There really was a Golden Chicken!

I found out a couple of weeks ago that several readers of the Burleigh Blog thought I was having an early April Fool's joke with my earlier post about the Plymouth State University challenge course facilitator olympics. Well, to put the hecklers to rest - here is a picture of the goods.

The gathering was a huge success from my point of view. Kimberly and I couldn't stay the whole day unfortunately. While we were in Plymouth, however, we had a great time meeting facilitators from as far away as Cape Cod. We also had the chance to check out PSU's impressive course and nicely organized gear room.

Angel and Chris are great ambassadors for their program and should be given a lot of credit for making the event happen. They run challenge course programs for the university, as well as for local groups. There is a link to their website on the right - check them out!

I have to admit when I was holding the golden rubber chicken for the picture was the last time I would get anywhere near the trophy. Our first event was the zip line ball toss. We zipped while trying to toss balls into hoola hoops on the ground below. Key Punch numbers in the hoops gave each a point value. After one participant's disappointing point score but visually impressive, "bomb bay door" tactic failed to hit the mark, I was up. I chose a more surgical strike approach with only four balls in my arsenal. Here I am getting ready to launch.

Okay so I chose the sit down start - but not because I'd forgotten just how thrilling the launch off a zip can be - no really. My flight landed me an early lead with 25 points.
Later participants would blow me out of the water, including Chris's idea of dumping the entire basket of balls on the first set of hoops. An improvement on the bomb-bay door approach to be sure.

As Kimberly and I were heading back to school the other facilitators were breaking for lunch before the Pamper Pole Slam Dunk. I'm sorry to have missed it and I'm not sure who did walk home with the trophy at the end of the day.

PSU plans to make the event an annual one - hopefully growing each year. I'm told the trophy will make a reappearance next time as well. We can continue to vie for the (somewhat dubious) honor of holding the golden rubber chicken in our trophy case for a year!