In this episode, Trisha interviews Tim Oberg, who brought Parkrun to Australia in 2011 and grew it into one of the country's largest participation movements, and who now leads the Healthy Kids Project and its flagship RAD Run Club.

What did Tim think he was building when he stood on a sandy mound at Main Beach in front of 110 people for that very first event? And how long did it take him to realise it wasn't that at all? In this first of a two-part conversation, Tim traces the accidental origins of a global movement, unpacks the "third space" so many of us are quietly missing, and shares the organisational model — borrowed from an unlikely source — that let one Saturday morning event scale into hundreds.

It's a conversation about what people are really showing up for on a Saturday morning, and why it so rarely has much to do with running pace.

Connect with Tim Oberg: LinkedIn

• Learn more about his current work at RAD Run Club and the Healthy Kids Project.

Make sure you join Trisha in this journey of growth and discovery throughout the year via Substack or LinkedIn.

Resources mentioned:

• Parkrun - parkrun.com.au
• Rad Run Club - radrun.club
• UTS (University of Technology Sydney) social network analysis of two Australian Parkrun communities

Referenced in this episode:

Episode 86 — Can Sport Build Bridges - Or Burn Them?

I would like to acknowledge the Dharawal people, the Aboriginal people of Australia, whose country I live and work on. I would like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and thank them for sharing their cultural knowledge and awareness with us.

Hi there, everyone. I'm Trisha Carter, an organizational psychologist and an explorer of cultural intelligence. I'm on a quest to discover what enables us to see things from different perspectives, especially different cultural perspectives, and why sometimes it's easier than others to experience those moments of awareness, the shifts in our thinking.

Well, today, everyone, I'm joined by Tim Oberg. Tim founded Parkrun in Australia back in 2011. I spoke about Parkrun two episodes ago, and we'll include that reference in the show notes for you if you haven't listened to it. Parkrun was begun as a single event on the Gold Coast, and it's grown into one of the country's largest participation movements.

Tim is now the founder of the Healthy Kids Project, whose flagship program is the RAD Run Club, and, and he's gonna tell us more about that in a little while. But first of all, Tim, let's start with our usual opening question. Can you tell me about a time when you experienced a shift in your thinking?

Maybe you suddenly became aware of a new perspective, or you saw things in a different way

Firstly, hi Trisha. Thank you that introduction, and thank you for wearing your Parkrun shirt,

Oh, yes

pod today. For those that don't know, a black Parkrun shirt signifies 100 Parkruns

or Ooh.

two years of dedicated Parkrunning, at least. So, and you said you, you started three years ago, so you've, you've done two of three Parkruns ever since you started, more or less.

That's right.

on your

Thank you so much

But look, n- no surprises, I, I will reference Parkrun in answering your question. And, and that really is that when I, when I brought Parkrun here from the UK, I guess what I thought I was doing was bringing essentially a fun run, like a, a fun run event that was gonna be held on Saturday mornings.

Because from the outside looking in, it's lots of people running you know, some- and walking of course, but certainly in the early days there were probably more people running and that's a, that's a whole nother conversation. So I guess I thought I was bringing essentially like a fitness thing to Australia.

And as it grew, what I came to realize was it was so much more than that, and really what it was was about community connectedness. And so it was really a, a vehicle for just people getting together consistently. So every Saturday morning, coming together in their local community, doing a thing, in this case Parkrun but being connected whether they're running, walking, volunteering, and then of course the obligatory cup of coffee at the end.

So it, it was probably, I, I'm gonna say it probably took about a year for me to realize, oh, hang on, this is about so much more than running. In fact, the running is probably the least important part of the whole, of the whole thing. It's actually just about humans coming together to face, you know, a bit of sweat dripping on each other you know, lots of high fives and, and so on.

So yeah, that was pretty profound, and it's really probably shaped the way that Parkrun grew, was growing it knowing that actually what we were doing here was creating something about human connection. And, and certainly my career post-Parkrun, as, as you say we'll talk about later, has really taken that on board as well.

Yeah. Yeah. So it was a shift of, from something that you had intended to recognizing that it was something else, and it wasn't unwelcome then. It was a, it was sort of a joyful shift that you recognized

Well, it was joyful in the sense that almost every day I would receive an email from somebody somewhere in Australia telling me how Parkrun had changed their life, and it was rarely about the run. It was rarely about Parkrun. Well, it was almost never about Parkrun's made me a better runner. But it might have been the, the physical aspect of running means I've lost 150 kilos or 100 kilos or something like that.

So there were, there were changes like that, like dramatic weight loss and so on. But it was more often than not more to do with mental health and emotional psychological wellbeing and, and which is all coming down to community connectedness. And, and that, that's the trick. If you feel like you're connected to your local community or even to a broader community and, you know, that's something that you, you feel within yourself, then that is so incredibly powerful because the opposite is social isolation, and we all know that that's no good.

