Operation Red Flare 2008

[Red Flare 2008 Winning Team]
The winning team from Belmont Explorer Scout Unit with the trophy

This year’s ‘Operation Red Flare’, held over the weekend 1st–2nd March 2008 and organised by Croydon District Scout Council, was won by a team from Belmont Explorer Scout Unit.

The event, now in its 44th year, is a 12-mile hike at night with activities (incidents) at checkpoints along the way. A new route is devised each year and teams have no idea of where they are going until they check in at the start, which this year was at Polyapes Scout Campsite near Cobham.

Altogether there were 25 teams of 4–7 Explorer Scouts, Ranger Guides, and Scout Network members, most of whom were fairly local. Seven of the teams were from Sutton District.

Activities included climbing over tyres suspended between trees, finding 20 things to put in a matchbox, shear-lashing canes together to remotely trigger a mouse trap, constructing an A-frame to cross a stream, throwing a weighted line to rescue a person from a body of water and getting the whole team over a rickety fence without touching it. The route was 12½ miles long and circular, starting and finishing at Polyapes Scout Campsite.

Points were awarded for navigation, speed, the activities and a pre-start kit check. Twenty-three teams completed the challenge; the other two teams retired before the finish.

The table below shows a summary of the scores for the teams from Sutton District. Note that the time figures used are totals of the times taken to navigate the course and the times taken to complete the tasks. Full details and a full score sheet (68KBytes PDF) are available on the Greater London South West web site.

Place	Team	Time	Points	Bases	Tasks	Total
Belmont ESU 'B'	1st	4:58	252	150	129	531
Double Dragon 'B'	3rd	5:26	224	150	124	498
Sutton ESU	4th	5:31	219	150	115	484
Ruskin ESU	9th	6:42	148	150	121	419
Belmont ESU 'A'	12th	7:29	101	150	117	368
Cheam ESU	13th	7:45	85	150	131	366
South Wallington RGU	20th	8:56	14	150	116	280