What is a Wide Game ?. Roughly a game of hide and seek, evade and capture etc. usually over a fairly wide area. Apart from being good fun it teaches the scouts stalking, hiding, navigation, moving about at night etc.. These are some of the wide games we play.
A team of intellectual property thieves attempt to smuggle vital computer software into Switzerland. (The software is carried on CD-ROM. You must have plenty of these ?. AOL, MSIE etc...) Another team, the Internet Police, try to capture the thieves and confiscate the software.
Switzerland is a small area (about 20 metres square). It should be approachable from a number of separate routes.
At the start, the thieves have two minutes to hide the CDs, and then they start to try to smuggle them into Switzerland. Once inside Switzerland they cannot be caught.
The thieves can only bring one CD into Switzerland at a time. They must wear a small patch of sticky tape on their upper arm. The police try to remove this patch and capture the CD before the theif gets to Switzerland. A thief must be wearing a patch of tape when entering Switzerland with a CD, otherwise the CD is confiscated by the state.
A thief without a patch can obtain a new one by returning to Switzerland. A leader stays in Switzerland to supply patches, to adjudicate on matters arising and to hold CDs smuggled and captured.
The game lasts about 20 - 30 minutes. The teams swap over. The winner depends on comparing the number of CDs smuggled into Switzerland with the number captured. You need about a dozen CDs.
Wool or crepe paper can be used instead of sticky tape, tied around the arm.
A group of Russian Prisoners is being transported to the slave camp (in a minibus). At some stage of the journey, they are allowed to over-power the guards and escape. They must get back to base camp without being captured by the Nazi border guards. The prisoners have a sketch map of the countryside, but don't know exactly where they escape. It is expected that the prisoners will split up into groups (patrols ?).
The Border Guards patrol the countryside between the escape point and the base camp. They try to capture the prisoners. The guards use radios to coordinate their surveillance. (We have a set of Panasonic hand-held radios. Actually the noise of the radios also serves as a way of indicating where the guards are !.)
Some guards patrol the area in vehicles. A vehicle cannot capture a prisoner, but can report back by radio if they see anyone. (If a scout gets lost, he can always hail a lift back to camp.)
Scoring : Prisoners must return to their base camp by a specified time. 5 points for each prisoner with a patch who returns within the time limit. 2 points if a prisoner returns within the time limit but without a patch. Zero points for a return outside the time limit.
Ideally this game must be played in a large, open parkland area, but you can adapt it depending on local circumstances. If there is plenty of cover it can be played in the day, but this is a terrific game when played at night.
When you start to play this, the prisoners should outnumber the guards 2 to 1, but once the prisoners get experienced the ratio should be even. (Another twist is to let the prisoners steal a radio.)
This game needs to be played in a large wood. (If you live in the vicinity of Bishop Wood - Selby, Tadcaster, Sherburn etc. - we have a large scale plan of Bishop Wood that is available for scout training purposes. Please apply by email.)
Scouts form small teams which are army search patrols looking for gun runners. Each patrol has a radio and a detailed map of the game's area. (A compass may also be used.)
A team of gun runners (it could be leaders, older scouts etc.) make a drop of guns to be picked up later. Each time the gun-runners make a drop they report clues for it's location over the radio. The scouts can eavesdrop the report and work out the location using the map. Choose your own object to represent the guns - we use balloons.
The army search patrols have to get to the drop locations as quickly as possible. The winning search patrol is the one with the most finds.
Ideally the gun runners choose locations for the drops such that the team finding one drop will not necessarily be best placed for finding the next drop.
The game will probably last about 1 hour or so. A pre-arranged signal for the end of the game is a good idea. We use an air-horn for this purpose.
Panasonic PalmLink TR325EXS. Maximum range is 5km in open flat countryside. Range is affected by trees, buildings and hills. Essentially these are line of sight radios. They last 30 hours with alkaline batterries.
CB radios. For games requiring a longer range we use hand-held CB radios that the group has had for a long time.
Training. The scouts need training in the use of a radio. When first presented with a radio they gabble away without thinking what is going on. The result is practically no communication. Therefore it is worth devising a training activity to show them how to communicate effectively. Also battery life can be conserved if you work to a schedule for passing messages.
Remember if you need information about any Scout Activity you can email Bill Oldroyd, Scout Leader, 1st Tadcaster. 01937-836078