Absolutely, yeah. That is, that is the illness as prescribed by WHO and the UN, yeah. I wanna go back to the start of Parkrun Australia. You'd heard about Parkrun well, you'd participated, I think, in the UK. But yeah you decided you wanted to set it up in Australia, so you had that very first Saturday at Main Beach.

My understanding is that there were 110 finishers and a handful of volunteers that I think you'd sort of talked into coming along.

So what did that morning actually feel like for you, like in your body? What was it like?

Yeah. Well, I mean, I still remember it very clearly. And there'd been a bit of a build-up to it. So I'd, I'd I'd lived in the UK for 10 years. And I'm from Brisbane originally. Moved to the UK, 10 years there straight from university. So my entire adult working life had been in the UK. So when I brought Parkrun back, and what I mean by that is I, I had a piece of paper that said I had a license agreement with Parkrun Global.

And so I had, I had a license to, to deliver Parkrun in Australia. They would provide the technology platform, and I would do the rest. So I had to, you know, get the, the volunteers, I had to get the funding, you know, grant funding and, and, and sponsorship and so on to actually build it into a business. And, you know, source the equipment and all that kind of stuff.

So they gave me the platform, and then I had to do the rest. So When I returned to-- We actually moved to the Gold Coast, so we didn't return to Brisbane where I was from. But for those who don't know, that's only sort of 90 minutes down the road. So, so we're on the Gold Coast. The mayor of the Gold Coast at the time was Ron Clark, who anyone who knows anything about Australian running history and global running history, was one of the great middle-distance runners of the 1960s.

An absolute legend in Australia, and he was the mayor at the time. And so when I sort of showed up with this running program, of course he was all ears and you know, welcomed it and, and, and so on. So from, yeah, I, I returned in January, and we launched in April. So there'd been a bit of a build-up to it and but I didn't know what I-- We had no idea what we were doing.

Uh, You know, because there's, there's and what Parkrun looks like these days in terms of how you deliver an event with the, the app and everything like that, it wasn't like that then. We had a physical stopwatch, and we had physical scanners that probably have been obsolete from Parkrun now for close on 10 years, I would say.

So we had these things, and of course, we had the, the, the the finishing barcodes that, that is still, are still at Parkrun now. And there was a team of about six of us who were sort of just people from the local running community that the local council had kind of put me in touch with. 'Cause again, I didn't know anyone.

I'd Gold Coast. So I didn't really know these guys. But we made it happen. You know, one of the keys to Parkrun success then and now is the simplicity. So we were able to, to pull it off. We had a great sort of attendance, as you said, 110. That was, that was runners, walkers, and volunteers was the 110.

and,

yeah, we sort of-- They all sort of showed up and, and I stood on a, a, a bit of a mound in front of them all, and I welcomed everybody to, you know, the first Parkrun in Australia. And there's actually a, a sign on a pole now in that very spot that says, "This is the location of," you know, "Australia's first Parkrun."

So, you know, the, the Parkrun enthusiasts tend to go and have a photo at Main Beach with that sign. And we had, as I said, we had Ron Clark there, but he just stood in the background. He wasn't trying to steal the limelight or anything like that.

And

participate?

did And, actually what's funny is anyone who's done Parkrun knows that the number one rule is don't forget your barcode.

And Ron was registered but didn't bring his barcode. So when you look at the results of Main Beach event one, the, the last place is a couple of unknowns, which is Ron Clark, and I can't actually remember who was with Ron. But yeah, they didn't have their barcode. We did, we did think about adding Ron in after the fact, but then we thought, "No, you know, we're gonna leave him as the unknown runner because we'll always remem- remember that about him."

Yes

and, and so yeah, so it was a, it was a big success. We, we sort of processed the results afterwards, which again, was a, a much more cumbersome task than it days with apps and so on. But yeah, it all happened. We, we got it done. And it was onto the next week, you know, week two. You know, we still had a good turnout the following week.

It wasn't as high, but yeah, then it just kind of grew from there and you know, we sort of changed the course of that Main Beach event quite a few times over the first sort of 12 months, just refining it, and we started to grow a few more events. Our second event was in Brisbane at New Farm Park, so that's New Farm Parkrun.

Our third event was in, I wanna say Albert Park in Melbourne. And that's a-- that's Australia's largest event these days. They get, like, over 1,000 most weekends at that one. And yeah, it just went from there and, and I was able to start working on Parkrun actually as a job in a, in probably the second year.

And then from there, the trajectory goes pretty big. We were launching an event almost

every weekend and

I was actually wondering about that. So when you came back, did you have a job to come back to? You know, the repat story coming back to a job or coming back to find a job?

Yeah, no, I didn't.

So,

so my, but...

Well,

I'm a teacher by trade, school teacher, high school PE teacher, and,

I moved to the UK as a teacher. And then by about my second year over there,

I,

I was like, "Stuff this teaching, I wanna do something else." So I actually ended up starting my own travel and events business.

so I've always, I've always been quite entrepreneurial. I had my own business during university and, and then when I, when I, as I say, started something up in the UK, and that was actually what kept me there for so long was you know, I had this business and it was so much fun and... But when, my wife and I decided to well, A, get married, so we left the UK, got married in South Africa where my wife is from, and then moved to Australia, where I decided I wanted to go back and, and I didn't know what I was gonna do, but I wanted to work in sport or something to do with sport because I've got a, a human movement degree as well as my education degree.

