2000 Socialgaine
The Christmas ‘Three Cafés Metrogaine’, O'Connor, December 2000
In response to the typically deadly serious, hard-core nature of ACT rogaining, the Association once again hosted a fabulously fun and silly ‘socialgaine’ in December 2000.
Held in conjunction with the ACTRA Christmas barbecue, we were blessed with lovely weather and a very relaxed bunch of rogainers. Indeed, for a while we feared that the atmosphere was a bit too relaxed and that the event might not even get under way, as competitors lazed around in the afternoon under the trees at my O’Connor hash house. But we finally motivated the crowd and sent them off on the two hour course through the suburbs, many staggering up the driveway still clutching their beers with only a couple of teams looking in danger of breaking out into a sweat.
Remember the gruelling ‘Three Peaks Metrogaine’ a few years ago which included Black Mountain, Mount Ainslie and Mount Majura? That seemed a tad excessive to us. In fact, I wasn’t in favour of any hills being included on the course at all, but John convinced me that we’d need to at least put a control at the top of Black Mountain to give those hard core ultra-fitness junkies something to do. John and I set half the course each. And our answer to the Three Peaks event was a far more sensible and attractive course that we called the ‘Three Cafés Metrogaine’, including controls at coffee shops in Lyneham, O’Connor and the Botanic Gardens.
The best thing about the course was that you could get five controls and a hundred points by walking around the block - and this was the route choice for Geoff, Alex and their young rogainers. In fact, for the somewhat more casual rogainers, there was a twenty pointer at the top of the driveway, and there were several people that didn’t even get that far. Extra points were also offered for saying hello to my Auntie Anna in Brigalow Street, who had a real control hanging in her driveway and is usually found in her garden on Sunday afternoons. Judging by her eagerness to chat to competitors, however, some teams suggested that in retrospect, each conversation with her should have attracted bonus points-per-minute.
As for most metrogaines, we had very few actual controls, and mostly asked questions like ‘what is on the street sign’ and ‘what is the serial number on…’ and ‘what is the name of the restaurant...’. Perhaps the most splendid thing about the course was that there was a one hundred point bonus for a receipt for food or drink consumed on the premises of each of the three cafés, something that John and I hope will be continued in future years’ socialgaines. Given a choice between a hundred points for a slog up Mount Majura or for a piece of carrot cake with an iced-double-decaf-mocha-skinny-soy-latte, I know which one I’d choose.
John had a lot of fun setting controls on and around Black Mountain, and teams had fun looking for particular benches, power poles, fences and termite mounds. Since competitors had to go about twice the distance and negotiate significant hills in order to get any points on this part of the course, it was considered a serious option for most sensible competitors. In the end only two teams, actually got to the top of the mountain, where the question was ‘how high is the tower?’ (“very” was not an acceptable answer). One of these teams was Sue Brown and Adrian Sheppard, who were the overall winners in terms of points scored, but since they spent the whole event actually running, they scored very low on the important ‘let’s not take this too seriously, shall we?’ criteria.
Wanting to make the event as casual and fun as possible, John and I had declared at the start that we would accept correctly guessed answers so it was theoretically possible to stay put in the well-stocked hash house and still get some points, and some teams found this a great alternative to staggering about in the heat.
The ingenuity award goes to novice team Greg and Silke who got to the first café, settled in, and collected 100 points by phoning the Black Mountain visitors’ centre and asking how tall the tower was. They used this technique to also find out the price of danish pastries at the Botanic Gardens café. Full points were awarded for these controls, because the use of a phone doesn’t actually contravene any of the rules of rogaining. Maybe this could be a new growth area for future events…
Following the event we all enjoyed a hearty barbecue, fine conversation and for some, a tour of the chook yard. John then presented the results, and with less than twenty teams and some creative category creation, each team managed to place either first, second or third in something. Regrettably we didn’t think of supplying prizes, which could also have been fun. The last stragglers were tossed out of my living room just before midnight, and I expect they went home rather than moving on to some sort of Pubgaine (now there’s an idea…).
