellis: I love that we've got this little connection. That's Queenstown, where we're about to go for palm. How cool is that?

00:19:43Tony O'Connell: Does that mean we're going to run some four-minute miles?

00:19:45Melissa Ellis: Well, you know, maybe it's something to do with altitude. I don't know.

00:19:50Tony O'Connell: If we jump in the water, we might be running a four-minute mile.

00:19:52Melissa Ellis: I did a little bit of research about Sam. I thought I would look up and do my fact checking and everything. And I discovered Sam is from Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty region. And Wikipedia tells us that his parents were both champion runners and his grandparents competed at the Olympic Games. His grandmother, Rosemary Wright, winning gold in the 800 metres in the 1970 Commonwealth Games. And on the 19th of March, 25 days before his 16th birthday, he became the youngest person and the first 15-year-old to run the sub four-minute mile. And we've already said the time that he did that in. So he's got a pretty impressive pedigree.

00:20:32Tony O'Connell: He has. And yeah, from the pick, he's fairly lean and got very long legs. I think that helps as well.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:20:40Tony O'Connell: So, Mel, I think we've heard enough about where we've been and where everyone else has been with our records and everything. How about we hear from a few other people and some roving reports?

00:20:45[background music]

Roving report Melissa Ellis — Drage Reserve

00:20:58Melissa Ellis: Okay, I'm at the finish line here at Drage Reserve and there is a large amount of people wandering around in yellow and blue tops today. So I thought I would find out a little bit more about this running group. So I'm here with Steve. How are you this morning, Steve? Good, thank you. I believe you are, are you semi in charge of this group of runners?

00:21:15Steve: I am the head coach of the run group, yeah.

00:21:18Melissa Ellis: And primarily what's happening here today?

00:21:20Steve: We, what we do is eight times a year, we all meet up and we do a parkrun together. We call it a team parkrun. So we all, we select the eight parkruns at the start of the year, put them in the calendar, and then we all come together. With Drage being an... has just started it was a great opportunity for us to celebrate our statesmen so there's 90 statesmen in the whole of South Australia and in our group we've got 17 so it was a great opportunity for us to all come together and celebrate our statesmen so we've got a large amount of people out here today and we've got well 16 of the 17 have turned up they've all got their slashes we've made them a pin to go in their hat just as a memento so they can remember there because this is their 52nd parkrun.

00:22:13Melissa Ellis: Wow. So the sash, is that something that you'll share around from now? Are they going to keep them?

00:22:17Steve: This is mainly a one-off thing because it's very hard to do this type of thing because the parkruns are just far and wide. So if the opportunity comes... again down the track um say in two or three years we get this opportunity to do it again we will but it won't be an ongoing thing it won't be an occasional thing that we can do and we'll make new sashes so that so guys get get to keep their sashes they keep their badges as as a memento

00:22:48Melissa Ellis: So the grip was performed primarily outside of parkrun, but parkrun's just something you like to incorporate?

00:22:53Steve: It originated just over 10 years ago as a City to Bay training workshop for the Northern District Athletics Club. And from there, it was a 12-week workshop that afterwards we said, oh, well, should we keep running together at the track? And we started off with about six runners, and I was an original runner with them. And we just stuck together, stuck together for about the first four years. Quite often we'd only get one or two runners turn up, but we've slowly grown. We're up to 140 registered members. And we regularly get 80 people turn up for training every Wednesday night.

00:23:35Melissa Ellis: That's fantastic. Now, and you're the Jets, is that right?

00:23:38Steve: Yes, the NDAC Jets, Northern District Athletics Club Jets, and we run at the Bridgestone Athletics Arena, that was the word I was looking for, every Wednesday night at 6 o'clock.

00:23:50Melissa Ellis: Fantastic. Now, tell me about your parkrunning. Have you done many?

00:23:54Steve: This will be my 78th. I hadn't done a parkrun up until we started Team parkruns, which was four years ago, and we get badges. So we've actually done 30. This is our 33rd, team part run uh in four years so we do eight a year so I hadn't done a part run prior to that because I usually work on saturdays so in the last four years I've done 78 which most most of these part runners will say is pretty poor but are they 78 different events No, no, I've done probably about 20, this will be my 27th different event.

00:24:30Melissa Ellis: Okay.

00:24:32Steve: But I've done a park, I've done Bushy parkrun over in England.

00:24:35Melissa Ellis: Oh, lovely. We've got a lot of listeners from over in the UK.

00:24:39Steve: Yeah, so I've done Bushy parkruns. In the actual group, we've got 10 people that have done Bushy parkrun and in the same group we've got 10 people that have done Kangaroo Island. So we've got as many people who have done Bushy as what's done Kangaroo Island in South Australia. But, yeah, it's quite amazing.

00:24:59Melissa Ellis: That's fantastic. Well, thank you for taking the time to speak to me this morning. It was lovely to meet you. And good luck with the future of your running group.

00:25:05David Moss: Thank you very much.

Roving report David Moss — Surat Memorial Park

00:25:07David Moss: Hello, I'm at Surat parkrun. They're run number nine, I think it is.

00:25:12Karen: Yeah, number nine.

00:25:13David Moss: And I'm with Karen and Paul, who are the Co-Event Directors. Yes. Hello. How did you end up doing this?

00:25:21Karen: We moved to Surat two years ago and we were driving to Roma which was about 50 minutes away at six in the morning dodging lots of creatures on the road and we were struggling with that and we looked around Surat and there's this beautiful river walk there and we thought this is a perfect spot for a parkrun.

00:25:39David Moss: Okay and how much effort did it take to get it going?

00:25:42Karen: It wasn't a lot of effort because we had the council behind us who were extremely enthusiastic. They raised the grant money for us to $7,500 within, I think, within about two or three months. So that was sitting there the whole time. And that's normally the problematic part of starting up a parkrun. They took it to meetings. They sorted out all everything that we needed done, doing in Surat. They put bollards where parkrun International wanted them. They spared no expense whatever we needed done. They were right there behind us and helpful to jump on board.

