Personally, I have continued to attend each InterHash since scribing that article of provocation. I have also been involved in successful and unsuccessful bids for InterHash. I have been involved in several InterHashes at mismanagerial level and acted as Master of Ceremonies both in part and in full at various InterHashes. I feel therefore suitably informed by these experiences to make these observations and respectfully posit my central tenet that InterHash is about as far removed from Hashing as it could possibly be!

For its part and since that article, InterHash has touched down in Manila (1990), Phuket (1992), Rotorua (1994), Cyprus (1996), Kuala Lumpur (1998), Hobart (2000), and Goa (2002). InterHash, like Hashers, has moved around, far beyond its origins and my preferred East Asian home of InterHash.

While the event has clearly got around geographically, much of my original ideas are worth revisiting for I would contend that in its current format InterHash has lost its way! Hashing was escapism pure and simple. It should be egalitarian, hedonistic fun based on the non-athletic endeavours of some non-competitive Hashers. While I was engaged in the mismanagerial preparations for InterHash Goa 2002, I urged my committee colleagues to adopt the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle as, in our efforts to put on a "back to basics" InterHash all we had to do was organise a pissup for a bunch of drunks. In spite of my simple desire for simple results, InterHash has strayed far from those standards and Hashing values and therein is the basis of my position. Now let me expand.

Across the years the expectations of InterHashers on each InterHash committee have steadily increased to the extent that it is now expected that organisers will put on an event that more closely resembles a visit to a gigantic fun park, a place where Mum, Dad, and the children can go and take their annual or even less frequent holidays. Consequently the whole tone of the event has changed, right from the beginning to the end of the event and either side of the event. However, even before we get to the actual staging of the event, we must get through the bidding process and that, in this scribe's humble opinion, might just represent to the average InterHasher the biggest waste of time and money in Hashtory. It now costs tens of thousands of US$ just to win the event and this money must now be spent by a bidding group (for a single club can no longer carry the event) across a protracted period of time involving more than one InterHash. Let me repeat, it now costs tens of thousands of US$ just to win the bid for InterHash. This results from each bidding group despatching representatives to drum up votes at various Hash events right throughout Hashdom. Such travel, accommodation and expenses (including Hash event registrations) must be paid for.

In addition, these roving Hashbassadors must distribute largesse of all kinds from free T-shirts to beer in an effort to solicit the ever-elusive vote of those they bump into in their travels. Such largesse is by its very nature beyond the capacity of almost all individual Hash clubs and so it becomes necessary to seek sponsorship from both commercial interests and government bodies. The sponsorship is available and usually forthcoming. However, in these days of strict financial constraints, the funding is not given unconditionally. Sponsors and governments spend the tens of thousands of dollars with a very firm belief that it will be recovered. Recovered from nobody else but you, the average InterHasher. As a consequence the cost of InterHashing is spiralling ever upwards at a much greater rate than one should reasonably expect. Please don't underestimate this cost or its magnitude. Governments gain great revenue from inbound tourism and they revel in the political gain accrued from resorts full of high paying Hashers.

Let me give you just one recent example. So great are the potential political kudos and concomitant government input, that following InterHash Hobart 2000, the mismanagement of that event boldly declared that it was no longer possible to run an InterHash without both government funding and management assistance to first promote and win the event and then to run the event. Government employees who mismanage a successful InterHash gain significant kudos with their political masters and perhaps lose their focus on whose requirements they should be satisfying. I trust the Hobart Mismanagers, who did a sterling job, don't take these remarks as a personal hurt. They too are simply victims of a system that is out of control. I simply use their event to make my point.

Another consequence of the high expectations is what I call InterHash burnout. How many InterHash Mismanagers do we continue to see on the InterHash trail following their tenure as Mismanagers of InterHash? Where are the Hound, Grumbles, Nightjar and King Klong? Where are The Lord and Joe Dorasaimy? Significantly, why does John Duncan no longer attend InterHash? If InterHash is such a Hashfully fulfilling occasion, then why are there only five people who have attended every InterHash? After all, almost 1000 attended the first InterHash "Unconvention" in Hong Kong in 1978.

In summary, the cost of winning and staging the event has been significantly inflated by totally unnecessary travel and promotion by bidding teams. The cost of registration is by the very nature of the travel and promotion, driven higher and higher. Just think about how often you see the travelling Hashbassadors hawking their bids at your Hash event, be it a weekly or annual or regional event. I believe the situation is hardly tenable and certainly unsustainable. Now let's turn to the actual event and getting there.

Part of the adventure of InterHash always lay in the opportunity to visit a new locale, an exotic place to Hash. Getting to InterHash was part of the adventure, making the arrangements regarding travel and accommodation was also part of the event's adventure. What to wear, what to bring, what route to travel were all part of the adventure of InterHash. These aspects of InterHash are all rightly the responsibility of the individual. Certainly they are not that of the InterHash committee. Yet so many individuals make constant, increasing and unreasonable demands of the InterHash Mismanagers.

