Cops take on kids and flying ice

The 'Cops vs Kids' fear factor competition staged in Kaitaia on Friday should have come with the warning 'Do not try this at home.'

Organised by youth (Be the Change) for youth, it was all good clean fun, Senior Constable Rowena Jones, said, although the 'clean' bit might have been in dispute.

For a start, she said, diving face first into bowls of flour turned out to be a bit messy. The idea was to retrieve various edibles buried deep within the flour, which some did more successfully than others, but the flour did tend to spread around a bit.

Brussel sprouts were supposed to have been amongst the buried tid bits, but were found to be out of season, which no one seemed inclined to complain about.

Then there was delving into ice to retrieve marbles. Not as difficult as chewing into into flour, but Senior Constable Jones said things went "a bit mental" at that stage.

"There was ice flying everywhere, people stealing other people's marbles - all pretty much a good old-fashioned shambles," she said.

Some of the seven challenges were less fear-inducing than others. Eating 10 Weet-Bix with hands tied behind backs then blowing up balloons until they popped hadn't proved especially terrifying, but some of the culinary tasks were more intimidating. Like licking a smorgasbord of tasty treats including wasabi, spring onions and mustard off sheets of laminated paper, and chowing down on concoctions, chosen blind from a series of buckets, like Marmite, mustard and cinnamon.

"Eaten like that, cinnamon is terrible stuff," Senior Constable Jones added.

"It comes out, quite spectacularly, from the most unexpected places."

And then there were the buckets that the blindfolded participants were required to thrust their hands into to retrieve more marbles as they tried to keep their imaginations under control. Cooked tapioca and oil achieved a fairly lively response, she said, but participants were assured that while three buckets contained live creatures, none would do them no harm: "They were told that some of them would bite but none of them were poisonous."

At least one would-be delver surrendered at around that point, and was last seen screaming off into the carpark before he even lifted the lid.

The fear factor was part of a Friday programme that included movies, munchies, board and computer games, pampering for the fairer sex, shooting hoops and more.

On Saturday everyone turned up at Te Ahu, where a talent quest was decided after skateboarding and graffiti aficionados had done their best to impress the judges.

The Glow Rage that followed the afternoon's entertainment attracted around 120 revellers, and with everyone being well fed and watered, and the Kaitaia Lions in charge of security, everything went well once again. Everyone was breath tested when they arrived and bags were searched, which impressed a lot of parents.

"It was all very positive," Senior Constable Jones said.

The organisers had decided to donate the proceeds from the two days to Blue Light, which sponsored the Friday but left the organising to Be the Change, on the condition that more youth events be staged.

Meanwhile Saturday's winners were:

Skateboarding - Rapata Pepene 1, Kayden Matiu 2, Rogan Nukunuku 3. Graffiti - Tama Harris 1, Ngaiwa Muru 2. Talent quest - All Out Dance Crew (Kaitaia) 1, One Night Stand (dance, Kerikeri) 2, Canary Herbert (singing) 3.