00:26:16David Moss: That's beautiful. I think so many other parkruns would be quite envious of that too.

00:26:20Karen: Absolutely. It certainly made it a lot easier and we couldn't even back out once we sort of planted the idea because they were so keen for the whole event to happen. It had been mentioned to them before numerous times but they um there was nobody to drive it so they were just waiting for someone to come along and drive it which was us so what are the newest parkruns to here there's Roma which is um about 78 k's away and then there's St George in the other direction which is south and that's about it takes about an hour and 15 minutes I'm not sure how many cases 110 k's Yeah.

00:26:55David Moss: Okay, yeah, so it's a long walk, isn't it, to get from there? Absolutely. Between places.

00:26:59Karen: It's a long, it's an early morning when you're heading off those places, yeah. It is. Every week.

00:27:04David Moss: I've got to admit today, we're in the middle of March, or end of March, and it's beautiful. Today is a really nice day to be out here. Yes, it's a bit more humid than expected.

00:27:15Paul: Yes.

00:27:15David Moss: But it is good. And could you describe the course?

00:27:19Paul: Okay, yeah, the course is on a concrete path the whole way. We head out towards the bowls club. There's a turnaround point there. Then we head back past the start line and head out to across the bridge and then under the bridge out to Fisherman's Park. And then we do that all again. We head back past the start line out to the bowls club and then to the finish. So we go for... From the start to the Bowls Club, Bowls Club to Fisherman's Park, Fisherman's Park to the Bowls Club and then back to the finish.

00:27:51David Moss: Thank you. And the whole time you're next to the river. Yes. Which is a beautiful muddy colour. I will give it that.

00:27:57Karen: It's just like Brisbane really.

00:27:59David Moss: Brisbane without the bull sharks in there.

00:28:01[crosstalk]

00:28:02Karen: Yeah, that's right. I reckon there's some sharks and snakes. We've had some brown snakes around.

00:28:07David Moss: Okay, wonderful advertising for the tourism here. I think they normally push the Murray Cod, isn't it?

00:28:13Karen: Oh, Murray Cod. Yeah, there's Murray Cod and there's another type of cod as well.

00:28:18David Moss: Yeah.

00:28:19Karen: Golden or yellow? Yellow. Yellow belly.

00:28:22David Moss: Yellow belly maybe. Yes, there'd be a few of those in there. I didn't see any through the muddy water.

00:28:22[crosstalk]

00:28:28Karen: Oh, you just go to the museum and then the museum shows you all the fish there.

00:28:31Paul: Old fish, great stuff. But there's great fishing out here and there's Fisherman's Park here, which is a free campsite. And the pub also provides free showers. So there's toilet facilities at Fisherman's Park and you can come to the pub and they let you use the showers for free.

00:28:47David Moss: And we happened to stop in at the pub last night, and it was Friday night, I guess it's your standard country get-together. It seemed to be quite a happy crowd in there.

00:28:56Karen: Yeah, it's always very lively.

00:28:57David Moss: I'll also say here, it was also nice when I finished, I was the parkwalker today, but at the end, it looked as though everyone who started were still sitting around the park, the start-finish line area.

00:29:10Karen: They do, they're really enjoying it, the locals. There's about 30 or 40 people that come every week, and they'll sit down at the end, and they don't leave in a hurry. There's nowhere to go, really. They sit down and enjoy themselves, and it's just been a lovely community feel.

00:29:26David Moss: Okay, well, that's the general feel that I got for the place. I do recommend for anyone, this is a great walk. It's all on seal path, as Paul just mentioned. You are next to the river the whole time. The start finishes in a really nice park. When in doubt, I reckon come out to a Surat. It's a bit of a drive, but make a good weekend of it.

00:29:46Karen: And there's a beautiful cafe afterwards that we're going to go over to now, the Timber Crate. They have great coffee.

00:29:50[crosstalk]

00:29:51David Moss: And we're all for it.

00:29:52Karen: Okay. Okay, thank you. Thanks for coming.

00:29:54David Moss: So this is David from Surat parkrun. In what class is this? Western Queensland? The Maranoa.

00:29:59[crosstalk]

00:30:01Karen: Yeah, Maranoa. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Roving report Johan Duvenhage — Letsatsi Lodge

00:30:05Johan Duvenhage: Good morning adventurers, it's Johan and I'm reporting in from the absolutely fantastic Letsatsi Lodge parkrun outside of Vanrhynsdorp in the Western Cape. I'm standing here with, sorry.

00:30:16Polly: It is Paulie Eyman. Can I speak Afrikaans or can I speak English?

00:30:19[crosstalk]

00:30:20Johan Duvenhage: No, you unfortunately have to speak English. Okay, okay, that's good. I will try.

00:30:23Polly: No, no, I will try. I'm Paulie Eyman and I'm from Vanrhynsdorp and I think it's my fifth time I'm running the parkrun.

00:30:33Johan Duvenhage: And today you're volunteering.

00:30:35Polly: Yes, I'm volunteering. I love to volunteer because I love to cheer the people. After the 100 metre, they are walking and sometimes I cheer them up and they can walk. Some of them can do better with their time and I love to do that. It's very helpful for me, for my emotion and to see people smiling, happy, running, coming to the end of the the parkrun and it's it's nice for me yeah but Polly what I'm actually wanting to talk to you is we saw an incredible number of local kids here which is sometimes not common in the smaller parkruns tell us where does this or do these kids come from yes I'm a pastor at the river of life the rose church infant rainstorm we are small church and um I'm a pastor for so two three years and um because I love the parkrun and it do me good and to be running here and the other thing is I'm also working at Letsatsi Lodge for the past six years When the parkrun started here, I see the people here and I come here to run or to walk. I'm not so much a runner, but I love to walk. And then I see the people and cheer the people at the church. My church members also is running here. My pastor, my head pastor of our church, also is a good runner for two years old. Today he's not here. He's serious for the weekend for church meetings and so on. But Every week I have church members. Also the church kids, the youth is here and they laugh. I'm bringing the whole church because we love the background.