So I thought, "I've, I've done the education thing now I wanna do the human movement thing." So I had no idea what I was gonna do but that's what I was on the, on the lookout for, which was partly why when I found Parkrun in the UK, I thought, this, this is something that would interest me 'cause it's, you know, like I said, I thought I was starting something to do with fitness.

So no, I just did a few odd jobs. I, I, I started a little tra- a sort of a little events business on the Gold Coast, and we were doing sort of winery tours and sorts of different things like this. So I was just, I was trying lots of different things while Parkrun was kinda growing 'cause I didn't really know if Parkrun would ever be something that could be a job.

But you know, luckily for us we got some sponsors and we got some government funding, and that enabled me to actually work on Parkrun as a job from sort of the second year.

You were ... So I did a little bit of research, and you were a national junior weightlifter, but you were not a runner, and you had sort of talked against endurance running. And yet this is what you've ended up in. So what was it about Parkrun, you know, that really sort of got past that resistance aspect

Yeah. Well, I wasn't anti I wasn't anti-running, it was just in terms of the, the, the sort of level of performance that I was trying to achieve as a weightlifter, which is a, which is a power sport. So it's all about fast-twitch muscle fibers. And if you then go for a slow, long run, you're training your slow-twitch muscle fibers, so that's not good.

You just want to train your fast-twitch. So, so, like, weightlifters will do sprints, they won't do long runs.

Okay

so, so when I, when I moved to the UK, though, I essentially retired as a weightlifter because it's the kind of sport you need to be fully dedicated to if you're gonna do it. And, and so, so, yeah.

So I thought, "Well, look, I'm doing a lot of travel. What's the one thing I can do to exercise while I'm out and about, and I can do it anywhere?" And that was running. And so, so I just was just going for runs and sort of gradually got, got, you know, more interested in running and started doing, you know, fun runs and so on.

But it, it wasn't actually until my last year living in the UK, which was 2010, that I actually came across parkrun. So parkrun started in 2004. So there were six years that I was living in the UK where I'd never, never heard of it. But I- It's a funny story how, I actually got linked into it.

So, I had this dog, little dog called Clarence that I adopted off the street, so he was a little homeless dog.

and we actually kind of fell in love with each other 'cause I would go for a run, and he was just this stray dog that would run with me. And so we would run together and and he would end up not being able to keep up after a few kilometers and 'cause I was training for a marathon or something.

So I'd go and do a 15K run, and I'd come back and he'd be exactly where and then we would run back together for the last couple of K. So this just evolved into me absolutely falling in love with this dog and then taking him in. And so, so we would then run together, except I'd have him on a lead.

And one day, just out of the blue, someone said to me, "Now, did you know that there's an event, it's a free event you can go to, and you can take your dog?" And I thought, "Oh, that sounds pretty cool." And I thought, "I wonder what Clarence's 5K PB would because it was this 5K free event.

So I registered myself for parkrun and took Clarence and we went up to Wimbledon Common just outside in southwest London there. And yeah, we, we sort of stood around and everyone arrived, much like a parkrun these days. And I've got this memory in my head, I think this did happen. I think we all stood in a circle, and the event director was kind of in the middle just giving us a brief.

But then we all did, like, a warm-up, and we were, like, arm circles and high knees and all that sort of thing. And then we- No. Well, Parkrun actually doesn't allow it anymore. probably just, just it doesn't allow it because if someone from Parkrun is warming someone up and someone gets injured, then Parkrun, there's a liability there.

So, but I, I f- my recollection is back in, in 2010, it, it did happen. And so we all stood around and we did this little warmup, and then we, you know, we took off and we did the 5K and Clarence's PB was 20 minutes and 20 seconds. I'll never forget it. So he was, he was a quick little, for a little Jack Russell he was, he was quick

on him.

but yeah, so that was the, the sort of introdu- introduction to it.

me,

yeah. He's not with us anymore, sadly. But but you know, I love telling the story because it, it keeps him in my heart. I mean, he's in my heart, but yeah, it's just I love talking about it because of that Clarence link, which is great.

But anyway, so I did it once and I thought it was pretty cool, and then I went back a couple of months later and I forgot my barcode. I did, I had a, I had a Ron Clarke moment and so I, I... my Parkrun record only shows one event in 2010, but it was after that second one that I thought, "Okay, this is actually, this is pretty cool.

This is pretty different, and this is, you know, kind of what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something in sport to, to do in Australia." and so I sent an email off to Parkrun and the founder his name is Sir Paul Sinton-Hewitt. He got back to me and we, we met for... He wasn't a sir then. He's a sir now, though.