Linda Meisel and John Brown
In response to the typically deadly serious, hard-core nature of ACT rogaining, the Association once again hosted a fabulously fun and silly ‘socialgaine’ in December 2000.
Held in conjunction with the ACTRA Christmas barbecue, we were blessed with lovely weather and a very relaxed bunch of rogainers. Indeed, for a while we feared that the atmosphere was a bit too relaxed and that the event might not even get under way, as competitors lazed around in the afternoon under the trees at my O’Connor hash house. But we finally motivated the crowd and sent them off on the two hour course through the suburbs, many staggering up the driveway still clutching their beers with only a couple of teams looking in danger of breaking out into a sweat.
Remember the gruelling ‘Three Peaks Metrogaine’ a few years ago which included Black Mountain, Mount Ainslie and Mount Majura? That seemed a tad excessive to us. In fact, I wasn’t in favour of any hills being included on the course at all, but John convinced me that we’d need to at least put a control at the top of Black Mountain to give those hard core ultra-fitness junkies something to do. John and I set half the course each. And our answer to the Three Peaks event was a far more sensible and attractive course that we called the ‘Three Cafés Metrogaine’, including controls at coffee shops in Lyneham, O’Connor and the Botanic Gardens.
The best thing about the course was that you could get five controls and a hundred points by walking around the block - and this was the route choice for Geoff, Alex and their young rogainers. In fact, for the somewhat more casual rogainers, there was a twenty pointer at the top of the driveway, and there were several people that didn’t even get that far. Extra points were also offered for saying hello to my Auntie Anna in Brigalow Street, who had a real control hanging in her driveway and is usually found in her garden on Sunday afternoons. Judging by her eagerness to chat to competitors, however, some teams suggested that in retrospect, each conversation with her should have attracted bonus points-per-minute.
As for most metrogaines, we had very few actual controls, and mostly asked questions like ‘what is on the street sign’ and ‘what is the serial number on…’ and ‘what is the name of the restaurant...’. Perhaps the most splendid thing about the course was that there was a one hundred point bonus for a receipt for food or drink consumed on the premises of each of the three cafés, something that John and I hope will be continued in future years’ socialgaines. Given a choice between a hundred points for a slog up Mount Majura or for a piece of carrot cake with an iced-double-decaf-mocha-skinny-soy-latte, I know which one I’d choose.
John had a lot of fun setting controls on and around Black Mountain, and teams had fun looking for particular benches, power poles, fences and termite mounds. Since competitors had to go about twice the distance and negotiate significant hills in order to get any points on this part of the course, it was considered a serious option for most sensible competitors. In the end only two teams, actually got to the top of the mountain, where the question was ‘how high is the tower?’ (“very” was not an acceptable answer). One of these teams was Sue Brown and Adrian Sheppard, who were the overall winners in terms of points scored, but since they spent the whole event actually running, they scored very low on the important ‘let’s not take this too seriously, shall we?’ criteria.
Wanting to make the event as casual and fun as possible, John and I had declared at the start that we would accept correctly guessed answers so it was theoretically possible to stay put in the well-stocked hash house and still get some points, and some teams found this a great alternative to staggering about in the heat.
The ingenuity award goes to novice team Greg and Silke who got to the first café, settled in, and collected 100 points by phoning the Black Mountain visitors’ centre and asking how tall the tower was. They used this technique to also find out the price of danish pastries at the Botanic Gardens café. Full points were awarded for these controls, because the use of a phone doesn’t actually contravene any of the rules of rogaining. Maybe this could be a new growth area for future events…
Following the event we all enjoyed a hearty barbecue, fine conversation and for some, a tour of the chook yard. John then presented the results, and with less than twenty teams and some creative category creation, each team managed to place either first, second or third in something. Regrettably we didn’t think of supplying prizes, which could also have been fun. The last stragglers were tossed out of my living room just before midnight, and I expect they went home rather than moving on to some sort of Pubgaine (now there’s an idea…).
Linda Meisel and John Brown