00:32:13Johan Duvenhage: All right. Quite a way to show your support. Thank you very much, Pauline. We so much appreciate you volunteering and have fun at Vanrhynsdorp.

00:32:21Polly: Yes, thank you. And nice to have you here, sir. Thank you. Thank you.

00:32:25Johan Duvenhage: All right parkrunners, I'm sitting here at breakfast at the Red Ox outside of Letsatsi's wonderful church and I'm joined by the Event Director and Run Director today, Ingo and Mia Johannes. Good morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning.

00:32:39Mia: Morning. Morning.

00:32:39Johan Duvenhage: Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning.

00:32:46Ingo: Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. We joined the parkrun Vredendal and we used to work there. I used to work there and Mia still works there. And we travelled every weekend for it, but I travelled for work as well. So it became just too much travelling. And even because of the fact that Mia travels on her own, we don't travel together. So we enjoyed the parkrun very much. But we started, there's nothing in Vanrhynsdorp and we wanted to start it in Vanrhynsdorp. So we contacted people from Vredendal and Mheer Aes, Koovis Aes came out and discussed it with all the people that was interested and then they said that they need a director and then I was chosen because I basically started it. Now I get to do all these things but I never get to run it most of the time but yeah. I'll get running into it more now while we are established now.

00:33:55Johan Duvenhage: So what's the reception been? You're on event 10 or 11 today? I can't remember.

00:33:59Mia: 10. Number 10. Number 10, yes.

00:34:00[crosstalk]

00:34:01Johan Duvenhage: How has the community taken to parkrun?

00:34:03Mia: We really can't do this without the community, Johan. They've been uplifting, positive, vibing. And every day for today, I think we're at 25 first-time new runners for kids, and that is amazing. And that's all due to, I think, mainly Polly.

00:34:21Johan Duvenhage: I did have a quite quick chat with Polly as well. So what's your feedback that you get from visitors and the community about the route itself?

00:34:33Ingo: Well, they really like it. Like people say, it's challenging. It's not flat. There are a few obstacles, but then you have to remember that it's natural. It's the bush. It's a field. We can't tore it, we can't flatten it. So you have to be...

00:34:52Johan Duvenhage: uh cautious of all the obstacles there they say but that's part of the experience I think it's a very nice route all right and as you can hear the uh the park faf is going strong and getting a little bit difficult to record so I'm going to say thank you very much for an awesome day today at um thank you very much for what you're doing for the community and all the best it's a pleasure and I hope we see you again it's a pleasure John and Julian have a great trip thank you Letsatsi Lodge parkrun is situated in the small town of Vanrhynsdorp on the N7 Cape to Namibia route, about 300 kilometres north of Cape Town. However, for us from up north, it meant a round trip of more than 2,000 kilometres. But with Gillian Findlay and furry friends Levi and Friki joining, it was an epic road trip to attend event number 10 of this new addition to the West Coast parkrun region. The course follows a circular route through the grounds of The Venue, with quite a few hills making it challenging but not overly difficult. At this time of year, it showcases the stark aridness of the Knersvlakte section of the Great Kure region. As autumn is approaching, we had lovely cool weather with some light drizzle, making for a very comfortable walk. With more rain, the wildflower season in August will transform this area to a spectacle of colour. As you follow the last part of the course uphill, just before descending to the finish, we passed an old cemetery and a ceremonial cross with an awesome view down in the valley of the beautiful Catholic church in a Spanish architectural style that is the standout feature of this venue. And I just had to find out a bit more about the history of why a lodge and wedding venue has this on their grounds. It turned out that the church was built in 1951 and served the surrounding community. also having a convent and school. However, in the late 1980s, the community was moved to the new township of Matsikama and the distance between the new township and the church led to a stagnation in the parish with the church slowly going into disuse and disrepair. Eventually, in 2013, the property was bought by a businessman who saw the potential of the property for a lodge. However, he did agree to restore and maintain the church and that it would remain available for the house's use, although today it's mainly used for weddings. Post parkrun, a fantastic buffet breakfast is served at the restaurant and parkrunners get a very good discounted rate. Please be sure to visit the church afterwards as its beautiful simplicity inside is really something special. Whilst you're in the vicinity, do not miss visiting the Quiver Tree Nursery where there are dozens of these incredible succulents that look like upside down trees. You would also be amiss not to venture a bit further up the Vanrhyns Pass to the wildflower mecca of Nieuwoudtville, where the waterfall outside town is a spectacular sight when the river is in flow. And a few kilometres to the northeast, you'll be amazed at the beauty of one of the largest natural quiver tree forests in the world. That's it from me for now. Happy adventuring!

00:37:45[background music]

00:38:00Melissa Ellis: And we had three offerings this week. Myself speaking to Steve from the Jets over there at Drage Reserve. And David Moss, we haven't heard from Dave for ages. He came to us from Surat Memorial Park, speaking to Karen and Paul, the co-EDs. Now, he also gave us a bit of background information when he sent through that report. He said Surat is about five and a half hours drive west of Brisbane. The town and parkrun are on the bank of the Balonne River, which eventually joins the Murray. And why is it called Surat? Well, possibly named after the city of the same name in India, but really it is not known. Now the course and indeed the whole area had lots of apostle birds. I don't know what they are, Toc, but maybe the twitches out there in our community will. And he said that that was lovely. Also lots of roos. So you need to stay alert when you're driving around sunset. pizza apparently is supreme at the pub one of the best he's ever had there's free camping at the turnaround site so lots of our adventurers who like to free camp will be happy to hear that and they also founded a very friendly town with a nice gently undulating course And also we heard from Johan at Letsatsi Lodge. Letsatsi. I hope that is good, Johan. I tried really hard to get that right. And he was chatting to Polly, who volunteered. And also great to hear about the kids coming and all the people from the church joining in. And also Ingo and Mia, the ED and RD that he spoke to. So a nice array of roving reports this week. Thank you very much to Johan and Dave. Now, enough of that talk.

