Hayling Billy treasure hunt

Peter Drury is planning a bunch of activities to commemorate the 50 year anniversary of the closure of the Hayling Billy line.

[He’s also making good progress towards getting the Billy trail resurfaced between the Texaco Garage and the Esso Garage. He therefore deserves our support. Unfortunately, his request for lottery funding failed. Peter is now looking for alternative sources of funding.]

We’ve decided to launch a treasure hunt over the week-end of 6/7 July 2013. There’s a lot happening then and it will be a good opportunity to join the fun and hopefully gain some supporters in the process. The treasure hunt will be open to all – not just cyclists. Anyone will be able to download details from this site to do it whenever they like.

The links below provide more information about what we have planned.

Perhaps you’ve got some good ideas? Maybe you’d like to help with the organisation? If you’d like to help, or if you’ve got any suggestions please get in touch.

Thanks,
Andy Henderson
andy@cyclehayling.org

We aim to:

  • Provide a an opportunity to for everyone to enjoy the Hayling Billy Trail in its own right, and as part of a round island cycle route
  • Provide a ‘backbone’ activity for the weekend of 6/7 July, linking other events taking place as part of HB50
  • Promote cycling on the island and raise people’s cycling aspirations
  • Help people achieve their cycling aspirations
  • Let people know about our campaigns and how to support them

To allow everyone to participate, we see the need for two treasure hunt routes:

  1. Going the length of the HBT starting at Havant Station and ending at HIADS (people can go either way). We would promote the 30/31 buses for the return leg for people that don’t want to travel back down the HBT.
  2. A more circular route for people happy to use the roads (and cyclists in particular)

There’s no circular route that includes both HIADS and the top of the trail. So we’re thinking the circular route would be:

  • Havant station to HIADS following the HBT, using Cycle paths around Langstone and over the bridge and incorporating the Oyster Beds
  • Back up the trail and then along the Cycle Hayling ‘Rural Ride’ around Northney to the bottom of the bridge
  • Back over the bridge to the station

We would also promote our cycle map advertisers. For those not on the route, we would propose some extensions that would include them. See the Cycle Hayling map for the rural ride and our advertisers. We would also describe optional extensions to the route that include some of Hayling’s attractions – such as the Kench – for people that might want to include them.

We plan to set up two booths that will:

  • Issue treasure hunt material
  • Collect completed entries and issue medals
  • Discuss cycling with all and sundry
  • Promote our campaigns

We’re trying to arrange for one ‘booth’ to be sited at HIADS to be part of the exhibition there.

We’re considering places for the ‘booth’ at the other end:

  • The Spring is a possibility. It becomes an obvious choice if The Spring is hosting a display over the weekend. It is not at the true ‘end’ of the line, however.
  • The station is at the top of the Billy Trail, however, but it’s a bit isolated.
  • Putting the booth in Havant High Street somewhere is much better for overall promotion. It could perhaps be a focus for advertising general HB50 activities. Getting permission might be a problem.

In any case – and If we can arrange it – we’d like to set something up in Havant High Street for a couple of weekends prior to the event so we can promote the treasure hunt, HB50, Cycle Hayling and our campaigns.

We plan to use:

  • HB50 web site and material
  • This web site
  • Hayling Forum
  • Hayling Islander
  • Langstone and Havant local press
  • Portsmouth News
  • Council newsletters

We also plan to:

  • Tell shops/outlets mentioned in the Treasure Hunt what we’re doing and give them some flyers to hand out to customers. We will also suggest they have some mini-prizes (e.g. some wrapped sweets) for participants that drop in.
  • Let the schools know what’s happening and invite them to publicise the event (we are already involved with schools through our campaigns for safe cycle routes to school).
  • Let the holiday camps know what we’re doing and invite them to advertise the treasure hunt as part of their activities (some of them have bikes for hire to guests)

We’ll need to pull together the materials we’ll need for handing out on the day and for people to download from this site:

  • The Treasure hunt notes/entry form
  • Cycle Hayling maps to issue with each form
  • Cycle Hayling flyers aimed at:
    • raising people’s aspirations together with offers of help to meet them (in coordination with the web site)
    • introducing our campaign work and asking people to become supporters

We do not intend to provide signage for the routes. The issued material (which will include a copy of the Cycle Hayling map) will be sufficient to describe the route.

The nature of the treasure hunt is similar to the scarecrow festival organised by Hayling’s BEST. As a sub-group to Hayling’s BEST we are automatically covered by its insurance policy. We’re exploring whether that will be adequate.

We do not intend to make special arrangements for parking. Instead we propose to advertise parking local to HIADS and Havant.

We would point people to Hayling Cycles, Sivyer Cycles and Halfords if they have a mechanical problem. Cyclists are, in any case, well-disposed to help people in trouble.

We’ll also need to arrange rotas to ensure the booths are attended.

If you want to support our efforts, please subscribe to the supporters’ newsletter.


Progress to date

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