Zombie Survival Weekender 10, 19-20th April. Players- 23 Weather- Clear and windy. Marshals- Allan, Jasmin, (Night Tracy) – Make-up- Channelle Mini-Games: Don’t Buzz the Wire, Riddles, Tombstone bowling, cryptic balls, Marker pens. What a great weekend, the weather was nice, a bit blustery, the newbies were a delight, and we kept well on schedule of everything, perhaps in part thanks to the new itinerary blackboard. Despite having a few more hiccups and setbacks, having several marshals drop out for various reasons, from weddings, holidays and lack of finances to broken both wrists and a chipped spine… This caused loads of stress beforehand, but fortunately I managed to adapt the event to run with reduced marshals. Whilst ZSW will always try to run with five marshals and one spare to ensure the event runs the smoothest and safest it can, we now know that with the adaption, of letting the teams choose their own team leader (in theory if they have chosen the leader for themselves they are more likely to listen to them) and slight tailoring of the nights big game we can still have a great event. New features… We had a couple of new features at this event, things that have been a long time planning and have added some professionalism to the events. The first, like I already mentioned, was the new Itinerary blackboard, in feedback forms for a while people have mentioned that they would like to know what’s next, and so listening to my players I have made a big board with the itinerary written out so this issue is now solved. The next new feature would be the brand new zombiefication tent, it’s a nice big sturdy black gazebo, printed with the logo and website and looks a lot better than the rickety old medieval tent we used for the first 3 years. Lastly we have finally opened the ZSW on site shop! I’ve been gathering the stock for a while, I was aiming to launch it last event but ended up forgetting the tables in all the confusion! But its set up now and looking good, and I’ll be developing and building up on it as the year goes on. So the event; Once everyone was on site (a couple weren’t arriving till later which is annoying and a bit disruptive to the event!) We met by the zombification tent and went through the safety and admin bit, signing of the disclaimers. I gave each team a sheet with the qualities to look for in a team leader and when I set them off for the camp set up race they had to decide amongst themselves who would be the team leader. The teams became: -Red Team-Dead heads, led by Justin, marshalled by Allan -Blellow* Team-Kim’s Krushers, Led by Kim, marshalled by Jasmin. (*The Blue team ended up wearing Yellow armbands but continued to call themselves the Blue team or later the Blellow team!) The first team back from setting up their camp was the Blellow team, winning them 25 Team points. We then moved on to the Survival Kits section of the event, I think most everybody did the homework and brought something with them using the online guide I made on the website to help them of what sort of things they should/might like in their survival kit/go-bag. Quality was varied and people flew through this section of the event quite quickly… I attempted bringing back the Hot Potato Time Bomb, but the new bomb fell apart when I was setting it and the old bomb was knackered so the alarm wasn’t going off, I then used my phone in a bag but when that got thrown around during play and there was a couple of confused ‘detonations’ I decided to leave it for this event and get it properly sorted for next time. The finalists for the Survival Kits were: from the Red Team: Lee, and from the Blellow team: Lyndsey. Each got to select a SPBC (Secret Player Bonus Card) and reshow their survival kits to the whole group, in the end it was Lee from the Red Team who was voted as the best kit. As the last winner, Lee got the roll the all new Mini-Game Randomiser dice. It selected the Semaphore game. Both teams split into two so there were four groups, Red and Blellow senders and Red and Blellow receivers, each team was given a semaphore crib sheet with all the letters of the alphabet and their corresponding semaphore formations, the senders were then given a phrase that they had to send to the receivers. Some found this useful skill easier than others, We played two rounds so that everybody had a go at sending and receiving, both rounds of the semaphore game were won by the Blellow team winning them 40 Team points. We then stopped for lunch, some people chilling at the campsite, others going to enjoy the onsite facilities of the Rose and Crown pub. Here is where drinking commenced… Usually we limit drinking until after the Skills Shares have been completed in the afternoon session but with an onsite pub this is quite hard and people quickly get drunk, though everyone had a good time this time, this may need to be reviewed in future. When we came back from lunch (late!) we carried on with our Survival Skills, both teams splitting up again to go through what they prepared, the level of skill shares was again varied, I saw a couple of new things. Some were just talks and some were just theory, which is of course better than nothing but hopefully people will put in a little more effort and read the online guide I’ve written on the website which shows you how to make the perfect skill share. We chose the best three from each team to show their skill shares to the whole group. From the Red team we had: Uses of Condoms (and black bags), Primitive fishing hook, And from the Blellow team the finalists were: Tin Can trip wire, 17 uses for condoms, Balloon dart, Each of the finalists got to select a SPBC and after an awkward