Divvying up the Spoils

Look at this blanket, filled with glamorous prizes

Everyone wants to have this problem:  you've just won a contest, and now you have to divide the prizes among your teammates.  If you won it all by yourself, no problem, but that's usually not the case.  And don't think you can put this off until you've got the prizes in hand.  In one contest I participated in in Germany, teams split up after arguing about how to split the prize before they were even close to finding it.

So it's best to have at least the outline of a plan beforehand.  My suggestions:

Say you're going to split it all evenly (or as evenly as possible) and work out the details later.

If you do manage to win a big enough prize (or a set of prizes) see if there's a way to use part of it to throw a party for everyone who participated and helped.  That way, even people who performed a minor role, such as lending you a piece of equipment or watching your kids while you went out searching late at night, can get a reward.

If the prizes are easy to divide, do so.  But if they're a diverse lot (like the collection of things above that I won from the Emerald City Search), don't bother trying to make things come out evenly in value.  Instead, ask everyone what they want most and try to get everyone at least one of the things on their list (it's better to get people to declare their wish list in public, so that if someone doesn't get their first choice, they know why).  If there are conflicts, order people at random rather than trying to figure out who 'deserves' it more. After everyone's got something they want, people take turns picking prizes from the pool like an NFL draft, until everything's picked or no one wants anything that's left.  If you manage to do this quickly, you can take the leftovers to the party and invite your guests to just take what they want.  Or you can donate the remainders to a charitable auction, or use them as prizes at your own puzzle hunt.

Charitable Canlis Card

One of these cards is not like the other

One of the Canlis cards I won back in 2010 poses an entirely different problem.  The card is good for a dinner for two people, annually, but I cannot use it myself.  Instead, I must give it away to a person who has displayed philanthropy (in some way) in the Seattle area.

There were 11 of us who participated in the final hunt that won the cards, and my first impulse was to rotate the power to choose the card's recipient among the members of my team.  But my wife suggested a better idea would be for us to do it together as a team.  So this week, for the second time, as many of the 11 that could got together at our house to have a drink, nosh, and discuss who should get the 'charitable Canlis card'.

Only 7 of the 11 could make it this year.  One person was out of town, but he wanted to participate, so we tried various technological solutions, eventually settling on a Google+ 'hangout' (which also allowed us to simultaneously see and edit a Google doc listing the people we were considering).  After we got the hangout set up, we decided we might as well invite the two members who had moved away last year as well.  One of them ended up joining us, making 9 in all.

I had decided we should pick the recipient by 'consensus', but there are a number of ways to do so.  I liked the Apache Project's consensus method the best, although I had to modify it for the case where we had to choose one of many possibilities.  Under the Apache model every voting member has 3 possible votes:  thumbs up, thumbs down, or no vote (abstain).  Thumbs up and no vote can be made without explanation (although you're welcome to explain if you like), but you can't vote thumbs down without a good explanation.  In most cases, a single thumbs down means a veto of whatever is being voted on, which works well in a consensus situation, since presumably anyone who gets a thumbs down will not be agreed on by everyone.  Conversely, everyone who doesn't get a thumbs down is at least acceptable to all the voters, so our only question was which of the people who got no negative votes is the 'best' candidate.

[Incidentally, most of the negative votes are by the person who suggested the candidate in the first place.  "I know I suggested X, but I'm not sure about them, so I'll come back next year and see if I can find someone else who does the same thing better."]

Last year, the answer was pretty easy, as one candidate had thumbs up from everyone, and no other candidate was even close.  This year, however, we had 3 candidates with 8 or 9 thumbs up, one with 5, and a few with 2 or 3.  So I made it up as I went along.  We dropped a few, had another round of voting, which narrowed it down to 2 finalists, and eventually selected Bonnie Miller, by the oh-so-definitive score of 5 votes to 4 (good thing we found person #9).  Bonnie has volunteered her time for years organizing and working on environmental projects in Seattle, most notably at Magnuson Park and with the Friends of the Burke Gilman Trail.

News and Events

The 9-5 Scavenger Hunt was magical

 

Ongoing

• Book Scavenger hunt - Seattle Public Library's Teen Summer Reading Program.  .
• Ready Player One Easter Egg Hunt - I just finished reading the book.  3 stars out of 4.  Joe Bob says check it out.

Upcoming 

• Girls of Summer Alleycat, pt. 2 - June 23, I-5 Colonnade Park. Over $3000 in prizes.  Holy smoke.
• Urban Dare - June 23. Amazing-Race style event. 
• Issaquah Street Scramble - June 24. I will be there.
• BEAST race #3 - June 28, UW Waterfront Activities Center.  I will also be here, as I love canoe orienteering.
• Long O - June 30, Salmon La Sac.  Great spot to camp and orienteer.
• ZLOGCAT - June 30, Cal Anderson Park.  Alleycat race, sponsored by a fixed gear bike blog.  Costs more than most alleycats ($15), but you get a T-shirt, and I'm guessing the prizes are better.
• Gorilla Challenge - June 30.  Amazing-Race style event.  Bonus:  people running around in gorilla suits!
• First Thursday Adventure Run - July 5, Green Lake.
• CitySolve Urban Race - July 7.  Another Amazing-Race-esque race.
• TRIOBA 24 Hour Adventure Race - July 7, Cougar, WA.  "There will be 15-25 miles of flat water paddling, 50-75 miles of biking, and 20-30 miles of trekking and trail running."  Be prepared, or just stay at home and rest up for...
• Summer Puzzle Hunt 2012 - July 8, 1pm.  Put on by yours truly.
• Evening Orienteering - Wednesday, July 18, Big Finn Hill Park, Kirkland.  With a big barbecue afterwards.
• Pirate Treasure Hunt - Friday, July 20, 6pm.  Meadowbrook Community Center.  "Put on your eye patch and bandana and follow the clues in search for hidden treasure with the help from REAL pirates!  A backyard BBQ will follow.  Fun for the whole family."  Sounds like the Seafair pirates just might attend.
• Urban Bike Adventure - July 22.  Looks like a bike version of the Amazing Race.  Solve puzzles, bike to checkpoints, cash and other prizes.  I'd totally enter this except I have a prior commitment.
• Tour de Watertower - July 22.  A punishing race to all of Seattle's high hills ('cause that's where the watertowers are, baby).  Since the towers and the starting/ending points are widely known, this race favors speed and endurance over route planning.
• Choose Your Own Adventure - July 22, UW.   Orienteering on campus, with a get-together at the Big Time Brewery afterwards (in the early afternoon, which means the Big Time is all-ages).

Here's a write-up on last weekend 9-5 all-night bicycle scavenger hunt, by a participant:  9 to 5 on my 925

Geocaching puzzle of the week:  Buta Sudoku  Sudoku with a twist.  I've solved the 4x4 version, but screwed up the 9x9 version twice.  I'll get you, egg!