Sombrero Guy
I found out in November that we would be spending New Year in East Anglia on the way to visit relatives in Norwich. My first thought was, "Great! I can visit Tom!" As it turned out, he was away, also visiting relatives.
But I couldn't just go so close to Great Yarmouth, host to possibly the biggest SF0 community in the UK, without doing something.
This task was perfect. I didn't actually have much time in Great Yarmouth, so it had to be something I could do quickly. This task didn't require me actually meeting anyone, and most of my part of this task was done at home before leaving.
First I had to find willing participants who I did not know. I'd met both Adam and Ben (the shorter?) earlier in the year, and I've known Tom since we were about 4, so they were not valid collaborators. In search of people I didn't know, I set up a private event and invited all GYØ members. I quite quickly had the three collaborators I needed; GYØ Vicki, GYØ the taller ben and GYØ Tish Tash.
I was organising the task as a game, with individual packages for each participant to uncover, and one final package. I would put clues in the individual ones leading to the final package, and whoever got to that first would win. The trouble was I did not know in advance where they would be buried, so clues were difficult. I decided to go with more of a puzzle-type thing, which my collaborators could solve and send me the answer in order to recieve directions to the final package.
I came up with the following:


I then wrote a message with some instructions, and designed a cover sheet for each side of the packages, which were small plastic wallets.


With the packages ready, I made sure I set out on the trip armed with the most advanced digging technology, er...a little plastic trowel.


When in Great Yarmouth, I found a location in which to bury the individual packages. My original intention was to bury all four packages in completely different places, but I was short of time, so buried all three packages in the same area.


I photographed each package's exact location. I will not put these photos in the main text as they are all just basically pictures of bushes.

Now we have a short interlude in which I'm sure I've seen that tower somewhere before...


I later found a suitable flower border along the coast for the final package, which contained the (admittedly pretty rubbish) prize:


I then left Great Yarmouth, thinking that all I would need to do is make a couple of maps and send the right photos at the right times.
My work there was done. Over to the others.

However the next weekend, due to a fault on my phone which I will not go into here, I found I had several missed calls from an unknown number, although the damn thing hadn't made a sound all afternoon. On ringing the number in question, I discovered it was Vicki, who had been searching in the photographed place but was unable to find anything.
A worrying progression. I felt a bit guilty about having made Vicki go out in the winter weather with no result. I also had to think about what to do next, and decided I should wait until the others had looked. Surely three packages can't just go missing?
A few weeks later, as I was making up my mind to send the puzzle digitally, Ben found his package, and solved the clue pretty quickly. On receiving the jpg file, Vicki too solved the clue, and the race was on. For whatever reasons, Tish Tash seems to have been unable to take part.

The next weekend, I was confronted with more disappointing news. Neither of the searchers had found the final package.
So, in short, the event I had organised failed. I don't see that it was due to any fault of any of us, but if you want to, blame it on me. It's easier that way, and avoids the good name of GYØ being affected. Maybe if I had found better burial sites we would have ended with more success. However, the curse of failure followed me and due to the weather (possibly) and some spoilsport in the Great Yarmouth general public (presumably), the event remains incomplete. And I don't really know how to end it. When I'm next in Great Yarmouth, and actually meeting people, I will give them both a consolation prize for the time spent freezing in vain.

However, it is not all doom and gloom. In the simplest possible way, the task was achieved. I buried a package; Ben dug it up.

One out of four ain't bad. Maybe.

Ben
Despite how excited i was to get some SF0ing done and pWn Vicki, cold, a big distance to cycle to yarmouth, being generally far too busy, and more cold kept me from getting down to the where the first package was for a few weeks, but finally, on a cold, dark, wet, windy sunday afternoon when the only thing to do was coursework, my astounding procrastination skills broke through to motivate me to cycle down to yarmouth with shawn.

we easily knew where it was and so found it as soon as we got down there, which was pleasantly surprising; this was a couple of weeks after vicki went to look for hers and it wasn't there. We didn't want to feel like we had came this far for this little peice of paper though, so for the next ten minutes or so we hung out in what i believe is the general area around where my friend charlie lives, but not knowing at which exact house she took residence, we gave up aftershe wouldn't answer her phone and started the long ride back to bradwell. grr at vicki and her starbucks and her nice warm car . . .

Back at home, and after bombarding goolge with different sections of the phrase "Qu'est-ce qui passe ici si tard?" in both english and french, untill i came to the conclusion that the book was little dorrit. then displaying marvelously advanced common sense compared to what vicki did, i searched the internet for the first chapter of the book and solved the wordsearch there and then. after inquiring in what exact order the letters should be in, i sent them to Jowan and, armed with the location of what i had then found out was food, i was extremely eager to go dig it up.

me shawn and ben (not a GYØ ben) were going to yarmouth anway the next sunday, so after cycling down there, some shopping, and two extremely funny games of bowling, we got to the sealife center and found the site to have already been dug up. after some futile kicking around in the dirt and after vicki didn't answer her phone - there really was something with that task that made phones malfunction - i decided to blame vicki anyway, either for finding it first, or for her luck with making packages dissapear. and because she got her mum to take her everywhere in the car.

now i'm wondering if we should tell tascha

Vicki
Well...

After getting the event message from Jowan, I thought it'd be good to get some tasking done again so I put my name down and awaited the new year. Once the message came through, determined to beat Fowler and Tasha, after a show audition me and my friend Daisy got the bus into Yarmouth, and after getting some lunch at Starbucks (mmm...hazelnut hot chocolate...), I wandered down Regent Road and searched for the location.

I had a vague idea where the place in the photo was, so it didn't take too long to find the right bush, and trying to dodge the glances of a few people on the basketball courts, I had a dig around. But alas, as seen above, the package was not there. I texted Tom to steal Jowan's number, and after ringing a few too many times with no success, I headed back into town and done a bit of shopping, including a pair of gloves, since it was freezing up town. I went back again and had another shuffle around, but by that time it was getting far too cold so I headed back home.

Sitting at home later, my phone started ringing. It was Jowan! I explained to him that my package was missing (grr..). A few weeks later, Jowan sends me the actual clue that I was meant to receive. "Qu'est-ce qui passe ici si tard?". Fortunately I was quite a fan of the BBC's recent adaptation of Little Dorrit so I immediately took myself off to the school library, getting quite a few funny looks from Year Sevens as I walked in, grabbed the book off the shelf and sat on the floor copying out the first few lines. Once I got home I solved the wordsearch, and over the not-so-wonder that is MSN, sent the remaining letters to Jowan and secured the final destination of the package.

After more Starbucks (caramel with cream this time =]) and Sainsbury's, Mum dropped me off outside the Sealife Centre, near Amazonia where the package was buried, so I went searching for the apparently edible parcel. But once again, nada. Grr.

So we tried. And Yarmouth failed. Pssh.