He was knighted, I don't know, maybe two years ago. And we had a coffee and he liked me, I liked him. And then we had another coffee maybe a month later where he brought someone from his board, I guess, to kind of suss me out and that went well. And after that meeting, Paul said "Yeah, let's do it."

So because there, there wasn't any Parkrun international sort of territories or countries at that stage so I was the first person to have a, an international license for Parkrun. So it was kind of unknown territory for everybody and it definitely worked out. So, you know, Paul's punt was was good and you know, it's worked out well for, for me.

I, I had an absolute ball you know, in those 11 years that I was at Parkrun. Like I said, it was one of those things where you do it, it's a job, but it never felt like work. It, it just felt like we were just part of this incredible movement, which it is. every- and as I said, every day, like n- there's nothing better than opening up an email where someone says, "That thing you started is changing my life."

And you read that and you just think, "Wow, I never knew a job could provide that much reward and satisfaction." So, yeah, it's been pretty incredible.

Yeah, it's I'm feeling like it's the the three basic needs. You Mmhmm you've got connection, you've got purpose, and you've got competency. You sort It's the perfect job, yeah.

yeah, 100%

I wanna just give people a little bit of background. Parkrun is now in 22 countries. So what Tim started has sort of multiplied in terms of the international license.

And just to explain the barcode bit, so when people register on the Parkrun - website, they get given a barcode and it's in the email. You can download it to your phone. So then when you turn up at Parkrun, you use that barcode to identify yourself at the end when your time is taken.

So it's timed for you, but it's not, it's not a race in that sense. You're running against yourself. So the, the barcode is important, but yeah. So that's why

not it.

That's right, we don't forget it. Definitely not. It's now in my app for that, yeah. You've talked a little bit about the idea of a third space that's not home, not work, but somewhere else we need to have, and we don't always have it.

So I'd love you to talk about that a little bit more for me.

Yeah, that, that, that comes up because I get, I get asked regularly, as you can imagine, you know, why, why is Parkrun successful? Like, why, why Parkrun? Why, why not something else? And you know, one of the ways I talk about it is that it's the right event or the, or, or the right movement for, for the right time in, in the era that we are living in.

And, what I mean by that is if Parkrun had started in the 1970s or the 1980s, I don't think it would've been as successful because people in the '70s and the '80s, like when I was a kid in the '80s, you know, people were connected in their local communities. You know, we weren't a globalized world like we are now.

It- for the- for most people, the majority of their life was in their local street, their suburb, their school, their church, their workplace. You know, and, and just within that, people kind of got what they needed You know, they, they had those community connections. They had family. Families were far less spread out then than they are now.

So you had your family, you had your friends, you had your job you had your school you had your neighbors. Everyone knew their neighbors. People played in the streets, you know, all of that. So, so people weren't longing for community connection. They already had it. Fast-forward to 2004 when Parkrun starts- And we were in a, a bit of a transitory phase in the world where the internet was taking over.

We all had cell phones. We didn't have smartphones yet at that stage. But then we go to 2007, 2008, and you got the iPhone and smartphones, you got Facebook, social media, et cetera. And obviously what's happened there is this incredible amount of digital connection, which, which none of us want to go away.

You know, that's, that's a good thing. But what's happened is that digital connection has really, the balance is wrong. Most a lot of us you know, I think all of us probably have quite, have, have not got that balance quite right, in that we're far more about what's on our phone, what's on our device, and not what's, "How's my neighbor?"

You know, "What is my neighbor doing?" And so I think what Parkrun has done is it's, it's basically come up at that time when people are very, very, very heavily connected, but they've lost that sense of community and that sense of sort of their neighbors, knowing their neighbors. And things like church, you know, attendance at church is declining globally.

And I think for a lot of people, like a church is where they previously got that connection. It was a community. It was every weekend, same time, same place you know, part of the routine. You knew what you were gonna get when you went all of these things. And, and so, so I think for many ways Parkrun has become Like the, dare I say, religion, the organized religion that they now you know, it's the Saturday morning version of that.

And so that's when I talk about a third space, you know, that's, that's what it, what it is, is, you know, the, the third space is the place that people go which isn't home, it isn't work, and it's where they get that, they fulfill that need that we all have of connection. And, and not the d- of, not of the digital sort.

You know, the sort where you see your friends, your neighbors, people in your community. And as well, one of the great things about Parkrun is the tourism. You meet people from other places as well. So it's just a big social event, basically. And like I said earlier, there just happens to be a 5K run or walk that goes on.

But I think Parkrun really has filled that need in an era where the world is longing for things to fill that need. And Parkrun's not the only thing doing it. Like, I think if you look at, you know, mothers' groups or libraries or any sort of community hub where people can gather consistently that's not threatening, that doesn't cost a lot of money, you know, these things are all thriving because we're, we all...

You know, community connection isn't a want, it's a need. You know? It's, it's Maslow's hierarchy. You know? It's baseline. We, we need it. We need to be connected to people. And if you're not, you know, as I said earlier, that's not a good thing. So yeah, so Parkrun, it's just happened at a time when the world needed something like Parkrun.

