Playing ‘real life’ Monopoly on our capital’s streets
At 05:30 on Saturday morning, alarm clocks went off in households across Caythorpe and Grantham as 25 Scouts and 8 volunteer Leaders pulled themselves out of bed for a day trip to London like no other!
The build-up had been pretty intense, with lots of planning, lots of risk assessing, lots of questions, and the train drivers’ overtime ban threatening timetables and our plans in the days before the event. As these concerns were finally quelled, a new starting location in London was announced (after we’d planned the route from Kings Cross to Jubilee Gardens)… but we’re Scouts, we know to Be Prepared!
After quick ‘goodbyes’ to bleary-eyed parents at Grantham Station, we all jumped on the train and before we knew it we were arriving in London.
Our contingent from our two Scout Troops then split into five teams for the day; Wendsleydale, Zoltan, Eeeuurrrh, Tempest and Unicorn. We’d like it known that we’d never have the creativity to come up with such team names, these were allocated by the Monopoly Run team. We headed over to our new rendez-vous point, the Imperial War Museum, in the (cold) rain and waited for our 09:45 start time. It’s fair to say there was ‘a degree’ of competitiveness amongst our teams as we waited and plotted our strategies in separate areas of the park.
As the clock hit 09:45, the game started on the bespoke Monopoly Run Live App on our phones and off we headed, rather damp and chilly, towards our first check-ins!
Throughout the day the teams criss-crossed (or travelled in a structured, planned manner, depending on the team) across the Monopoly board locations, virtually checking-in, buying locations, paying rent, taking a ‘Chance’, completing challenges and the quiz. You can see each of the teams’ routes and activity throughout the day in the post-event analysis here:
As the day whizzed by, energy levels amongst the Scouts (and adults) ebbed and flowed. Fuelled by seemingly unlimited sweets and snacks everyone pushed through the sore feet, legs and tiredness to convene at Leicester Square before having a McDonalds tea and heading back to King’s Cross for the journey home.
The day in numbers:
- 25 Scouts from two Grantham District Troops
- 8 volunteer Leaders from two Grantham Groups
- Distances travelled on foot varied between 10 and 20km
- Somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 steps on the day per Scout
- 8,000 Scouts from across the UK taking part
- 1,395 teams playing at the same time
- 200 simultaneous games
- Find out how our teams scored here
We’d like to express our huge thanks to the Monopoly Run team. They are volunteers and take the time to organise this fantastic event every year. They must spend hours and hours meticulously planning, organising, answering questions and creating all the communication materials (including the amazing App and event brochure).
Thank you, Monopoly Run. Same time, next year?
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