EEESoc paintballing even
Feb 2010
Around 80 students and staff arrived at the paintballing event on a chilly Saturday morning in February. The organisers were only used to processing around 30 people and so it took a while to get started.
We were split into two groups of around forty and positioned either side of a steep muddy valley. I think the idea was to raid the other team’s den and take their flag – not much chance of that! In the first few minutes, thousands of paintballs were randomly fired into the air leaving the ground covered in what looked like little yellow marbles. Luckily for me there were not many experienced paintballers around. As soon as you tried to move uphill you would slip, fall, slide backwards and your mask would mist over. I could not see a thing for the first two games.
In the afternoon we moved to a smaller flatter area that had obstacles placed in a mud bath and again the idea was to take the opposite team’s flag and this ended in a memorable 1-1 draw.
The final event was a free-for-all, luckily I had brought my son Adam along for protection and he did a good job but it cost me £30 on extra paintballs. I had been told that, “You may feel a shot or two, but once your into the game they become unnoticeable. The odd bruise may occur”. In the end I swallowed paint and tasted blood and was covered in 10p coin size bruises, but it was a fantastic day.
Thank you to EEESoc for organising this event and good luck with the rest of your event programme.
Prof Andrew Gibson
Head of School of EEE