Apprentice 2019 (6) – The Godly Golfing (Bake-Off and Conker Battle) Gauntlet

Every other month Director Tom Bowden brings the team together to compete in the Footprint Digital Apprentice Challenge. This year the Footprint Digital team has split into two groups: The PowerPuff Girls and The Michael Scanlon Jazz Band Experience. Having completed round one, two, three, four & five, the score stands at 3-2 to the Power Puffs. Gorge your eyes on the stupendous account of how challenge no:6 went for our teams. To the winners…glory. To the losers… you’re fired!

As of August, our Digital Marketing Executive Course had come to a close, the graduation a thing of the past. Footprint was lucky enough to add four new members to our team; both teams acquired new bidding members in their battle for glory. 

Tom Bowden assembled his teams again for a fresh challenge. A gauntlet of tasks was laid before them. First, it was clubs at the ready. Miniature golf clubs that is. The teams were to battle it out over a series of fourteen holes. The winner would be the team who had the lowest scorer. 

Second, they would gather their baking trays, ready their mixing spoons, slip on their oven gloves and construct a beautiful gingerbread house. They would be judged by the golf range’s in-house experts – not to mention Tom Bowden himself.

The last challenge would sort the hard from the soft… Conkers. Split into their teams; it would be conker wars until the last person was standing. 

The challenges clear – it was go time. 

The Miraculous Miniature Golf 

The teams were split into groups of four, each side having equal Jazz Band and PowerPuff members. Weapons selected, and coloured balls of choice, the Golfing commenced.

From the offset, there were stray shots, loud sighs and the old sploosh as one or two team members struggled with the water element of mini-golf. Heroicly, the teams made their way through each hole – the majority of them being well over par. 

Special mentions to Taya Beleanina and Chris Ainsworth who both managed to sink a hole-in-one.

It was a tense yet joyous affair for all involved. With every hole completed, the teams handed over their scorecards and hastily continued with the next challenge.

The Backbreaking Bake-Off 

With neither team the wiser as to the winner of the first round, they each threw themselves into the baking round. 

Each team was equipped with the ingredients for a gingerbread house and were given ample decorative sweets. What should have been perhaps the more relaxing phase of the gauntlet, turned out to be anything but.  

Suddenly the competitive nature of our teams came out. Ingredients were hidden, kitchens were commandeered, and helpful advice was non-existent. The two teams both took very different approaches. The PowerPuffs decided to get creative and renovate their house into a tower; Colchester’s Jumbo Tower. Whereas the Jazz Band took a much more safe approach, making their version of the box’s gingerbread house. 

As the teams mixed, cut and designed, the clock was ticking down. Once the gingerbread pieces were in and out of the oven, the real race began. For the PowerPuffs, it became quickly apparent that their Gingerbread Jumbo reincarnation might struggle with the standing element. But, between them, they agreed this was only a minor issue, and some quick ingenuity would solve it.

The Jazz band found that some of their gingerbread foundations were slightly on the crumbling side. But, with some adept icing work, they were able to render these blemishes unseen to the naked eye.

When time was called, the two teams revealed their creations: 

Jazz Band:

PowerPuffs: 

Nailed it!

Each team’s time was up. It was down to the in-house golf/baking experts to decide a winner. Each was judged on their look and overall taste. Tom Bowden took great pleasure in destroying both creations one by one. With his oversized knife, he cut samples out for himself and the three judges. As the gingerbread was chewed, the internal judging cogs whirred. 

With the judging over, Tom Bowden steadied himself to give the results of the first two rounds. As it turned out, the Jazz band had won both the miniature golf and bake-off giving them a unanimous win for this apprentice challenge! There was rejoicing; there were tears; there was a pint of water holding up the PowerPuff’s tower attempt. Emotions were high, but the day wasn’t over yet. 

The Conclusive Conker War

With nothing left to play for but pride, the PowerPuffs were ready to rage conker war… 

Forearms were smashed, conkers were bashed, dreams were dashed – and all in the space of about ten minutes. With competitors falling like flies, their conkers smushed and bruised, only three remained. Hannah Meadows was the only remaining member of the PowerPuffs. For the Jazz Band Thomas Rowson and Dave Roscoe remained. It looked to be a three out of three whitewash.

Yet, one after the other, they fell to the tumultuous blows of the Mega Meadows Massive. Single-handedly, she left both conkers battered and beaten, again proving that any challenge that requires physical dominance would fall in her favour (The Great Indoor Kart-Off). 

Regardless of their exceptional efforts on the day, the PowerPuffs fell to the Jazz Band. This leveled the scores to three a piece for our teams. Will either team EVER extend to a two-point lead?! Only time will tell – Bring on round seven!

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