HASH IN THE NEWS - Miami Running Group Grabs a Beer on Five-Mile Run

Miami Running Group Grabs a Beer on Five-Mile Run
Saturday, August 18, 2007

MIAMI — A group of screaming runners makes its way through the streets of South Beach. Restaurant patrons look up from their meals with startled expressions. One runner blows on a conch shell.
Others chant, "On, On!"
At the halfway mark in the five-mile run they stop at a bar called Lost Weekends to hydrate themselves — with beer. These are the Hash House Harriers — not runners with a drinking problem, but drinkers with a running problem. Or so they say. Once a week, the hashers partake in a run that is equal parts scavenger hunt, pub crawl and social gathering.
"I love it," said Rich Aube, a 35-year-old real estate agent from Dania Beach who has been hashing for four months. "I like to run and I don't mind drinking." The Miami-Fort Lauderdale chapter has about 300 registered members, a group that includes a National Hurricane Center meteorologist, a Broward County School Board member, a journalist, Navy officers and a dog. They range in age from 21 to 58. Most are men. It's similar to Hares and Hounds, the British children's game whose rules call for one member of the group (the hare) to run ahead of the others (the hounds) and leave behind an intricate trail marked with flour.

The hash started more than 70 years ago by Army officers living in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. After their morning run, they would end up at the Hash House bar. For the modern-day hashers, either a pub or a beer-stocked cooler awaits the end of the run. Through expatriate communities around the world and those who love knocking back a beer or two, running and a dirty joke, the ritual has evolved into an intricate society complete with a Bible, an anthem and Web sites like www.gthhh.com. There are 1,834 chapters registered in their online directory, in 178 countries and every American city. There are even chapters in Antarctica. "That's the best thing about the hash," said Nick Hogan, 38, an accountant from Fort Lauderdale, one of 24 people (and one dog) running in Miami Beach. "If you do a lot of traveling, you can always look up a hash. They'll bring you in like family." Although there is no formal headquarters or rules for the hash, there are hashing conferences, like the worldwide Interhash, held every two years in a different city. Similar to the Olympics, hashing chapters in each city lobby for the chance to host the festivities. More than 6,000 people attended the 2006 Interhash in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The next one will be in 2008 in Perth, Australia. There are also themed hashes: the red-dress run, where everyone wears a dress. Then there are steadfast traditions: A donation of a few dollars is given upfront. If you wear new shoes to a hash, you'll be forced to drink out of them.
After a hash, first-timers are heckled into singing a song, flashing a covered body part or telling a joke, preferably dirty. And everyone has a hash name. "Your name is somehow related to you in some way. Either your profession or a personality quirk or something goofy you do while you're drinking," said Marion "Liquor Briefs" Lohmayer, 43, a bartender turned paralegal.
Lohmayer regularly hashes with her dog, a boxer named Frankenstein, and her husband, whom she met while hashing. Hashers only address each other by their hash names. "And if you don't like a name, they'll give you a worse name," she said. There is, as with any subculture, hasher lore. Pedestrians and police often ask the group what they're doing.

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, authorities thought the flour the hashers threw on the sidewalks to mark their trail might be anthrax. After several run-ins, they temporarily turned to chalk and toilet paper. Most hashers are men in their late 30s and early 40s, but there are hashes on college campuses, senior hashes, hashes on military bases, hashes for children (they drink soda), for swingers, for women — the list goes on.

The local chapter, started in 1989, is a traditional hash. Each hash has its own characteristics geared to the area. In cities where snow falls, hashers drop Jell-O into the snow to mark the trail. In South Florida, hashes have taken them into boats, through the swamps of the Everglades and on a recent Monday, through the Art Deco streets of Miami Beach.
That particular hash began and ended in a parking lot, where they stretched their limbs, chugged some beers and sang bawdy songs — along with chatting about their mortgage payments, jobs and children. "Some of us are marathon runners," said Michael Tichacek, 43, a National Hurricane Center meteorologist from Miami.
"Some of us are beer drinkers. But the best part is nobody wins or loses. You just show up
credited : http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293694,00.html

REBUILDING THE HASH HOUSE

Picked this up from the Hash Group On Facebook.....
http://www.thehashhouse.org/

--Snip---from the webpage
WELCOME TO THE SITE OF THE HASH HERITAGE FOUNDATION WHOSE MISSION IS TO PRESERVE HASH HERITAGE AND HISTORY BY REBUILDING THE HASH HOUSE AND ASSEMBLING THE WIDEST COLLECTION OF ARCHIVES AND MEMORABILIA.

