Sunday, September 19, 2004
So Near, And Yet...
Had quite a fun day today.
8 of us took part in the Poppy Day Challenge (sorry, no Web links - they've not quite reached the 21st Century in Strensall yet). Raising money for the British Legion Poppy Appeal, we managed to get sponsorship of about £1100. We had to take part in 6 "physically and mentally challenging events." The 19 teams taking part would be ranked in each event (the best getting 19 points, 2nd getting 18, etc.) and the overall winners getting a trophy.
The 6 events (and our rough scores, from memory) :
General Knowledge Quiz - 50 questions, most of them fairly easy. 493 out of 554 (yes, they managed to come up with a scoring system that beat even Big Iain's for complexity) - I think this was 6th out of 19. Not sure what we got wrong, but a couple that foxed us were "Which country is directly due south of Land's End?" and "In which year was the Queen's Golden Jubilee?"
Aerial Ropeway Challenge - basically a commando slide, from a tower about 40 feet high, but with a slight extra twist - you had to drop a bean-bag from between your knees onto a scoring target (think Super Monkey Ball!) We did particularly badly, with only one team member scoring a 9, giving us a placing of 15th out of 19.
Mountain Bike Challenge - not so much mountain bike challenge as mini-obstacle course with bikes. Several obstacles (tunnel, monkey bars, rope swing) dotted around a field and we had to cycle from each one to the next. This wouldn't have been too bad except my bike was stuck in a very high gear, so I think I ended up pedalling about 5 times as far as everyone else. A time of about 8:46 gave us another 6th place.
Obstacle Course - this was the one most of us had been dreading (esp. when we saw, while walking over to it, some bloke being stretchered off!), and it actually turned out to be the most fun overall. Pretty much what it says on the tin. We all did pretty well, and came 5th overall with a time of about 7:30.
Puzzle Room - given the nature of the puzzles, sticking 6 actuaries, an accountant and an IT manager on them was always going to give us a high score. Spot the missing domino, complete a magic square and get as many Scrabble words as you can, with bonuses for Jenga blocks removed and for one of those awful buzzing wire puzzles that you need a steady hand for (and I didn't have one). Speed was vitally important here, and Kevin didn't disappoint, completing the magic square in under 10 seconds! Narrowly pipped at the post here - we got 293 points with first place getting 297. If we'd just got one more Jenga block...
Archery - pretty much what it says on the tin again. Two arrows each - Jen was the star performer here (a 5 and a perfect 10, smack in the dead-centre of the board). I was definitely the dunce - I got 1 point off 2 arrows! Still, overall we came first by some margin, with a score of 68 - no-one else scored in the 60s.
"So how did we do, Mr Chip?" I hear you say. Well, we were pretty confident after the 1st, 2nd and a couple of mid-top-tens. We scored an overall total of 77 points (which may not tie up exactly with what I've said above, but I don't care). Sadly, this was only 4th place, the winners scoring 81.
To put it in several other ways (which we were all discussing for some time after the events), we'd have come third with one more Jenga block in the puzzle round, or we'd have won overall either with another 18 points on the rope slide or another 7 points on the quiz round. I feel happy that my archery disaster didn't pull us out of the medals, but perhaps we'd have done that little bit better if I'd had a lower gear on my bike...
8 of us took part in the Poppy Day Challenge (sorry, no Web links - they've not quite reached the 21st Century in Strensall yet). Raising money for the British Legion Poppy Appeal, we managed to get sponsorship of about £1100. We had to take part in 6 "physically and mentally challenging events." The 19 teams taking part would be ranked in each event (the best getting 19 points, 2nd getting 18, etc.) and the overall winners getting a trophy.
The 6 events (and our rough scores, from memory) :
"So how did we do, Mr Chip?" I hear you say. Well, we were pretty confident after the 1st, 2nd and a couple of mid-top-tens. We scored an overall total of 77 points (which may not tie up exactly with what I've said above, but I don't care). Sadly, this was only 4th place, the winners scoring 81.
To put it in several other ways (which we were all discussing for some time after the events), we'd have come third with one more Jenga block in the puzzle round, or we'd have won overall either with another 18 points on the rope slide or another 7 points on the quiz round. I feel happy that my archery disaster didn't pull us out of the medals, but perhaps we'd have done that little bit better if I'd had a lower gear on my bike...
posted by Chip : 22:09
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