Hacked By Ahmed 01 Nerd News & Needs
I’ll start with saying Sully was right. <sigh> And if you need a reference to that, you’ll need to listen to our July 31st podcast. Moving right along…
Scavenger hunts. Who doesn’t love ’em?! I think most everyone has taken part in one in some form or another. BUT……….there can only be one GISHWHES! As I write this, there’s still a small amount of time left to sign up here for this year’s hunt which begins on August 11th when they post the “list.” If you miss the deadline there is always next year so you’ll have plenty of time to get your team ready!
What the Heck Is GISHWHES?
I’m glad you asked. To honest, we didn’t know ourselves until maybe a week ago. GISHWHES, which stands for The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt The World Has Ever Seen, is the brainchild of actor Misha Collins who plays Castiel on the CW’s Supernatural. As a humanitarian, lover of art and one’s potential for creativity, he has organized this global scavenger hunt for everyone to take part in. And when we say global we mean g-l-o-b-a-l. One of the Guinness World Records it shattered last year was for the “largest scavenger hunt ever, with more than 14,000 participants from 69 countries.” Like we said…..global.
So What’s It Like?
Again, to be honest, we don’t know but we’ve signed up and we’re all in! Here’s a little excerpt from the GISHWHES site:
You need a camera, access to the Internet, and the desire to be part of an amazing global community…we post a list of items and you go scavenge (photograph or video) them and then upload links to them on our website. There are some items that you need to find, and others that you create…previous years’ items ranged from “random kindness items” like “Take a picture of you hugging a War Veteran” or “giving coats to a homeless shelter” to sublime items like “Take a picture of a stormtrooper cleaning a pool next to a sunbather” or “create a 2-foot tall seagull made entirely from sanitary napkins”.
– taken from the GISHWHES Q&A
And the Rewards?
When you can gather this many people across the country and throughout the world to come together for this sort of creative fun, one of the greatest payoffs can be the act of sharing and the hope that the idea continues to spread. Factor that in with GISHWHES being the largest donor of the non-profit Random Acts whose mission is to “conquer the world one act of kindness at a time.” Last year’s hunt was able to contribute over $40,000 to Random Acts! Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the grand prize for those participating in the hunt is incredible either. When teams turn in their submissions, the judges will award points to each submission and tally them up for the entire team. Last year Misha took the winning team, Badwolf, on an all-expense-paid trip to Scotland where they all stayed (with Misha) in a haunted castle, had a royal feast, and went of a ghost hunt!
This year’s grand prize is nothing short of grand either. The winning team will win a three-day, all-expense-paid trip to Vancouver, BC where they will take a seaplane to an island, be joined by Misha for a fish stew, a séance, and a Viking treasure hunt! The winning team members will also receive the GISHWHES Golden Wooster Pendant (of which they only make 15 every year). Not too bad huh?
Good luck hunters!
