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HALO supporting Humberside Police Night Challenge 2018

Humberside and Lincolnshire Orienteers (HALO) once again played a leading role in supporting Humberside Police’s Night Challenge initiative. The challenge saw over 150 young people aged between 13 and 18 from East Riding, Hull, North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire take part in the annual 13-mile trek over the challenging terrain of Brantingham Dale.

As well as completing 13 miles of night orienteering, mainly off road, starting and finishing at Brantingham Park (the home of Hull Ionians Rugby Football Club) in East Riding, the youngsters faced eight challenges stationed around the route which this year focused on cyber safety and child sexual exploitation and the associated risks linked to them.

The 30 teams were recruited through Neighbourhood Policing Teams from young people they know and youth and community groups they work alongside. The aim was to include young people who may not have had the opportunity to take part in this kind of outdoor experience, have little experience of the countryside or know what opportunities are available.

Humberside Night Challenge 2018

The teams took between six and eight hours to complete the course, the first team starting at 17:00 with the last underway at an eye-catching 00:15.

The 12 members of HALO were out in force from early in the day right through the night to the early hours of Sunday, with Neil Harvatt and Ken Hutson putting out the controls and having the unenviable task of setting off after the last team to collect them all back in, returning to the clubhouse at 9:00 on Sunday morning.

Each team commenced the Challenge with navigation training by HALO members who delivered an excellent introduction to Orienteering covering how to read maps, plot missing control points, learn about the dibber and understand the obstacles they were likely to face on the route.

Each team is awarded points reflecting how well they completed the various challenges as well as the orienteering but the final results are kept under wraps until the Awards Evening on 29 April at Brantingham Park. In previous years the prize for the winning team was a week’s adventure course in the Lake District, second was a day trip to Silverstone Racetrack and third was a day trip to Alton Towers. A special award of a place on the Outward Bound Classic Course was made to the outstanding individual competitor, and glider flights were made to a number of other outstanding individuals.

Commenting on the event HALO Event Coordinator John Butler, said: 
“This is the ninth year that we have been involved in the Night Challenge and it is one of the ways that we can put something back into the community, particularly for those young people, many of whom have not had the same privileges as the rest of us.”

The initiative is run in conjunction with High Sheriffs’ Tribune Trust, Humberside Fire and Rescue Service, Maritime and Coastguard Agency, St John’s Ambulance, Humberside and Lincolnshire Orienteering Club, HM Prison Service, Defence School of Transport at Leconfield, Yorkshire 4X4 Response, Not in Our Community, Eskimo Soup, Corner House and Yorkshire Lowland Search and Rescue.

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