00:39:48Tony O'Connell: Really random fun fact, Mel. I've actually eaten in the pub at Surat. What? And my memory is it was a really good feed. So I think Mossy's actually on the money there. That is very random, TOC. But it was pre-parkrun day, so yeah.

Dazza's

00:40:06Tony O'Connell: Mel, I think we'll jump across and chat to our good friend Dazza. This week, Dazza said, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 2-2. 2-2 is again for today, which also, as young as you feel day. As young as you feel days are a reminder that age and age grading brackets are just numbers. Did you run like you used to? Or maybe your parkruns get better with age. However, things went for you. Come on into Dazza's. Never mind that he looks the same as he has for years. And tell us how you went.

00:40:37Melissa Ellis: He's actually ageing really well, Dazza. Do you know I've had Dazza longer than I've had any of my husbands? Anyway, first in the door this week was Bill Lodwig coming to us from the Great Estate. And he said, got to debut my new adventurers T-shirt this morning at Cyril Curtain Reserve parkrun. It must have superpowers. Fastest run in nearly three months. And he was showing off his shirt in the photo with his token T-shirt. And it was good to see Bill was excited to have his new top.

00:41:11Tony O'Connell: Next, Mel, we heard from Lee Cabarita. That's her porn name. Morning, Dazza. Today, this one went to Parramatta to join Michelle in celebrating her 100th parkrun. There were too many smiley people to mention. We went to Salt and Butter afterwards and enjoyed coffee and celebratory cookie. Have a great week, all. And there was a group pic of Michelle and friends with the selfie frame. And it looks like Michelle also had some cupcakes and cookies showing her different events.

00:41:42Melissa Ellis: That was good to hear from Lee. And Lee was using the numerals in her Facebook post as requested last week by Simon and Sarah. And somebody else who did that this week, Toc, was Nick Graney coming to us from New South Wales. Nick said,

00:41:58[15 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:42:14Melissa Ellis: Too many clouds for the 7am sunrise but it broke through for breakfast and we ate at the Cooked Goose Cafe around 9. Soon it was time to hit the road again for another adventure by 10. Husky put on a great event for Tutu Day and that was filled with emojis as well and how clever for Nick he got the numerals 1 through to 10 all fitted into that post and posted a photo of himself with Luna and the friends in the selfie frame.

00:42:42Tony O'Connell: That was a great little post there, and as you said, 1 to 10, that's quite creative. Going across to the grapest state, and we heard from our friend Janet. Hi, Dazza. And this one's got lots of emojis too, so I'm not going to read all the emojis, but, well, shock and horror. I disembarked the mothership Lochiel and headed to Narooma Wetlands parkrun to meet the team for the first time as their EA. What a beautiful community. I was parkwalker, a role that I love, as it gives me the opportunity to talk to so many people. You are talker, Janet, did I hear you say? And I've got to interject there and say, no, surely Janet is not a big talker. No, surely not. Anyway, back to Janet's message. So many lovely participants wearing all the tutus. Batman was even here too. I kid you not. It was their 100th event and they were hoping for 100 participants. They got 122 participants. I believe it's time for Flat White Now, please, Dazza, while I listen to the latest episode of the pod, parkrun Days are youthful days for me. Hope everyone has a wonderful parkrun Day. And there's a pic of Janet and Geoff in the selfie frame and 100 balloons. Janet was in her tutu.

00:44:01Melissa Ellis: I like that because it was their 100th event on Tutu Day and they got 122. How clever. I mean, you know, they obviously didn't, like, orchestrate it, but still... Now next we've got our friend Pippa White coming to us from the UK and she said last week lady one this week lady two next week off to park walk with someone who did their first parkrun with me in January here comes their second and her son's first, tutu for the win and she said eta and I'm not sure I can't think what eta stands for because it's not expected time of arrival because that doesn't make sense in this sentence but eta I am a middle to slow runner I'm happy to be third in my age category I never thought I'd be a fast lady and there was a photo of a tutu dot pipa with the whole Brooks event pop-up

00:44:54Tony O'Connell: Always great to hear from Pip, isn't it? And another one that's great to hear from is Caro Vos coming to us from New South Wales. Completed the region of runners again by attending Grahamstown Aquatic Centre parkrun, for the newest event in the Newcastle region. Very pretty parkrun around a dam with a lovey face emoji there. And there's a pic of Caro zooming on the course.

00:45:20Melissa Ellis: Is Caro coming to Palm? I don't think she is. We're going to miss her.

00:45:25Tony O'Connell: I think we're going to miss Caro this year.

00:45:28Melissa Ellis: Next, we heard from Ian Thompson coming to us from the UK. Hello, Dazza. Have made my peace with my tourist streak to the extent that I repeated at Itchen Valley Country parkrun this week. It's lovely to have that self-imposed streak out of the window. I'm looking forward to working on my long-neglected P index at local events, plus my new ballista pal that showed up Thursday wasn't really an issue today. Met up with our lovely friends from Essex and Oslo, respectively, and Ian posted a photo of himself and his friends posing with the Itchen Valley Country pop-up.

00:46:01Tony O'Connell: Well, next one's coming to us from somewhere out on the water. I'm not sure where. It's a Freedom Run, so it's not in any particular state or country, but it's coming to us from Nicola Wright. Freedom Runs continue while on the MV Acadia. Nine-lap course and a winky face. Of course, Nicola's on a cruise ship. And the pick that was attached to it was Nicola with a group of friends, including one in an apricot top, with a UK flag and one in a blue parkrun shirt. So obviously there's a group of parkrunners that have all got together and done what we do best on a Saturday.

