Pirates pinch puzzles in Bury’d Treasure hunt

Real-life pirates have been trying to sink a summer adventure scheme for children and families which is taking place in green spaces across Bury.

Clues have been damaged and removed in several locations across the Bury’d Treasure hunt, leaving many children and families disappointed.

Bury’d Treasure was launched by Bury Council in partnership with the I Will If You Will (IWIYW) campaign, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and 15 primary schools. The pirate inspired treasure hunt aims to get children and families discovering and enjoying Bury’s natural beauty, having fun, and walking or cycling while searching for clues to solve puzzles that may win them or their school a prize.

Bury’d Treasure runs until 21 August in seven local parks and trails, and each route has seven puzzles. The answers to the puzzles create a code which is entered into the Bury’d Treasure website or mobile application. There are weekly prize draws. Puzzles in each location are changed every Monday. In its opening week, 48 families braved the bad weather to follow a treasure map on the routes.

However, over the first weekend, four puzzles (two at Clarence Park, one on the Kirklees Trail and one at Nuttall Park) went missing, and two were vandalised (one each at Clarence Park and Philips Park). These have since been replaced.

Councillor Trevor Holt, cabinet member for health and wellbeing, said: “It’s a shame that some people are trying to spoil the fun for others – they’d be better off taking part in the treasure hunt themselves and winning a prize!

“We can’t force these pirates to walk the plank, but we would ask them to be mindful that their actions are spoiling the treasure hunt for the children and their families that have been really looking forward to it. The good news is that no one will miss out from completing the hunt, and we hope they will have a great time solving the puzzles.”

If a puzzle is missing, please report it via www.burydtreasure.org.uk so they can be replaced quickly. For your entry, simply replace the answer with an X. You will then be entered into the prize draw as normal.

To register for Bury’d Treasure or to find out more, please visit: burydtreasure.org.uk

ENDS

Press release issued: 7 July 2016.

Notes to editors:

About Bury’d Treasure:

Bury’d Treasure is a pirate adventure game that’s perfect for families to

have fun together in the borough of Bury this summer. Anyone can play, it won’t cost a single gold coin and even better, there’s loads of prizes to win.

The Bury’d Treasure trails will be ready and waiting to be discovered every single day between 27 June and 21 August 2016.

The trails are situated at Nuttall Park, Philips Park, Clarence Park, Kirklees Trail, Prestwich Clough, Outwood Country Park and Peel Monument. The puzzles on each trail will be changed every Monday and all answers have to be submitted via the Bury’d Treasure website or app by midnight on the following Sunday.

Every puzzle answer entered via the Bury’d Treasure website or app is equal to one entry into the free weekly prize draw.

About I Will If You Will:

I Will If You Will is focused on changing women’s and girls’ behaviours towards taking part in sport and physical activity with the aim of getting more women and girls being more active, more often, and helping improve the health and wellbeing of people in Bury.

It aims to overcome the many practical and emotional barriers to being active, while encouraging women to support each other by joining the I Will If You Will community.

The Phase One campaign (2013–14) was delivered by Bury Council with £2.3 million of National Lottery funding from Sport England. For the Phase Two campaign (2015–16), Sport England has allocated a further £2 million to extend delivery.

The successful IWIYW pilot campaign identified valuable insight and helped develop the foundations for Sport England’s national This Girl Can campaign, which launched in January 2015, as well as Sport England’s practical guide to helping women and girls get active (www.sportengland.org/womenandgirls).