Questions and expectations such as: How do I get there? What is the climate? What clothes do I bring? Can I drink the water, eat the food, say my prayers? Who will mind my children? Will you give me a cheap or part registration fee for my children? I don't drink beer (and you're a Hasher!), will I get a cheap registration? What are the hotels like? How much should I pay? What security will you provide for my valuables? The list of questions goes on on and the expectations grow more and more ridiculous. My experience of bidding for and mismanaging InterHash tells me that there are several key components of InterHash and they should include and be limited to:

• A run(s), properly limited sensibly to about an hour each. It is unclear why marathon ballbusters are considered necessary when all they do is create additional responsibilities for the committee concerning transport, medical water and other logistics and satisfy the requirements of a very limited few;
• A T-shirt or some other sort of freebie (which in fact is a charge against your registration). Sadly, each InterHash tries to outdo the other and again this further drives up the cost as we try to meet unreasonable expectations;
• Transport to and from the run. A major cost item at every InterHash;
• Food and drinking water, also major cost items; and
• A Down Down competition that now includes both men and women and has done since at least 1986; and that leads me finally and nicely to;
• BEER, perhaps the single most important item to the serious Hasher. Another major cost item, that despite sponsorship support continues to cost more and more.

InterHash Goa became involved in travel and accommodation arrangements for InterHashers, as did previous InterHash committees. When the "benefits" of this involvement are measured against the workload required of a volunteer committee, the results are dubious at best and invisible at worst. Why should an InterHash committee get involved in what is essentially a commercial arrangement between you and your hotel and you and your airline?

Let me tell you that the heartache this process of arranging travel and accommodation with an agency created for the InterHash Goa 2002 committee was NOT worth the effort. If you want to come to InterHash, make your own arrangements! Don't expect a bunch of hard-working volunteers to do your dirty work. Modern Internet access obviates such InterHash mismanagement involvement. The internet enables you to look up maps and talk direct to hotels and airlines. Buy a Lonely Planet book or borrow one from your local library. Why involve an agency when that only adds an extra cost to InterHashers?

By now, Sunday morning is upon us. Qualified delegates are arising and struggling through their InterHash induced hangovers to the designated meeting place where it will be decided who will be burdened with the responsibility of mismanaging the next InterHash. This gathering is a major logistics nightmare in itself, for if all the mismanagement had to do was supply a meeting place, chair the meeting and count the votes then all would be sweetness and light. Easy!

However, it is now never that simple. The demands of bidding groups are almost insatiable; as driven by their perceived need to satisfy both commercial and governmental backers they strive to win the event. Bidders want individual stands to position their teams and materials. They want electricity, pens, pins, paper, chairs and tables; they want security for their promotional materials and priority above all the other bid groups. They want to have a "sponsor's breakfast" on Sunday morning before the meeting of InterHash delegates. They want prior access to the voting room to lay out their promotional materials on the chair of each delegate. They want to be able to hand out free beer and shirts as delegates enter the meeting room, shirts to delegates who probably already have at least one each and all need just one more beer at this stage of Sunday morning. All of the bid groups' demands must take precedence over the InterHash committee's responsibilities or else you aren't co-operating and perhaps even worse, bias is perceived.

All of this pressure is the result of the need to win two years of bloody hard work to mismanage InterHash for the world's InterHash community, and I can only ask why strive so hard for such an onerous task? For believe me, mismanaging InterHash is no walk in the park. You might ask; "What is the real motivation?" The meeting must be finished on time so that other commitments can be met for we still have the rest of InterHash Sunday to come.

My post-InterHash feelings have always been of immense relief. The last stragglers leave or wobble out on Sunday night and it should all be over. But nothing could be further from the truth for now come the post-InterHash events that in reality are the bailiwick of other Hash groups. However, it has now become impossible to divorce pre- and post-InterHash events from InterHash. To put it simply, such events ought to be nothing to do with InterHash. Yet they have become an extension of the main event and through cross promotion inseparable.

Of course the final and perhaps one of the most important tasks is to close everything down, pay the accounts and prepare a statement for whomsoever. It is all a part of the task of mismanaging InterHash, unlike so much of the other extra-curriculars I have itemised. Included in the closing down is a most contentious issue: that of disbursement of any excess. There are no rules or regulations about this. There is a healthy tradition which began way back after the first InterHashes which sees an amount of the excess being passed on, on to the next bunch of lucky bastards. But how much and what percentage is shared with the next InterHash is dependent on the whim of the main players in the contemporaneous mismanagement. Usually a balance sheet of sorts is published in the pre-event magazine of the next InterHash. Almost always, scurrilous rumours circulate about who pocketed this and how much that club got. Mostly such rumours are without foundation and usually they are just baseless gossip.

A more disturbing, recent trend has been to distribute large and larger amounts of InterHash Cash to a local charity. This has been factored into the budget from day one! On whose authority this donation is made is never disclosed either before or after the event. This sort of grandstanding in the local community begs at least the following questions: Whenever did anybody authorise the InterHash Committee to expend InterHash cash in this manner? If InterHash is so profitable, then why don't we reduce the registration fees?

In conclusion, if anybody got this far, I would argue that InterHash has lost its way. So sincerely do I believe this to be the case that I will no longer attend InterHash. I can hear the applause now! In the preceding paragraphs a pretty dim picture is painted as I have very deliberately concentrated on the negatives. There are many positives about InterHash and clearly thousands of people think so as they vote with their registration fees. However, as I move about Hashdom I find lots of people share my gloomy point of view. However, I am not so silly as to think that these words will cause InterHash to revert to an event that is smaller in scale and duration. However, I would like to think that what is written here gives at least some of you cause to pause and consider: "Whither InterHash?"

- Whorator, Brisbane HHH, Australia