An ever popular night

[Cambridgeskip]

I thought I'd share this from across the pond.....

 

Last night at scouts was a regular night that we have about this time every year, The Monopoly Run. It's an ever popular night and when the PLs Council meet to start planning the autumn term it is normally the first thing that goes down on the piece of paper. I think there would insurrection if we didn't have it!

 

The concept is quite simple. Instead of meeting at our normal HQ we instead meet in the city centre. The PLs are issued with a sheet drawn up by the leaders of various tasks they have to carry out and questions to answer that involves them having to run round the city centre for the evening. This year's sheet is attached, It won't mean anything to you in terms of the answers but it gives an idea of the kind of thing they have to do. It's very competitive with a prize for the winning patrol.

 

As well as being a lot of fun it is also good to run at times when, just like now, we have a lot of new recruits (11 out of 35 are either just up from cubs or new to scouts altogether) as it emphasises the step up from cubs in quite a big way. Here we have kids as young as 10 let loose in the city centre, just as it's getting dark with their PLs in charge. The kind of thing most would never be allowed to do normally. We do have adult leaders in town and on hand should anyone have a problem but we basically hang around on a bench in the market square with whoever draws the short straw doing the donuts and coffee run!

 

If you've never tried anything like I'd recommend it as something to suggest to your PLs. Great fun   Monopoly run 2016.doc

[Stosh]

That really looks like fun.  We do something similar with a photo scavenger hunt.  Take a group pic and various locations of interest around town.  Your idea is a bit more in depth and educational.

[Tampa Turtle]

I like the concept; especially for including the newbies. Of course I do not think it would work in downtown Tampa (too much traffic, drinking adults, and homeless at night) but maybe someplace like Tarpon Springs..and the adults can hang out eating Greek food!

[Ankylus]

I really like this idea. It would be difficult to implement in our hometown, too. For example, it would take us 45 minutes just to get to the "city center" and find parking. And, like Tampa, we have all those kinds of problems as well. But perhaps there is a location closer to our meeting house that would serve as well or better. Thank you for the idea.

[lakes_stu]

Looks great, Skip.

 

You have got me wondering if I could run a heavily modified and well supervised equivalent to this with the Beavers around our local suburb center (for want of a better word).

 

It actually seems similar in concept to the quiz that accompanied the 'night hike' (more of a short evening walk, but adventurous for the Beavers) we did around Pudsey last year. If we can find enough DBS'd adults we can split into lodges and make it a bit more Beaver-led.

 

Thanks, will have a think...

Edited September 22, 2016 by lakes_stu

[Cambridgeskip]

We do have a big advantage in Cambridge of having a city centre which is largely pedestrianized and also as a city generally it is ridiculously safe. The crime rate here is next to nothing. To put it in context Cambridgeshire police, in its entire history, has fired precisely one bullet from a gun!

[TWCub]

This sounds like fun.  How many of the questions change each year and approximately how much time do you give them to complete this?

[Cambridgeskip]

This sounds like fun.  How many of the questions change each year and approximately how much time do you give them to complete this?

 

We typically give them about an hour and a half which is just long enough for it to be a challenge but still long enough to actually complete it.

 

Most of it changes from year to year. The questions that we keep as standard are the photos of the patrol in the phone box and the photo of them as a human pyramid,