vote, it was decided that Kirri’s Balloon Dart from the Blellow team, was the best Skill Share. After we finished the Skills Share section of the event I took everyone round the Playzone for a safety walk pointing out the potential hazards of the site with its rough hard terrain and going over some of the rules of the night game. When we got back up to the day field we played some more inter-team challenges. We had Bulldog which was won by the Dead Head Reds, we had two goes at Tug of War, which was great fun and both were won by the more organised and perhaps physically larger (though they had one less player, teams were randomised!) Red Team. After the active team games, we slowed things down a bit and brought back a game that some marshals have been asking for back since it was first played at ZSW VI… Dejavu, a fun party game which is a mix of Taboo and Charades… This particular game was won by Kim’s Krushers, the Blellow team. We had zoomed through the itinerary, so before we stopped for an early dinner we played the great memory and skill developing cartography game. Each player had to draw a map of the whole site from memory. Some peoples efforts with this wasn’t great, I guess people were tired but in the end I decided that Tom from the Blellow team had drawn the most accurate/detailed map of the site. We had a long break for dinner, again some people staying to cook food at camp and by the fire, some people going to have dinner at the pub. When we got back to the fire, we went through the final game rules and made sure everybody knew what was going to happen during the night game, we had a brief zombie training session so everybody was prepared to act as a zombie if/when they got caught, followed by my favourite part of the event the nervous standing around the fire waiting for darkness to fall and a zombie attack to happen, some people offered up some of their scary experiences. Others just shone their torches into the darkness, impatient for the game to begin. The game began, it worked much more effectively than ZSW 9 which was a really slow start, at ZSW 9 the first zombie didn’t catch anyone in the first hour, at this event the first zombie caught four players in the first half an hour! The game went really well, much nicer than when it’s raining, despite what the die hard, hardcore members say about the rain adding to the atmosphere of the game I much prefer a dry night/event. People kept motivated, people kept running, people kept doing the mini-games and challenges, exactly like they should do. A few people dropped out at the second break but we still had six zombies to four survivors for the last session. We closed the parameters of the game, making all zombies elite, and humans have to get to a marshal every five minutes, we also had a demon arrive that could attack both humans and zombies… In the end the last survivor at 2am was Damien from the Red team, he was a late comer, so I hadn’t managed to wear him out throughout the day, and he didn’t end up staying the night either so a bit of a shame he won really. People were very tired and drunk so the majority of people went straight to bed after the game. It was an extremely windy night and I didn’t get to bed until gone 4.30am after battening down the hatches of the new Zombiefication tent… I was up at seven sorting out all the kit and paperwork, and I struggled to wake up the players who seemed to have literally turning into zombies in the night! We made it to the pub for breakfast at 9.30, some players had disappeared in the night, and some disappeared afterwards, which is very disappointing and not what I like to see at ZSW… It was hard work motivating people in the morning to the usually animated and noisy ‘Are You A Werewolf?’ game was very quiet. Equally enthusiasm was lacking during the Epitaphs challenge. And not much conversation arose from the theory and debate questions I put to the group… I can only see this as meaning the rest of the event was so good to have worn people out into a stupor. A couple of minor injuries were reported, twisted ankle and a pulled knee. But both reported they will be fine. There was a lost phone, but it was found during the litter sweep where the person had fallen asleep during the night game! I was pleased to hear of people’s moments of distinction for the event people were excited and happy and said they had a good time and would be back. The final scores were: Dead Head Reds = 300TP but the winners were Kim’s Krushers the Blellows with = 395TP. The winners were: Best Survival Kit: Lee Best Skill Share: Kirri Sole Survivor: Damien Chief Infector/Zombie Commander: Rich Best Marshal: Allan We have a short break now for a few weeks where we have Cardiff Zombie Walk and after party charity/benefit gig on Saturday 3rd of May, raising money for Cardiff Animal Rights, Bristol Childrens Hospital (The Grand Appeal) and Jemimas Place animal Sanctuary. After which the next day May 4th, sees our intrepid explorers set off on our six day expedition walking all the way from Cardiff to Snowdon, arriving at the bottom of Snowdon on Saturday 10th May in the afternoon, where we will be joined by anyone who would like to climb Snowdon. This walk will be raising money for Bristol Childrens Hospital and Jemimas Place animal Sanctuary. I hope to see you at either or both of the upcoming charity events, if not the next event is on May 17th-18th, and we have lots more events that have space available throughout the year! Any questions please ask, and please share with all your friends, family, colleagues and groovy looking strangers.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Apr 2014 11:58:14 +0000