00:46:39Melissa Ellis: I'm pretty sure that I saw on social media Nicola has just landed in South Africa. Coming in the door next was Maria Wicks from the UK. Two of us travelled to the certainly not dull Dulwich parkrun today, continuing our London quest. The three flat laps were very enjoyable after we popped to our favourite tea shop for oat milk tea lattes with Branca Maria. And there was a photo of the two ladies with the Dulwich pop-up.

00:46:55[background music]

00:47:09Tony O'Connell: And remaining over in the UK, we heard from Colette Goldthorpe and her comment was excited to wear it for the first time with a little fairy and a smiley face. And stalking has showed that Colette ran at Middleton Woods parkrun and the photo shows a tutu and a headband.

00:47:26Melissa Ellis: Welcome to Dazza's, Colette. Next, we hear from Rodney Glossop coming all the way from WA. Homestead parkrun is where the love is. Headed back home this week and lucky enough to claim first finisher to be the first to get coffee from the new coffee van. Sorry, Dazza. My good mate took Tutu Day very seriously, finishing second in a time of 22.22. Talk about getting your ducks in a row. Photo with first female Faye who continues to prove age is just a number. And there was a photo of Rodney and Faye in the selfie frame with Faye in a rainbow tutu.

00:48:01Tony O'Connell: And coming back to the Great Estate and we heard from Dorothy Schmidt. An amazing cake at Tallangatta Station parkrun to celebrate their 100th event. People wore black for number 100 and there were four tutus. And the photo that was attached was of an amazing cake which showed the finished flag, the event table beside Tallangatta Station sign, and with a selfie frame. And it also included a large section of the former railway platform, that's associated with Tallangatta. For those that haven't been there, Tallangatta is a part of an old platform of a disused railway station. The event runs along a rail trail and the Tallangatta, the original station, signs still up there. And I can actually still visualise the table out in the middle of the course. So it's all, the cake was just sensational. It really reflected what Tallangatta is all about.

00:48:54Melissa Ellis: It absolutely did, Toc, and we did go over our normal 10 mentions this week in Dazza's, but there was just a couple like, I couldn't cut any of them out. I loved them all. And I had to have that cake in there. It really did. If you've been there, you just realise how closely it depicts the uniqueness of the start line at Tallangatta there with the railway platform. Yeah, well.

the Obi Award — Nick Graney

00:49:21Melissa Ellis: But, Tony, have you got an envelope?

00:49:24Tony O'Connell: I'm looking around my desk and someone's actually been in and cleaned my office up, Mel. Hang on, let me just look through the pigeon holes. Hang on, what's this? Oh, I do have the envelope, Mel. And our Obi this week goes to... Nick Graney. Well done, Nick. That was a great little comment that you've put in. And Husky's just such an awesome place. That start line area is just a beautiful paddock. Well done and congrats on putting all those numbers into your post as well.

00:50:05Melissa Ellis: Yeah, hope to see you at another parkrun one day soon.

Emails

00:50:09Melissa Ellis: Now, Tony, we've got a few emails this week.

00:50:12Johan Duvenhage: You've got mail.

00:50:13Melissa Ellis: And first up, we have an email that we held over for a couple of weeks because we wanted to read this one out. It comes to us from Yvette Turner. And Yvette said, Hi Mel and TOC. Listening to the podcast this week, Friday the 14th of March, my ears pricked up at the mention of Scarborough parkrun in New Zealand. I knew exactly where that one is as I'm trying to get there on Saturday the 29th of March. I will be on a cruise ship docking that day in the port of... Lyttelton, I think it's Lyttelton, just over 8km to Scarborough parkrun. I know that this parkrun starts at 8am but my cruise ship information has us being able to disembark from 8.30. As soon as I get on board I will be doing my best to find the person in charge of letting people off the ship and beg them to please let me and Bill off at 7am. I plan on organising a taxi to be waiting to whisk us off to parkrun. Scarborough parkrun sounds really lovely an out and back that follows the coastal pathway alongside Scarborough beach on the 8th of March it had 174 participants and 20 volleys I really hope my plan works and I don't have to miss a parkrun so keep your fingers crossed and I'll let you know how I go bill and I are also really looking forward to our first palm in Queenstown see you there and it was signed Yvette Turner Canberra

00:51:32Tony O'Connell: And it was really good. And I'm going to be really curious to see how Yvette and Bill go with their plan to escape the ship and get to parkrun in time. Because I was actually in one of the online chat groups. I mean, someone else asked a question about getting off the boat. The consensus was divided between half the people saying, yep, you'll get there, not a problem at all, and other people saying, oh, no, sorry, but it's very slow getting off the boat. So, Yvette, good luck. We really hope you make it to parkrun. It sounds like a rip-in event to get to. Now, moving along now, our next email come to us from Calum Burrell from the UK. And it was, hi there Mel, Toc and team. Following on from Sarah and Simon's discussion over parkrun events sharing the same name, I think the easiest way to handle or attack them is to break them down into individual clubs of their own. I'll give a couple of examples. When Lindsay and I met up with Alan and Rasheen Burrell on their European travels in 2023, part of their trip involved visiting both events with Bushy in the name, the OG Bushy Park in London and Bushy Dublin. So if anyone is combining a trip to Europe that involves both London and Dublin, that is certainly a challenge worth considering. One of my running buddies actually managed to combine visits to both bushies on consecutive weekends. Another example that I thought of a few months ago is one called the Simple Minds Challenge, and it's based around events that... contain the name Waterfront. Waterfront being the title of Simple Minds song. There are three events based in the UK, one in each of England, Wales and Scotland and the fourth is in the USA. Erskine Waterfront, Glasgow, Scotland, Dover Waterfront, South East England, Milford Waterfront in South West Wales and Clermont Waterfront in the East Coast of America. I imagine the Simple Minds Challenge is easier to complete for UK-based parkrunners, but it's still nice to dream. Fantastic work with all the podcast, all. All the best, Calum Burrell, A461587. No relation to Alan and Rasheen. P.S. I've included screen grabs of the bushy doubleth that my friend did and a graphic for the Simple Minds Challenge.

