Making safe and playful town centres, whilst supporting the NHS
Aylesbury Town Centre Partnership is supporting an ambitious new project, which will bring a fun, family experience to many of the UK’s town centres this summer, including Aylesbury, and aims to raise over £100k for NHS Charities Together!
It will be launched in Aylesbury town centre on Friday 31 July and you can join in until Saturday 5 September.
The story-trail, called Monster Hero Safari, gives families a fun and safe reason to come back into town and give towns a much-needed boost in footfall.
Monster Hero Safari works by utilising contactless technology and QR codes and is app-free without the need for players to download or sign up. The Safari consists of 10 window posters of monster superheroes with embedded tags.
Monster Hero characters, with names such as Hiccupmonster, Nebulous, Electropod, Jelly-stretchicles will be placed on the windows of ten independent business around the town: The Coffee Corner, The Works, Noodle Nation, The Coffee Tree, PDI insurance Services, The Grill, Rhapsody Hairdressing, Vire, Holy Cow and Albany Carpets are all playing host to a monster graphic in their window, so start looking out for your favourite monster.
It does not matter where you start your safari and you can engage with the experience by tapping or scanning each character and learning their names, stories and powers. As you begin the Safari there is a small fee of £2 which goes directly to NHS Charities Together.
Younger children will enjoy spotting the cute and colourful characters and older kids (and grown-up ones) will engage by learning more about them. After finding all ten Monster Heroes, families will be rewarded with a free e-book about their first adventure. You will also be given an opportunity to go into a prize draw for two £25 gift vouchers one to spend at The Works and the other for a Noodle Nation takeaway.
How it works
You tap or scan the poster to begin
You donate to NHS Charities Together
You visit and tap or scan the 10 safari characters
All of this is being done with a keen eye on safety, so the safari has been designed so that players can only interact with them in small family groups whilst adhering to social distancing and it is completely contactless.
Martin Blackwell, former CEO of ATCM (Association of Town Centre Managers) and the Charity Retail Association is coordinating the project pro bono said: “When I heard about the concept it just resonated with me and I knew I had to support it. I loved the idea of heroes; the idea of a “safari on the high street”! I just thought, if something fun like this can help make families feel good about going back out onto the high street and raise money for such a worthy cause then let’s go for it.”
Steve Bowles, Buckinghamshire Council Cabinet Member for Town Centre Regeneration, said: “It is wonderful to be able to put an activity on that families can enjoy during the school holidays whilst observing social distancing and keeping everybody safe at the same time as raising funds for NHS Charities. We have ten independent businesses within the town centre that are participating, so get involved and start hunting down your first Monster Hero. When you register to play you will be entered into a prize draw for vouchers to spend £25 at The Works and £25 at Noodle Nation which will be awarded at the end of the campaign.”