Taskmaster challenge

Around Easter time, Fraser came to see me. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about,” he said.

I was intrigued. Fraser is the finance manager, and also one of my compound neighbours. I doubted his question was work-related. Nor did it seem likely that it concerned the informal ballet lessons I had been giving his 6-year-old daughter over the last few months. 

“I think it would be a great idea to do a Taskmaster-style challenge, but I need someone to be the Taskmaster, and I thought you would be the ideal person. Are you interested?”

He handed me a book of ‘tasks for ordinary people’ and explained the concept behind the TV show (which I hadn’t seen). My brain immediately jumped into action and over the next few weeks we planned how the event might work and what tasks we could give our contestants to do.

We decided to assign people to teams, and have a variety of tasks - on site, off site, teams working together, and tasks for individuals representing their team. Everyone seemed to have fun (apart from one of the kids, who was given the task of ‘Eat a mint as slowly as possible’ and couldn’t stand the taste of it in her mouth). In fact one person even told me, “I wasn’t expecting to enjoy today, but I did.” I took that as a compliment!

Even though Mount Hagen is the third largest town in Papua New Guinea, there are very few entertainment options. Thinking about youth group events I used to organise in Lower Hutt, where we had the choice of ten-pin bowling, laser strike, cinemas, inflatable fun zone, indoor sports, trampoline park, paintball, go-karting, rock climbing, ice skating rink... Here, there is obviously none of that. You have to make your own entertainment, and it generally needs to be within the confines of your compound. The Taskmaster challenge was an attempt (and, it seems, a successful one) to break out of the mould of movie night after movie night, or sitting around a dinner/BBQ/bonfire chatting.

I think it’s safe to say there will be a sequel!

Taskmaster and assistant

The contestants

'Turn the most unanticipated thing upside down'

Holding a glass of water at arm's length without spilling

The next three photos were from the 'off-site' task:

"Purchase clothing items from a second hand store to dress your team to represent a movie. Your maximum total spend is K20. Your team will score ten points if the Taskmaster correctly guesses which movie is represented."

Team Glass-in-bury

Team Miles of Enge-duros

Team St Roger

The overall winners!