00:53:53Melissa Ellis: Thank you very much, Calum. And that is a good point that it makes it fun if you break it down a little bit, Toc, and make those twin event names their own challenge in their own right. That was terrible English.

00:54:09Tony O'Connell: And I think, Mel, we have a new contender into that challenge, but we'll discuss that a little bit later on in the pod. Yes, indeed.

00:54:17Melissa Ellis: Oh, now I'm using Simon's words.

00:54:21Tony O'Connell: Indeed you are.

00:54:22Melissa Ellis: The next email came to us, from Tony Reeves and he said hello there adventurers Tony here again and thanks for reading out my email about my good friend Dan at Tuggeranong parkrun and he's very complete reply he does love his stats but then so do I perhaps that's why we're good mates despite the distance last week's pod included the consolidated club report with a single adventurer in Lithuania we're Twas I, my wife, Alison, me and seven of our mates headed out to Vilnius to run at Vingis parkrun. A very cold day, but a great run by all. A very friendly core team and a cracking breakfast in the park cafe afterwards. A real park faff with a roaring fire and mulled wine for brekkie. We wanted to explore as much of Vilnius as we could and we all felt it would be remiss not to visit the Occupation Museum, which had been a Gestapo prison in World War II, then a KGB detention centre during the Soviet era. I won't describe what we experienced there, other than to say it was a very moving, sombre and chilling couple of hours. We all came out feeling sad and very quiet and we needed some time to collect ourselves. I sat down on a park bench and I could hear a piano playing. I could just make out the back of the pianist's head in the window opposite my bench and it was clear that this is where the music was coming from. Then a lady appeared by the piano and sang the most soaring beautiful soprano operatic piece. This went on for some time and clearly this amazing singer was rehearsing for some upcoming performance. I can tell you that this 10 minutes truly lifted my spirits and fed my soul. It was beautiful. I know this doesn't seem like it's parkrun elated, but actually it is. We wouldn't have been there were it not for parkrun. We experienced a beautiful city that recognises and accepts its past and experienced a wonderful moment from someone who will never know the effect her singing had on me. We met wonderful, friendly people who tolerated our lack of grasp of the Lithuanian language with good grace and a smile when we tried to say thank you. It sounds like you're sneezing. Best of all, we started this trip as nine good friends and finished it so much more close, parkrun, it's all because of you. I just wanted to share this with you and the pod listeners. If you get a chance, go to Vilnius. You won't regret it. All the best, Tony Reeves.

00:56:56Tony O'Connell: Well, sounds like Tony's had an amazing trip, but one little thing I want to pick Tony up on there is in our Consolidated Club report, we had one person at Lithuania, but Tony went over there with his wife and seven other parkrunners. That's nine people. Tony, there was another eight opportunities there to be a big friend. What's going on?

00:57:22Melissa Ellis: Oh, okay. We're going to watch you, Tony. Yeah, eyes are on you now it's time to do some recruiting but you know Tony isn't this just the such a example that I think it happens to us frequently that we we go to parkrun maybe not with expectation and we come away having so much more from the experience than we anticipated

00:57:48Tony O'Connell: I think so, Mel. And there's just so many examples when you start putting your mind to it where you think, you know, even you've gone off for the coffee after parkrun and you've just started talking to someone. Yeah, you have those days where you're still there an hour later and you're talking, you're just sharing life experiences and that. And you walk away knowing that, you know, we've done this at a lot of parkruns, you share an hour, you become... almost like close friends, but you walk away knowing that you're probably never going to see that person again. And then sometimes in our parkrun world, 12 months later, two years later, whatever, that person pops up. I had a very similar experience to this at Inverloch where I was talking to a lovely lady at Yamba last year. During the, when they called out for tourists, she said she was from Tarelgut. And so I zoomed in after it and had a chat to her. Funny enough, she spotted me at Inverloch a week or so ago and came up and said, remember we ran at Yamba, this and that? And she's just bought a house at Cape Patterson. And it's funny, the little connections that you get from parkrun and the tie-ins you get with people that... And sometimes you don't have those tie-ins. Sometimes you talk to someone, you know you're never going to see them again and you don't. And sometimes you do. And our parkrun world... It benefits us because of those shared experiences that we have.

00:59:13Melissa Ellis: Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with you. And I was, I mean, just case in point, drove, you know, interstate to a parkrun where I thought I was going to know nobody. And I did know people. Yeah. I just had no expectation. And there was people that I knew and it was fabulous and unexpected and enjoyable. So there you go.

00:59:37Tony O'Connell: 800 kilometres to run into people you know.

00:59:39Melissa Ellis: Exactly.

00:59:41Tony O'Connell: Yeah. And that's one of the things I love about parkrun is it does that. Righty-o, Mel.

Club Corner

00:59:46Tony O'Connell: I think it's time for us to listen to Reginald.