You could never have planned it. None of us who were involved from those early days had any idea what we were doing in terms of filling that gap. That was, that wasn't what we, we thought we were doing. Now we absolutely know that's what it's doing and that makes it even more important. So and, so and as I say, not just Parkrun, but anyone who's filling that third space need it's such an important thing to do because otherwise everyone's just stuck on a screen all day.

I agree 100%, and that's certainly my experience. I wanna check it with some of the research that was recently shared in a Parkrun email, maybe not recently, but was shared in a Parkrun email. Research from UTS, the University of Technology Sydney and it did a social network analysis across two of Australia's Parkruns and tracked them over 12 months and found that-- And this was really interesting when you looked at it, and I guess it goes back to your original shift.

But the tightly connected social core isn't actually, of people who attend Parkrun, isn't actually made up of the fittest or the fastest people. It's made up of the ones who show up most often and volunteer most. And women dominate that connected core sometimes nearly two-thirds and sometimes even higher, depending on the site, even though in terms of participants or registrants, they are just over half overall.

So did that match what you were sensing anecdotally, or is there anything in the finding about that that actually surprised you?

No, that doesn't surprise me at all. And, but, but Parkrun today looks different to what it used to look like. And so what I mean by that is and, and Parkrun talks about this all the time, that the average finish time at Parkrun is decreasing, not, sorry, it's, sorry, it's increasing. as i- as in people are getting slower.

And you know, theoretically you'd think that's a bad thing, but actually what it means is Parkrun is becoming something that people who aren't the speedy runners are seeing as an option for them. So you've got more walkers, more slow runners participating than ever before. So, so when we started Parkrun here, it did look like a fun run.

It did look like a running event. And if you look at photos from that first event at Main Beach, everyone's running. The only, the only walkers were Ron Clark and his little entourage. You know, the ma- I would say, you can check the times, but the majority, I'd say 90% of people ran it at some speed. So it did look like a fun run.

But you know, over time, that has changed dramatically. So, you know, the average finish time at Parkrun when I started was about 28 minutes. Now it's, you know, 34 minutes or something like that because there's more walkers. And what we tend to find now is the people who are the The, shall we say, serious runners they, they'll just come to Parkrun every now and then.

They'll just, they'll just use it as a training hit out. And, and, and so they, th- they just sort of by nature don't really get as involved or engaged with their local Parkrun as the, you know, everybody else. Now, of course, I'm sure there's exceptions to that. I'm sure there's plenty of examples of really fast Parkrunners who are also highly engaged.

But if we just look at it on average you'd say that yeah, the speedy Parkrunners probably don't come as often and they probably don't volunteer as much because Parkrun's just a, a training tool as opposed to a community. Their community is probably their very fast running group.

You probably who their community is. And that's fine. There's, you know, nothing wrong with that. It also doesn't surprise me when you say that there's more females who are part of that core group. I think there's a lot of reasons for that. Certainly one of the reasons that women gravitate towards Parkrun is its safety in numbers, which is unfortunately, that's just the case.

That is, you know, women who do run tend to want to feel, you know... So men don't feel as, as unsafe, I guess, when they're out for a run. So that's what, again, one of the great things about Parkrun is it does provide, you know, that, that safety in numbers, you know, running with a, a group as opposed to running on your own, you know, after dark, you know, you know, through a forest or something which probably is not a, a safe environment unfortunately.

I also think, you know, probably to be fair, women are probably just a bit more organized than, than than men and put their hands up to do these kind of things. And again, pro- someone's probably gonna shoot me for saying that, but you know, I think that's probably just the, the, the reality of it as well.

So, so yeah, I would completely agree with those

Mm, yeah. The other interesting thing was the difference between the rural and the urban Parkrun. The rural site condensed into a tight-knit network really quickly, probably because there was nowhere else for people to go. You know, have to drive a long way to get to another group like Parkrun, whereas the urban site stayed much looser, I think because people could go to other options nearby.

How much of that did you think about when you were designing things, and, and how much did you have to just, you know, let happen and let it organically emerge?

Mm. Well, look, it, it did all happen organically in the sense that, you know, there wasn't a, a design around we need to launch in certain locations. What I actually did do is I created in, in... Before Parkrun had even had our first event, I created a whole bunch of Facebook pages that were based around the 20 most populous locations in Australia.

So we had a, a page that was just called Melbourne Parkrun, Sydney Parkrun, Adelaide Parkrun, Brisbane Parkrun. And they were really like flyers. They were, they were prospects. It was like, "Hey, Parkrun is this thing. If you wanna bring Parkrun to Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, et cetera get in touch."

And that worked really, really well. They were basically where all the first events in all those locations came from. And yeah, it was, it it was nothing more strategic than what are the 20, know, biggest population centers in the country. But what I came to realize when I actually moved from the Gold Coast to where I live now in the Whitsundays, which is a regional area I very quickly came to realize that the power of Parkrun was even more important when you got outside of the cities.