Become a member of the Hash House and contribute to the preservation of Hash history and the reconstruction of the "Home of the Hash".



mmm I noticed on the Geneology site South Africa doesnt even feature - Emailed them just to let them know we are out here....ON ON ER

HASH IN THE NEWS - Running club members face felony charges for hazmat scare at IKEA

Running club members face felony charges for hazmat scare at IKEA
By CARA RUBINSKY Associated Press Writer

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Daniel Salchow and his sister, Dorothee, planned to spend a pleasant afternoon marking a trail for fellow members of their offbeat running and drinking club.

Instead, they wound up in police custody after their clue of choice _ flour _ set off a bioterrorism scare and forced hundreds to evacuate an IKEA furniture store Thursday.

"It was absolutely not in any way what we intended and not what we anticipated," Salchow said Friday at the New Haven courthouse.


Salchow, a New Haven ophthalmologist, and his sister, who is visiting from Hamburg, Germany, were charged with first-degree breach of peace, a felony.

The siblings are part of the Hash House Harriers, which bills itself as a "drinking club with a running problem" and has more than 1,800 chapters around the world. The runs typically end with beer stops at pubs or homes.

The club started in Malaysia in the late 1930s, when British citizens modified an old game called hares and hounds.

The Salchows said they have sprinkled flour everywhere from New York to California without incident.

"We had done the exact same thing in Washington, D.C., as recently as two months ago," Dr. Salchow said.

He and his wife, whom he met through the running group in New York, recently moved to New Haven, where he works with needy children through a Yale University program.

The four-mile run on Thursday, the New Haven club's fourth, was also a birthday celebration for Salchow, who turned 36 on Friday.

To make things interesting, he and Dorothee, 31, decided to route runners through the massive IKEA parking lot. They were the hares, meaning they marked the trail for others, the hounds, to follow. The idea is to use symbols to direct runners, throwing in some dead ends and forks in the trail as challenges.

Just before 5 p.m., police fielded a call that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The popular store was evacuated and remained closed the rest of the night.

Salchow was at home waiting for the other runners to arrive for an after-party when his wife called to say there was a problem. He biked to IKEA and tried to explain to officers that the powder was just harmless flour.

City officials weren't amused. The incident prompted a massive response from New Haven police and surrounding towns.

Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said the city plans to seek restitution from the Salchows and will meet Monday to decide how much.

She said they should not have used the flour if they knew it had caused scares in the past.

"You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know," she said. "It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We're thankful it wasn't, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out."

IKEA did not reopen until Friday morning. The shutdown came at a busy time _ just as college students begin returning for fall classes. The store would not provide an estimate of the cost of closing. Assistant manager Lynn Deffendall said employees offered to deliver furniture to some customers who had driven more than two hours.

"We do know that unfortunately it was inconvenient for customers, but safety will always be number one for both our customers and the co-workers," she said.

The offbeat club's tactics have caused problems elsewhere.

In 2002, a trail of flour caused a mall in Fayetteville, N.C. to evacuate for two hours. A few months earlier, two runners in Oxford, Miss., were arrested after using small piles of white powder to mark a route through a busy downtown square.

Salchow said in the wake of Sept. 11, hashers started using chalk to mark their courses. But as tensions eased, they went back to flour because it is biodegradable. He said they'll start using chalk again or find somewhere else to run.

The Salchows were released on promises to appear in court. They're due back in court Sept. 14.

"Not in my wildest dreams did I ever anticipate anything like that," he said.
http://www.newsday.com
Naughty bi Nature emailed out the following site .. for more reading -http://www.wfsb.com/news/13960602/detail.html

Websites of interest

http://www.cix.co.uk/~bicesterh3/uk/
http://www.harrier.net/

(Click the icon on left margin - HPA) Half-Minded.com webpage - you might recognise one of its Editors H2Ho from Toronto --- she joined CTH3 for the Africa Hash 2005






Click on the above icons for link to webpages

Albert Stephen Ignatius Gisbert

Thanks to Mr Dick for this snippet of information

Hash House Harriers
(An excerpt from the Hash Bible)

The Hash House Harriers received its humble beginnings in 1938 from a Britisher named Albert Stephen Ignatius Gisbert, in what is now Malaysia. Having a fondness for the “paper chase”, he gathered together some expatriates to form a group in Kuala Lumpur that would later become a world-wide legacy. The fraternity received its name from the Selangor Club Chambers, which due to it’s lacklustre food was commonly referred to as the “Hash House”.

