DBNA welcomes fall with a Back-To-School scavenger hunt on Governor’s Island NYC

The former military base on Governor’s Island sits under the watchful gaze of Lady Liberty, with an energy that says: “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses… but don’t try any funny business”. It has played a role in many historic confrontations, not least the DBNA Summer Away Day 2022. 

The theme for the day? ‘Back to School’ (which basically meant one person on every team got a whistle) and the main activity? A scavenger hunt - a popular choice for DB this year! 

But before the main event started, the first challenge was to crack the dress code (sweaty exercise meets cocktail chic) and to turn up on time for the ferry.  

Once on the ferry, we ate our packed lunch before 10 am (as is tradition) and then hopped on board our ‘school busses’. 

A ‘Surrey’ is a pedal car with one brake, no gears, and weighs about eight tons - with barely enough room for four people, we wedged six people into each, like candy-fuelled whacky racers. We then embarked on our adventure, following the clues on our wipe-clean laminated treasure maps. 

We set our sights on a giant hanger. A field of hammocks. An (adorable) professional goose-chasing dog. It’s a good job none of us are in any way competitive, or it might have gotten ugly. 

Item 12 on the list was to photograph as many instances of the words ‘Governor’s Island’ as we could. It was a kind of “Golden Snitch” loophole that essentially rendered the rest of the scavenger hunt pointless since anyone with a bit of common sense could have gotten a high score in the visitor centre. 

And so, the only teamwith any common sense (led by ECD Claire Parker) celebrated their victory with the rest of us losers over delicious tacos and chilled rosé in the beautifully bougie Gitano. With beautiful views looking across the water at the spectacular downtown Manhattan skyline in the glorious late-summer sunshine. 

If you'd like to join our NYC team, then head on over to our careers page here!