Because, look, you know, if you're in Brisbane or Melbourne or Sydney on a Saturday morning, you've got lots of options. You know, there's lots of things you can do. There's lots of ways you can meet people. There's lots of people around in, just in general, so there's lots of things you can do. If you're in a regional or remote area, Parkrun, as you mentioned a moment ago, may be the only thing of its type that's happening on that morning.

So if you don't go to Parkrun, there's kind of nothing else to do. And so I think those connections, particularly like I, I was in, where was it? I was in Roma one time, which is in Western Queensland, and I remember, I remember a lady, I was sitting there, we were having coffee afterwards- And I said to the lady I was talking with, I said, "Oh, where do you live?"

And she goes, "Oh, we, we just lived on a farm down the road." I said, "Okay, how far away is that?" She said, "Oh, you know, two and a half hours away." And I thought, "Wow, okay. That's your version of down the road." and I said, "Okay, so you know, it's quite a, you know, it's quite a way you've come in for this." And she said, "Yeah, but it's, it's it's one of the only times we actually interact with humans during, during the week."

And she actually gave the example of her husband. She said for, for the past 10 years, her husband had basically not really left the farm, and his only kind of friends were the cows. This is, like, serious, true story. And she said that because of that, he'd developed a lot of social anxiety and, and, and so on.

And coming into Parkrun was his, essentially his one time in the week where he would talk to people, talk to people that weren't his wife and immediate family. And again, it was just, just one of those moments where I just thought, "I can't believe that this thing that I brought from the UK that I thought was a fun run is, is having this impact in a, in a re- in a, like, a, a regional, I would call it, well, a remote community really."

You know, I just would never thought that it was gonna play a part in sort of improving the health of farmers in Western Queensland. It just, it just blew my mind. And, and so yeah, I really think it's actually more important, Parkrun plays an even bigger role once you get out of the cities. It's obviously, it's great in the cities, but like you said, you can go to one one week, you can go to another the next week and, you know, there's probably 50 Parkruns within an hour of the center of Brisbane.

So you could go to a different Parkrun every week if you wanted to and still be a Parkrunner. Like, you'd be a highly engaged Parkrunner, but you're not engaged with your local community. Whereas where I live, you know, the next nearest Parkrun's sort of an hour away. So yeah, you'd pretty much go to your, go to your home Parkrun every week.

Yeah, that's right. I live in a, a, it's sort of more on the edges of Sydney, Menai. And I've done a lot of work in the last probably especially since COVID virtually. And so in, in my own business working for myself, often I'd be, you know, delivering, facilitating training and sessions and webinars in the middle of the night because talking to some other country or continent.

And it gradually bit by bit I realized I was meeting with real people less and less. And my husband in the same period of time sort of retired from his work and so then he was meeting with real people less and less. So parkrun actually put us more in touch with, with real people. Have friends or anything, but it was that, you know, then you do meet them every week.

And go for coffee every week. And you start off by talking about how did that feel? How's your run? How's your leg? You know, all of those things. And then you get onto other things. So there is that, that strong sense of showing up, supporting, creating connection as you said. One of the things that did surprise me was that the data shows that lower socioeconomic areas actually had faster growth than the wealthier ones.

Was that counter to what you expected when you were, you know, thinking about things or

Well, not, not really because there's a very important word that's associated with parkrun, and that word is free. And so, you know, like, again, using the example of Men- let's use your Menai parkrun, right? So, you know, people there, that's not to say everyone's, like, super wealthy, but, you know, that's a, that's a, a, you know, middle class, upper middle class kind of Sydney area.

If you're not at parkrun, you might be at pickleball, right? So, or, or whatever it might be, or, you know, you've got your gym membership or, or whatever it might be. So, so, you go to a low, a low socioeconomic area, parkrun's free it might be the only thing you can afford because it might be, you know, you might be a family of five, and you all go together.

and then so the fact that it's free versus a paid activity might set you back 100 bucks.

right

so, so yeah. So I think that to, to me, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, and you know, you might buy shoes, but some people might just wear what they're normally wearing you can just walk it. So yeah, so the costs are very low, which yeah, nothing.

mmhmm

And yes, you do see families showing up with, you know, three or four kids, and if you multiply that out, if it was, you know, another event or even paying for organized sport every Saturday, then that is a greater cost.

So certainly is much easier to, to think about as,

yeah, as

as

we always talked about b- like barriers to participation. So

what, what are,

what are the barriers? And so we would look at all the different barriers and say, "

Well,

how can we either get rid of that

or, or,

or just decrease that barrier?"

And,

and there's a lot of things that stop people from participating in,

well,

life

certainly w- there's a lot of things that stop people participating in things like Parkrun, that's for sure. And you know, one of the, the things was around how important the, the words and the imagery are that we associate with Parkrun. Because again, if you go back to the early days of Parkrun, you'd see photos in the newsletter of all the fit people running along looking fit and fast, and they're u- you know, and they're in their fancy running gear and, and so on.