Known as “G”, Mr. Gisbert originally took on duties as the On-Sec, convincing Cecil H. Lee and Frederick “Horse” Thompson to become the first Joint Masters. The first runs averaged a dozen, although attendance could sometimes be counted on one hand.

Hare and Hounds or Fox and Hounds style chases have been around for centuries in one form or another. Of course the original concept was to mimic the original hunting sport during times or in locations where sporting games was sparse. Some “gentlemen” substituted men for the game in an effort toad something different to the sport. There is evidence of this in Colonial America as well as England. It was a normal transition, then, to substitute the hounds as well with runners. Men, not as well endowed with the sense of smell, required a trail of paper to their quarry. This sport was well entranced long before sportsmen became known as “hashers” and the sport was referred to as Hounds and Hares or the Paper Chase.

ON ON

Setting a Trail

• It is advisable to have at least one co-hare to assist with setting the trail,but is not a necessity.
• Virgin hares should team up with an experienced hare to set a trail.
• The trail should take approximately twice as long to walk as to run it.
• If it looks like rain,use plenty of flour.Chalk tends to `disappear` when wet. Place flour out of streaming waterways.
• Use an average 5 kilograms of flour to set the complete trail,unless using chalk as well.
• If using chalk, it is advisable to use white. The colour chalk tends to be difficult to see.
• For trails crossing sand dunes or beaches, it is advisable to mix the flour with a colour pigment to enable easier trail location.Colour pigment (powder paint) can be purchased at any local paperback store.
• The trail should start within 100 meters of the first check point.
• To start the running pack, point them in the direction of the first check. This will assist in less confusion, and should prevent the pack over running the home run.
• Checkpoints are either marked with four blobs of flour, or a circle using flour. If using chalk, Four squares, or a circle can be drawn. It is advisable to number the checkpoints, which will enable the runners to know that they are still on the correct course.
• False trails either end with three blobs of flour set in the shape of a tri-angle, otherwise three triangles sketched onto the ground. Don`t use a circle with a cross in the centre.
• False trails should not be too difficult to locate, and shouldn’t be too long either. The idea is to let the slower pack catch up to the lead.
• Trail markings are to be clearly set out, especially where roads intersect, or side roads lead off the trail, to minimize confusion.
• The run should start not longer than 10 minutes from the advertised starting time, unless there are know traffic problems which will cause late arrivals. Use your discretion!
• The distance of the trail should be approximately, 5 to 8 kilometres, and /or take roughly an hour to run, depending on the terrain.
• The hare can stop for a `regroup`along the trail, especially if the trail is in difficult terrain. This also allows for a `cold drink` in the event that the trail is a more strenuous run, or the weather is extremely warm.
• Difficult section of the trail should be forwarned, and the hare should trail behind to prevent any losses of the running pack.
• Most important, try keep the runners off busy roads.
• With this in mind, enjoy the run.

The walking group:

• There exists the opportunity to set the trail for the walkers as well. Although this will take more time, it will be appreciated by the walkers.
• Try taking the walkers via an interesting route, bearing in mind that there might be prams and / or `frail`(injured) members whom cannot traverse rocky or slippery terrain.

Run Trail Markings set in flour

• BLOB - four consecutive flour blobs indicate the correct trail.
• CHECK - from which the trail can go off in any direction.
• X - found after three blobs from a check.
• RG - wait until all the runners have arrived.
• ARROW - indicates the correct direction of the trail.
• HR - Final sprint home
• W - Walkers trail
• R - Runners trail

Trail is set for walkers to follow and is separate to the run however walkers and runners will meeting at RG.

In most cases an off road baby stoller can be accommodated for, however we suggest that you check with the hare just to make sure. Dogs are welcome with the walkers, however some venues
that runs are set from do not allow dogs so please always check with the hare before hand.