Operation Red Flare 2009

This year’s event took place last Saturday night, March 7th, on the North Downs to the south of Banstead, and involved more than 100 Explorer Scouts, Ranger Guides, and Scout Network members, as well as 40 adults on the staff. Twenty teams each of between 4 and 7 competed in the 12.5 mile mile night hike which started and finished at Park Farm Scout Campsite in Holly Lane, Banstead. The teams came from near and far – Croydon, Kingston, Richmond, Sutton, and Wimbledon in Greater London SW Scout County, and from Greater London South, Greater London SE, Kent and Surrey.

After a kit inspection teams set off at 5 minute intervals from 6.30pm and had to navigate their way through 15 checkpoints at some of which there were challenges to test their initiative. These included first aid, campcraft, firelighting, and pioneering. Points were also awarded for speed around the route which was mainly on paths and bridleways. The weather remained fine well into the night, and the walking conditions were excellent. The first team home arrived at 1am on the Sunday morning, and the last at 6am; and of the 20 teams 9 completed the whole route without missing checkpoints. The fastest time was 6 hours 7 minutes.

The winners were Ruskin Explorer Scout Unit (496 points) and the runners up Belmont Explorer Scout Unit (492 points), both from Sutton. The highest placed team from Croydon was the Romans Scout Network who finished 6th.

At the end of the competition teams spent the remainder of the night in hike tents which they had pitched before setting off. Scout Network members preferred to sit round the campfire until breakfast prepared by the Croydon Scout Fellowship.

Steve French, the District Commissioner for Croydon, presented the trophies and certificates at 9.30am.

Next year’s event takes place on Saturday March 6th.

For further information contact Chris Dean (Organiser) on 01883 723081 (home) or 020 8239 2321 (work).

The table below shows a summary of the scores. Note that the time figures used are totals of the times taken to navigate the course and the times taken to complete the tasks. A full score sheet (68KBytes PDF) is also available.

Place	Team	Time	Points	Bases	Tasks	Total
1st	Ruskin ESU	6:25	165	170	161	496
2nd	Belmont ESU	6:07	183	170	139	492
3rd	Phoenix ESU	7:26	104	170	133	407
4th	Sutton ESU	7:39	91	170	137	398
5th	Raynes Park ESU ‘C’	7:50	80	170	117	367
=6th	Severndroog ESU	8:44	26	170	154	350
=6th	Romans Network	8:02	68	160	122	350
8th	Faversham RG/Colliers ES	8:37	33	170	128	331
9th	Arrowhead ESU	8:12	58	160	99	317
10th	DofE All Stars	10:11	0	170	145	315
11th	Double Dragon ESU ‘C’	8:45	25	160	123	308
12th	Raynes Park ESU ‘A’	9:23	0	170	104	274
13th	Woodcote District RGU	9:33	0	155	94	249
14th	Surbiton South ESU	8:25	45	140	57	242
15th	Chipstead (15th Reigate)	8:07	63	95	71	229
16th	Scott ESU ‘B’	9:55	0	135	92	227
17th	Vulcan Network	0:00	0	130	87	217
18th	Scott ESU ‘A’	9:46	0	135	56	191
19th	Double Dragon ESU ‘A’	0:00	0	55	52	107
20th	Raynes Park ESU ‘B’	0:00	0	50	44	94