And we again, very quickly came to realize that that's only the pointy end of Parkrun. You know, that's the, the 1%. You know, if we, if we want to remove perceived mental barriers to participating at Parkrun, which is people thinking, "I'm not fast enough, I'm not good enough, I don't have the right clothes, I'm not gonna fit in," then we need to use imagery and language that presents that.

So, so, so you'll almost never see a, a, a photo of the first finisher at Parkrun in a Parkrun newsletter as, I mean, I think you just won't see it at all really, or on their social media. You know, all the photos are from the middle of the pack, the back of the pack, because that's, that's the they're the normal people, you know, the, the, average person, which is, which is, you know, who Parkrun is trying to attract.

You know, that's where the, the mass market is, which is the, the middle and the back of the pack, not the front of the pack. So that's, that's just so important

I want to think a little bit about where you were thinking when you were setting it up because it's of interest to me from, from the thought of building a movement and also from a cultural perspective, 'cause thinking about the culture of the organization. I understand you've spoken about borrowing Flight Centre's family village tribe model.

So what were you thinking about with that, and what were you hoping to sort of create in terms of culture as you went from one parkrun to another? And, and I, I believe that it is now going out ... You, you took it out to Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore, and I'd love to hear more about that as well

mm. Yeah, cool. That's a, that's, that's a double banger question. we'll deal with, we'll deal with family, village, tribe first. So, so,

so as I mentioned earlier, I had a travel and events business when I lived in the UK, and,

So

I,

I therefore read the book about how Flight Centre

kind of

came to be

and

I did some work for Flight Centre a while ago, so I got the book as well. So ago, I think the HR person might have given me the book actually. And I read about it as well. So it is very interesting.

Yeah it was really interesting. And, and so I read that, you know, before I was involved with Parkrun, but I, I hung onto the book 'cause I found it fascinating. And the, the premise of the book though is that as Flight Centre grew, they needed to create an organizational culture that would preserve, I guess, what made it great, which was sort of someone could go into a local Flight Centre branch and would probably know the, you know, be dealing with the same agent that they dealt with the week before.

So it was kind of an intimate personal experience in terms of dealing with the branch. But then likewise, those branches would feel supported from head office. They would have, you know, supervisors and managers and so on, and it kind of cascaded up to head office, but it went out like that so that it was sort of small groups all, being managed rather than large groups from an organizational management point of view.

So, so I found that fascinating. And then when, as Parkrun started to grow you know, one event, two events, three events, and I was the only point of contact because I was the, the guy kind of running it. And, and so the great thing about that was I got to know everyone like all the event directors, many of whom are still very good friends.

I mean, I, I'm still friends with everyone who started all those Parkrun events in those days. But we-- so we all got, got to know each other really well and all felt what I'd spoke about earlier. Everyone felt... Like I felt it, but also the people at each event were, who probably all thought they were starting a fun run as well they all had people walking up to them saying, "You've changed my life."

So we were all going through this incredible experience together. But it did get to a point when we got to probably about 35 events or something like that, where I was the single point of contact for 35 events, and I thought, "Okay, this isn't gonna work," or as we say, scale these days. This isn't gonna scale so I need to create a structure here.

And then I thought, I remember that flight center book. So I went and pulled it off the shelf and went through it, and I thought, "How can I apply this in a Parkrun setting?" and so basically I tapped on the shoulder probably about half a dozen of my sort of most experienced, most trusted event directors and said, "Look, would you be interested?

You know, you're, you're already making a contribution to Parkrun in doing what you're doing. Would you be interested in extending that contribution by taking on this new role?" And I said, "You don't have to give up your current role. You can still be an event director, or not, you can pass that on, but I sort of need you now in a different role."

And to their credit, everyone said yes. And so they were what we called our territory directors or our TDs, as we called them back in the day. And so I had this group of about half a dozen TDs, and each one of them had roughly sort of five to seven Parkrun events that either were existing or they were prospects, so they were up and coming.

And they became the mentors for those those events. And then in time, as that grew, you know, we then had another layer above them that sort of helped manage the TDs and, and so on. But, you know, seven was that magical organizational number. It's almost like, you know, on a board, you only really want about seven members, 'cause if your board's 15 members, it's just too many people, too many opinions, it becomes dysfunctional.

But if you've got less than seven, it's probably not enough opinions to really get a, get a good point of view. So seven's kind of this magical number when it comes to sort of organizational behavior. So yeah, so I applied that in, in the Parkrun context. It worked incredibly well. It meant that we could go from, you know, 40 events to 400 events over the next seven years and that, that structure just grew with it.

It had a name change, so, probably a year after we brought that in the Parkrun in the UK sort of created something similar, and they referred to it as ambassadors. And so our TDs became our ambassadors, and now the ambassador program within sort of Parkrun volunteering is massive. You've got ambassadors, not just to mentor events, but you've got ambassadors for photography and social media and safeguarding and, and all sorts of stuff.

