Robot Claw

I was the school captain of my high school, a position of great power and prestige that afforded me great advantages over the proletariat. As with all great politicians, one of my many responsibilities was fund-raising, and today I’ll tell you a story of one of my fund-raising drives that almost went horribly wrong.

It was late 1989. Newcastle was still vibrant and sunny, and Novocastrians everywhere were smiling. Little did we know the earthquake was soon upon us, and the dark days that would follow. The future, on that day, looked rosy!

The school year was ending. Our graduating class had 476 students in it (a number I may never forget) and – as was tradition – we had to buy fabulous gifts for the school administrators and senior teachers. Therefore we needed money, and it was up to us (me, the girl president, the vice-presidents and prefects) to come up with fund-raisers. We did the usual: a school dance (at which I pulled some sort of amazing coup and got my friend’s Goth band to play at…), a ‘fashion show’ (which I did not attend) and some sort of school fete. I’ll leave Adam to describe, in the comments, the performance he put on at that fete’s talent show…

And then I had a crazy idea: let’s hold a scavenger hunt! I have no idea why I decided to do it, but I remember being extremely motivated. The day was chosen, entrants were signed up, and I – me, myself and I – personally created the list and the scoring system. It was going to be a hoot. It ended up almost a crime!

Our base camp was King Edward Park in the city. This was conveniently close to our school, and also close to many of the goals of the searchers. I seem to recall the entry fee was ‘per car’, and therefore most cars had 4 or even 5 participants in them. There was a prize, but I don’t remember what it was. It must have been good though, since we had a lot of entrants. I remember Adam was one, as was my cousin Troy (with some girl from SFX he knew, possibly his later-wife) and I think my brother entered too.

The rules were simple: participants had a certain amount of time to collect as much as they could from the list and bring it back for points. Entrants were very enthusiastic and there was a lot of excitement when they saw the list (which was given out just as they started). I stayed at the park with all the other people helping to run the event, which were quite a few and included some (dreaded) parents. There was even a police car there, probably because we had to book the use of the park and because of the potential traffic issues. I seem to recall the copper stayed in his car the entire time. As you’ll learn, I would have been very happy about this!

And the list. Oh man, the list. As I said I had come up with it all myself, and while I obviously don’t remember everything, here’s some of the things I put on it:
– a postmark from a certain very distant post office
– a batman promotional item from a local cinema
– coasters from X different pubs
– a tire swan
– what a certain piece of graffiti read at a particular location
– a ‘straw chain’
– a cold coke drink
– still warm McDonalds cheeseburgers

Let’s consider those one at a time, shall we.

Back in those days you could apparently just walk into a post office and have something postmarked. This had the benefit of proving you were at a particular place on a particular date. I got this idea since two guys at my school once had a race during a lunch-break to see who could get to Stockton and back to school the fastest (in their cars). To prove they’d been to Stockton they had to get a postmark from the post office. Anyway when I created the list for the scavenger hunt I thought this was a great idea, and I think I put some crazy location like the other side of the lake. Basically, somewhere far enough away that you’d have to speed to get there and back in the time allotted. It was a decision that was at best foolish and at worst criminal, but as it turns out it had no effect on the results since (thankfully!) the event was held on a weekend and post offices were closed.

That’s the Tower Cinemas in Newcastle, which is where I saw all the good movies of the 1970s and 1980s and is still open today. During the scavenger hunt there was a Batman film showing, and they had a life-sized batman figure hanging from the roof about level with the cinema logo. I thought (as a joke) that it would be funny to put that on the list and make it worth enough points for a guaranteed win. What a laugh! The problem was, as I later heard, one or two groups actually considered trying to get it. I heard (horror) stories of people trying to get up onto the roof to pull it up and steal it, and there were mutterings of ‘police being called’. I can only imagine who they may have come and spoken to had a crime been committed.

That’s a tire swan. Usually they are half-buried in front yards. They are a lawn ornament even less graceful than pink flamingos, and I put one on the list and made it worth a lot of points. I’m sure I must have realized the only realistic way someone could get one was to steal it from someone’s yard, and therefore you can imagine my horror when one group actually brought one back. I don’t think I ever asked – or wanted to know – where they got it from (or what they did with it)!

The coasters from pubs was just another way to add thrill to the search. I remember this being a fixed score item, with something like 3 or 4 pubs on the list. Basically, dash into a pub, nick a coaster with the pubs name on it, and drive off. Repeat several times and get points! Let’s call this youthful naivety 😉

As for the graffiti. Again, this derived from a real event. A friend of mine boasted once that she had written something in texta at the top of the foreshore tower. I climbed up one day and saw it was true! This must have stuck in my mind, and therefore I had a ‘complete the sentence’ on the list which required the participants to go to a certain location, climb up some steps and read a line of graffiti to find the missing word. I don’t remember exactly where it was or what it said, but I do remember being there when it was written. While I wasn’t the scribe, I was complicit 🙁

The ‘straw chain’ is when you insert straws into each other to make very long straws. I believe the score was based on the length of the ‘mega straw’ , which meant I clearly didn’t think through the list long enough and never expected that people would end up raiding fast-food joints (or to be specific McDonalds at Marketown) and basically stealing hundreds of straws for maximum points. Almost every car came back with a massive amount of straws, and I can remember participants assembling them in the park before scoring.

The last two – the cold drink and the cheeseburgers – was my great (?) idea to get free food. I thought something like “Oh man I’ll be standing in the park all day running this thing what if I get hungry?” A bright spark went off in my head which naturally led to having the participants bringing back lunch! I recall choosing cheeseburgers since they were inexpensive (probably about $0.50 in those days), and the idea would have been grand had I not decided to give points for every drink and cheeseburger brought back! Amazingly, this led to many groups doing a drive-through as their last thing and buying 10 or 20 cheeseburgers to get a big score.

We had so many cheeseburgers. Too many! We had over a hundred easily, far more than we could eat. I was trying to return them after scoring but some groups just didn’t want them. I recall collecting them all in bags and later bringing them back to school (where we did final scoring) and divvying them up between the other captains. Even so I brought a bunch home and probably ended up throwing them out. What a waste. I’d love a cheeseburger right now 😉

Later on I’d hear from a girl who actually worked in the McDonalds Marketown about the run on cheeseburgers and the great straw crime of that particular day. I hung my head in shame.

There were other crazy things on the list. No-one got Batman, and I seem to recall there was at least one other crazy item that no-one got. There were also other things (aside from straws, drinks and cheeseburgers) that awarded extra points in abundance, but I don’t remember what they were. I seem to recall while making the list I just went crazy and put anything weird or difficult I could think of on it. Not a single person vetoed anything, and no-one said “Are you sure…?” about anything. I had a friend who suggested ‘cigarettes’ with a per-smoke score but I thankfully didn’t put that on the list! I suppose I was very, very lucky that we didn’t get in trouble via some group getting out of control, but when all was said and done the event was a big success and (I assume) a lot of fun for all involved.

I recall a girl full of usually-quiet girls won. I think they had a kilometer of straws 😉