May Social 2019 - African AdventureMonday 29 April
The May social was held early, as the first Monday in May was a bank holiday. Anne Hickling reports.
Perhaps a rather unusual title for an ESOC social! But the ESOC powers kindly agreed that I could organise a social and take donations for my choice of charity (rather than the usual contributions to the club), and so I needed to think of a theme relevant to WaterAid, the charity I’ve been supporting over the last few years. WaterAid’s mission is to bring clean water and decent sanitation to the world’s poorest people, and a majority of their work is in Africa. Over the last few years, I’ve been on treks with them in Malawi and Madagascar, and am soon bound for a third visit, this time to Tanzania.
On all these trips, we visit some of WaterAid’s projects and gain a greater understanding of the lives of the people they support. The usual social format seems to be a score event, so I went with that again but with a bit of a twist for the African theme. Instead of lampposts or postboxes (though there was one of those), each control had a clue. The task was to solve the clue and note down the first letter of the answer. 10 points for each correct letter. Then go for some bonus points by adding the name of an African country beginning with this letter. Bonus points were the number of letters in the name (up to a maximum of 15 – there are some very long country names!) We were able to stitch together the maps of Blackford Hill and Edinburgh South (thank you very much Rob!) to make a map which stretched from the hill up to the Meadows. With 25 controls it was touch and go whether anyone would manage all controls within the 60 minute time limit, so very well done to Oli Warlow who visited them all.
When it came to the countries, some had clearly heeded my advice to do some homework with an atlas, others perhaps less so. Anyway, winners of the lavish prizes (chocolate, what can be better?) were:
60 minute score: Oli Warlow, Rachel Fawthrop
45 minute score: Ian Pyrah, Helena Nolan
African country bonuses: Janice Nisbet, Dave Kershaw, Margaret Dalgleish, Richard Oxlade
Donations yielded a fantastic sum of £163.60, all of which will go to support
WaterAid’s work in Tanzania. Thank you very much!!
- Anne Hickling
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