The Great WAIT Scavenger Hunt

In late 1978, as part of Student Activities Week, the WAIT Student Guild organised The Great Scavenger Hunt. Meant in good fun, there was a somewhat anarchic outcome to the Hunt not foreseen by organisers.

Items on the Hunt list included:

Each item was worth a certain number of points and those with the most points, won the competition. There was also a general invitation to obtain “imaginative” items not already on the list.

The Hunt took place over the week of 2-6 October, 1978. There was considerable student enthusiasm for the Scavenger Hunt, which resulted in a sizeable collection of items belonging to the campus and not belonging to the campus finding their way to the Guild courtyard by the deadline of Friday 6 October for judging.

Prizes included a $50 account at the Eureka Bar, six free passes to the “Sports Nite Out” and a carton of tins. Demerit points applied for the T. L. Robertson Bust and the Japanese Ornamental Lantern from Social Sciences. All entries were to be returned by the entrants as soon as the Hunt was over.

Consternation amongst staff grew as the week went by. After the Hunt, the November 1978 WAIT Gazette reported that the number of items appeared to ‘represent commando style raids’ on our campus, roads around the Institute, and possibly Murdoch University and the University of Western Australia. These appeared to have been undertaken with ‘military precision’ and likely to have been the work of ‘one well-organised student group’.

The flags at the front of the Insitute were not exempt and found their way to the Guild Courtyard. Neither was the door to the WAIT Director’s Office. There were campus signs and wall plaques, more doors, office equipment, toilet seats, a vacuum cleaner, elevator button plates (which meant the elevator had to be shut down) and external road signs from across Perth, including those pointing to the Airport.

Returning the campus to its previous condition was time consuming for WAIT building maintenance and grounds staff. Jack Finney, the Institute Architect, presented a list of scavenged items and damage to the WAIT Council, adding that the scale of the hunt and the restoration work for damage to property had demoralised and disappointed his staff.

Dr Haydn Stanley Williams, the then Director of WAIT advised the Student Guild that he was dismayed and disappointed that the work of a small number of students had resulted in such widespread vandalism, when the majority of students had behaved responsibly. He stated that costs for restoration would be borne by the Student Guild.

The Student Guild President while conceding that it was an error to include ‘points allotted for any imaginative find not mentioned’ on the poster, felt that ‘the attitude of some staff members left much to be desired’.