00:59:50[background music]

00:59:57Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: This is Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III, with Club Corner, where we talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs, and I am coming to you from Arrernte Country. We are continuing our volunteer role series with two roles that start after the last person crosses the finish line. This time it is all about post-event close down, then equipment storage and delivery. Does your event have cones or signage on course? Are they permanent or temporary? If the latter, then someone needs to pack it all away. Many events have their Tail Walker remove any temporary on-course signage as they follow behind participants, but some events have much more to dismantle, especially those with finished funnels or larger starting areas. These events may have dedicated volunteers to fulfill the tasks associated with post-event close down. There is nothing to stipulate that these people cannot have already participated on course, only that they help. Although this is a specific role in the roster, at most events, pack down is usually performed by regulars, friends, and family, who are there anyway, and just want to help. We love them, insert heart emoji. I do have a pet peeve about packing up after an event. Please, please, please, please, please, ensure that any event you're associated with does not pack up before all participants are finished. This is not to prevent you from going around behind folk and picking up gear progressively, but do not remove directional or safety items before walkers are through. There is little more deflating to a walking participant than to see the team feverishly packing away gear as you approach, or worse, coming into sight of the finish and having nothing or no one in place. This demand is not referring to the progressive dismantling of a multiple finish funnel or complex arrangements, but there should be a similar experience available to all. End rant. Once all that gear is packed down and ready for transport, if it needs to go somewhere off-site, and that somewhere is not with the Run Director for next week, there is the option to recognise the contribution of the person storing the gear with a credit for equipment storage and delivery. This is where those people whose event has access to on-course storage thank their lucky stars that they do need to stuff their car with event coreflutes. Insert winky face. That will do on those roles. Come back next Club Corner for the most obscure volunteer roles not yet discussed. Can Mel and Co guess what the remaining roles are? Until next time, I bid you adieu.

01:02:20Melissa Ellis: And thank you very much to Reginald bringing us another episode in event volunteering. This time it was event closed down and equipment storage and delivery. I don't even know if I've got these officially on my CV, my parkrun CV, TOC, but... I know as an Event Director, I'm always keen if people jump in and help pack up at the end of the day to give them that extra credit of post-event close down. But equipment storage and delivery, it's not something I would give the RD of the day if they had the equipment as part of their role. But if somebody else took it to help out, that would be when I would have jumped in and given somebody that extra credit. How do you tackle those roles?

01:03:04Tony O'Connell: Yeah, look, I have... allocated the equipment storage and delivery role before and typically it's been where we've had a changeover of RDs and the the next week RD hasn't been there and someone's actually jumped in grabbed the gear and they've offered to pass it on during the week so you know quite often not quite often but I have allocated that role to people before I think it's uh you know it's worthwhile they're doing great little help out there so it's worth acknowledging.

01:03:34Melissa Ellis: Yes, I agree. When it goes above and beyond the normal duties of RD and somebody's going out of their way.

Consolidated Club Report

01:03:41Melissa Ellis: Alrighty, so this week, the adventurers Consolidated Club report for Saturday, the 22nd of March, 2022, 2025, of a total of 771 members, 578 took part on this date across eight countries and 288 locations. In the UK, there are adventurers at 58 events. There were 10 in South Africa, three in the USA, and one in Ireland, Netherlands, and Sweden. Locally, we had adventurers at... 52 events in Victoria, New South Wales. There was 47 in Queensland, 19 in Western Australia, 15 in the Grape Estate, 14 in Tassie. The ACT and the North Island both had six. There were two on the South Island and one in the Northern Territory.

the Frond — Guernsey (largest international, five) and Shellharbour (largest at home, 12)

01:04:29Tony O'Connell: And our largest international frond was in Guernsey, where there's five people. They were Stuart Henderson, Debbie Airey, Andy Airey, Linda Bozic, and Penelope Thyssen. And Andy came into Dazza's and said... 40 of us flew or got the ferry to Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Super morning followed by a dip in a very cold sea. And the photo showed the anti-airways group with the pop-up. And I'm tipping that the very cold sea over there probably puts a lot of our very cold seas to shame.

01:05:03Melissa Ellis: Oh, I'm tipping it does. I saw a movie about the island of Guernsey once, so I'm a bit fascinated with that. I reckon I'd like to do that one.

01:05:10Tony O'Connell: And it's one of those ones that has a unique flag on the 5K app. So there we go. Does it? I believe it does.

01:05:18Melissa Ellis: Why? You can't just bring that up and not tell me why, Toc.

01:05:23Tony O'Connell: I'm not sure. It's just something I've picked up in some tourist groups.

01:05:26Melissa Ellis: Oh, okay. Somebody can get back to us and let us know now.

01:05:29Tony O'Connell: And they can tell us we're wrong or I'm wrong.

01:05:32Melissa Ellis: You're wrong. I said nothing. Pilgrimage. We had an adventure at Bushy. It was Stephen Walsh, and it was his first time. Confirmed. He is a UK parkrunner who's done 182 parkruns, 108 unique events, and his first parkrun ever was at Bolton parkruns. I'm assuming that is somewhere in the UK. I don't know. Now, the largest frond on home soil, there were, well, we had 12 at Shellharbour, which isn't unusual. We had 10 at Grahamstown Aquatic Centre, Medowie. So I thought I would read this one out. They were Paul Rainbow, Greg Stark, Cheryl Pittard, Caro Vos, Stephen Cox, Georgia Lukens, Rosalie Lukins, even Georgia and Rosalie Lukins, even Georgia, Rosalie and Hamish Lukens, Heather Hunter and Paris Lawrence. Oh, my goodness, I made a mess of that. And there was also eight at our very good friends, the Ponds. But remember, Adventurers, you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile and you too can be part of a frond.

01:06:46Tony O'Connell: Yes, just like our friends from Lithuania who had a frond of one.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:06:52Tony O'Connell: Well, moving on to launches. And we had two launches in the parkrun 5k world this week. One of them I was very proud to say was one that I've assisted with, which was Eildon Pondage parkrun, as discussed above. The stats for Eildon were 74 finishes, 11 volunteers and 28 genuine first timers. So for a small community, 38% of the people at a launch had never been to a parkrun before.

01:07:19Melissa Ellis: Oh, that's brilliant. That's what we want to hear, Toc. It is. That's what it's all about. Now, the other one was Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School parkrun in the UK, the world's third version of Queen Elizabeth. This week saw 203 finishes with 23 first-time everers, supported by 33 volunteers. This is a four-lapper around a school grounds. This is definitely a 5K as a four-lapper, right, Toc? You haven't chucked it.