So, yeah, it's... But it all started with this little family village tribe idea. And yeah, it worked, as I say, it worked incredibly well.

Brilliant.

Your second question

was

Yes

Was sort of global expansion, shall we call

And I guess the reason that I linked them together in my head was I was thinking more about that collective nature of those countries in terms of the culture of the countries that leaning out into was very different from our culture as well. And so that concept sort of maps a bit more neatly onto their cultural ways of being

Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So e- every, every country where Parkrun has started outside of the UK, even Australia, has, has done things a little bit differently. You know, there's, there's, there's the core of what Parkrun is that doesn't change anywhere, but then there's the local flavor that changes everywhere you go.

And even you see that within Australia, different events have a different sort of local flavor or buzz, or it might look a little bit different, or the coffee shop might be different, or, you might be. It's a little bit different everywhere you go. So the first country we expanded into was Singapore and, and that happened because our event director at Albert Park, which I mentioned was our third event, a lady called Carol Cunningham, who now actually works for Parkrun.

She's now worked for Parkrun for many years actually. Carol got a, was offered a job transfer from Melbourne to Singapore, and she rang me and she said, "I've been offered this great opportunity." She said, "I'm only gonna take it if I can start a Parkrun up in Singapore." And, and, you know, without having any authority from, from the UK, I "Do it, Carol, take so I then basically rang Paul Sinton-Hewitt and said, "So Paul, we're gonna start in Singapore." and, and you know, he wasn't he didn't just say yes. I had to talk him into it. But yeah, so basically Carol moved to Singapore and I, I sort of twisted Paul's rubber arm and he, he let me start up.

And the big challenge there was it was our first country. I mean, obviously English is widely spoken in Singapore but, you know, moving into Asia, you know, you are looking at significant cultural difference, language difference, and even the climate. You know, Singapore's so hot. We had to, we had to look at, you know, that and, and, you know, what time would we start and all that kind of stuff.

So, but yeah, Carol is a superstar. She made it work and, and she's now her role now is I'm, I'm gonna say Head of Global Volunteering something like that with, with Parkrun. So she's, she's got a, you know, one of the big jobs in Parkrun these days. But yeah, she, she, she took it into Singapore and then from there we then had some requests from Malaysia, which is obviously just up the road Singapore.

Um, And, and it took us a while to get Malaysia going, but we got that happening. And then Japan actually happened a little bit differently because that actually happened through a sponsor. So, so we were approached by a Japanese private health insurer called Sumitomo. And they said, "Look," they said, "Look, we, we know about Parkrun.

We wanna, we wanna bring Parkrun into Japan as-- Like we'll fund it, like we'll sponsor it 'cause this is the sort of thing we wanna, you know, be involved with and, and, and, you know, make a contribution to Japanese society essentially through that." So then we went on a process of doing it that way, which was completely different.

So we didn't have people on the-- Like we didn't have a-an initial volunteer who was saying, "I wanna start a Parkrun." So then we had to kind of, you know, find volunteers and kind of say, you know, "Parkrun is coming. We need some volunteers." And it, and it kinda went like that. So, so it was a, it was a different model.

So it was funded, but it-- we had to kind of reverse engineer the usual way of, of starting up a Parkrun.

Yes, and because the people there hadn't absorbed the culture by experience, I guess you had to very much train,

Yes.

the expectations,

Correct. Yeah. No, that's right because, because the natural expectation when you say, "We're gonna start a thing called Parkrun," is people go, "Right, it's gonna be fast runners in a park." You know, that's what, that's what people would think. It's, it's a race. People would think we're, we're starting a running race.

Which was as, as I've said, what I thought I was doing back in 2011. And, and so, so yeah, so that was, that was different again. But, you know, all of those countries, I mean, Malaysia went on hold for a while after COVID. It's actually only just come back in the last couple of weeks, so they've had a big break in Malaysia.

But Japan is, is flourishing. Singapore is obviously not a huge space, but they've got a number of events there. And then New Zealand as well. New Zealand started up around the same time as Australia by some by different people. Like I wasn't involved in it, but in the end like the Australian team actually sort of essentially took over, we took over the sort of day-to-day management of New Zealand as well.

Yeah, obviously the culture's so similar, sim- similar kind of time zones, language, all of that. So it you know, that was, was pretty, pretty straightforward. So, so it's, yeah, it's definitely you know, it's Parkrun's continues to thrive in sort of APAC, if we wanna call it Um, a- and and you know, is, is growing growing all over the world, as you said, 20, 22 countries or whatever it is now.

So thanks so much, Tim, for everything you've shared today.

There's lots more that I want to dig into, so we're going to split this episode, and we'll share more with you next week. And so if you wanna think a little bit more about how to spread a movement and how to make sure that that movement can be representative of people and can include the people that we want to include, then come back and listen more next week.

And for now I'll say thank you so much, Tim

Thank, thank you. It's been great to be here, and looking forward to continuing the chat

And dear listeners, I'm looking forward to meeting with you again next episode, so please make sure that you're following along with The Shift.