2017 AVP Treasure Hunt

Last week I held my 3rd Treasure Hunt for the AVP, you know the crowd, the Axe Valley Pedallers, my cycling club. Before writing up this report, I checked back to last year's event and saw that we had 22 participants forming themselves into 9 teams. For this year's event, we had 20, making 5 full teams of 4; it couldn't have been planned better.

This year, we also had a change to the format, with a minimum £5 donation per team going to my club's charity, DAAT - Devon Air Ambulance Trust. Before continuing with the ride report, let me digress onto a related topic of charity donations. The AVP has always been a supporter of DAAT, indeed, I understand this dated back to the formation of the club in 2005. In recent years, however, the DAAT logo on all our jerseys has not necessarily reflected the level of financial support we've given to this great organisation. Last year, we agreed to increase our subs by £1 so that we could guarantee a flow of at least £100 of donations to them. This was certainly a step in the right direction, but it had the effect of removing any further incentive to raise more. So, in this year's AGM I fought to remove the sub levy while still committing to guarantee we'd donate at least £1 per member by the year end. So, what difference has this made? From all the events we've so fare run this year, we've already raised 2x our 2016 achievement, with £45 coming from the Treasure Hunt!

Back to hunt .. the route was mostly a well pedalled one for us pedallers; from Seaton, via Seaton Hole, to Beer, up past the caves and down to Branscombe beach. From here we climbed collecting treasure all the way to the observatory returning to the famous Donkey Sanctuary in Branscombe for refreshments and the debrief!

Our treasure hunters went on safari through the seasons in search of sculptures, counted petrified fungi, made calls from green telephone boxes, stared at skulls and journeyed back in time to when St Winifreds School Choir sung Grandma! Yes, it was a surreal adventure for our brave Pedallers! And if you're interested to know if our champions, Roger & Becca, walked away with the yellow jersey again, the answer is, no, we have new victors for 2017. I think teaming up with a fellow pedaller to devise the fiendishly challenging clues, threw all, just, I guess happens when the Times crossword changes its question setter!

I guess with the continuing success for this event, I'll be back again next year to do it all again.