01:07:47Tony O'Connell: in a junior event and tricked me no no no definitely 5k event and Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School parkrun uh joins Queen Elizabeth parkrun which is also in the UK and Queen Elizabeth parkrun Casino which is in northern New South Wales

01:08:05Melissa Ellis: So they need a collective term for their little group. So that could be Her Majesty's Club.

01:08:12Tony O'Connell: I don't know. I was sort of thinking, given the theme of our dress-up night is queens, we could call it a pub club or something. Let's make it something of our own. Let's get a tenuous link going to three parkruns. Now, moving along, just another little interesting stat. There's been 34 global parkrun launches so far this year, and we're not done with March yet. We've seen 14 new Australian parkruns out of that, so that's a great number of parkruns starting to pop up around us. It's going to be interesting to see what the year holds and how how many launches we have by the end of the year if we've had 34 to date.

01:08:55Melissa Ellis: Yeah, that's good. And yeah, we're going well here in Australia, aren't we?

Watching the numbers at Birtinya Island

01:08:59Melissa Ellis: Now, but I know you're all waiting for this in the ongoing segment, watching the numbers at Birtinya Island. This week we had 174, who included Tony Everington, Wendy Pierce, Sarah Jantscher, Janet Tozer and Dave Tozer. Now, this was event 10 at Birtinya Island and... Just in case we start to drag this on a bit too long, I guess it's probably time to cut this segment now and wind it up. So that was it. That was the conclusion of watching the numbers at Birtinya Island.

01:09:40Tony O'Connell: And I'm not going to try to sing that, as Simon didn't last week. Maybe we're all allergic to a bit of singing. Well... Our buff orders. We put up a post last week asking people to message in if they would like one of the parkrun adventurers buffs. And I'm happy to say that nearly two-thirds of our stock have been sold. So if you want a buff, you better get in pretty quick. They are actually selling much quicker than I thought that they would. And it's creating a lot of postage from this end of the world. But an amazing special thanks to Ali Sheppard over in the UK who has coordinated the UK order for us. When I looked at postage, they were talking about $20 Australian per buff to post to the UK. UK um just incredibly expensive postage for anything that wasn't envelope or paper related but Ali is coordinating it she's picking them up from me in New Zealand and taking them home and delivering them so thank you very much Ali Sheppard for that but if you want a buff have a look at our Facebook page find the post and shoot a message in because they will sell out

01:10:50Melissa Ellis: Fantastic. So that's really good. We thank everybody for doing that. That just, when we make a little bit of a profit margin at the end of that, that's just going to help us a little bit towards our expenses, our overheads that we have to put this podcast on for our listeners. So thank you very much. We appreciate it.

01:11:07Tony O'Connell: And the other great thing about it is it identifies people out in the field. Our t-shirts really stand out really well. And I think the buffs are just another level of helping people pick the adventurers out in the crowd.

01:11:18Melissa Ellis: Yep, absolutely. Now, we've rambled on. It's going to be a long pod this week, Toc. So why don't you tell us where you're going to be on Saturday?

01:11:27Tony O'Connell: Well, I'm going to be at a parkrun that I'm going to call the Voldemort parkrun because we're not allowed to name it apparently. Someone slipped something in the show notes last week and said I wasn't allowed to call it what it is. And so I'm trying to think of another name for it. But I'm going to be at the Stump parkrun. Okay.

01:11:47Melissa Ellis: It wasn't me. I didn't add anything.

01:11:52Tony O'Connell: I got blamed for putting a note in that I was going to find myself.

01:11:55Melissa Ellis: So I'm not sure who put that in. I didn't write that. Maybe I was drunk. I don't know.

01:12:02Tony O'Connell: Anyway, I'm at the Stump parkrun. And yeah, out for a bit of a celebration.

01:12:10Melissa Ellis: Are we going to announce the celebration? Oh, yes. If anybody, if you are going to be at Inverloch parkrun, I'll take the fine. It's okay. Please go up and congratulate the wonderful Tony O'Connell for his V250. Thanks, Mel.

Sign-off

01:12:29Tony O'Connell: Mel, where are you next week or this week?

01:12:33Melissa Ellis: I'm a little bit excited because I am going to head out to your very brand-new parkrun at Eildon Pondage and check that out. And I am going to take Ezra. She has agreed to come on a little road trip with me. So that's really exciting because a little bit of mother-daughter time in the car can't hurt at all. And, yeah, we'll jump in there. Oh, but she did say first, the caveat was, are we taking the Jiminy? So when I said, yes, we're taking the new car, she's like, okay, I'll come.

01:13:03Tony O'Connell: I think given your history with Bonnie Doon and trips up to there, I think you'll really love this one. It's a cracker of a parkrun.

01:13:11Melissa Ellis: I'm going to love it. I really am. Absolutely. Can't wait. But, Toc, next week. So, everybody, there's no pod next week. I'm really sorry. But I just need a week to concentrate on packing for Palm and not editing. And, yeah, the editing does put a lot of extra time pressure on me. So we're going to have a little bit of a break. You're not going to hear anything from us until we release our live recording from Queenstown. Now, just as a reminder, when we say live recording, it doesn't go live out to the internet. It doesn't go live on the morning from Queenstown. We record it in front of a live audience and we take that recording and then I add the you know, some embellishments and then we release it as an episode. So that will come in the week after the week that we host Palm over in Queenstown.

01:14:06Tony O'Connell: And we're all looking forward to that, Mel. There's a fair crew now signed up and I think it's just going to be a really great holiday over in New Zealand.

01:14:14Melissa Ellis: It always is. We're going to have a whole different bunch of people and we're all going to bond and we're going to have wonderful memories. And it's the eighth palm.

01:14:23Tony O'Connell: Yeah, looking forward to it, Mel. Mel, as always, 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 in a couple of weeks for more adventures.

01:14:35[outro theme playing]

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01:15:23Unidentified speaker: Thank you.