District Quiz

Saturday 7^th March. Today is the day of the District Quiz, which I have helped in a small way to organise. Our Rotary Club, Shepperton Aurora, won the District trophy in 2007 and have retained the winner’s shield ever since. I should point out that the reason for our eight year reign as District Quiz champions had nothing to do with our prowess at quizzing, rather that there has not been another competition since 2007. Until then it had been a tradition that the holders of the shield organised next year’s competition. Well, we tried, but there seemed little interest around the District for another quiz, so the competition was abandoned and we just kept the trophy, bringing it out occasionally to adorn our meetings.

                                                        The District Quiz Trophy

As District 1140 will no longer be in existence after this year, the DG thought it would be a good idea to resurrect the District Quiz for one last time, so a date was agreed at the Holiday Inn Surbiton, the venue for our District Council meetings. Des Mulvany, who has quite a track record as a quizmaster, volunteered to set the quiz, and a price was agreed with the Hotel for hire of a large room, with bangers and mash to be served up during the evening.  The only problem was that once again, clubs in the District did not register for the event in the numbers expected. The costings for the evening depended on 100 people attending, but with 4 weeks to go we only had 8 teams of 4 (i.e. 32 people) which would cause the event to be cancelled if numbers didn’t improve.

                                                                       Bangers and Mash

Further reminders were sent out to clubs, which resulted in another 4 teams registering, then the DG got me (of all people) to personally phone 20 clubs to drum up some more support. This resulted in another 4 teams registering, which meant our shortfall was not so bad. We now had 64 people registered, plus 8 organisers, which the DG felt was a respectable number. In a departure from my usual role of lighting up the event purely by my charismatic presence, I decided to take part in one of the Shepperton Aurora teams. Our club  supported the event very well by fielding 3 teams, although one of these actually comprised members of Des’s family, who were very welcome, provided they didn’t win (only joking!).

                                                        Quizmaster Des Mulvany

I was actually in the Aurora ‘C’ team, which surprised me somewhat, as I would have expected to be automatically in the ‘A’ team.  My team was, however, quite strong, I thought, with some good specialisms between us.  I, for instance, would be good at any questions on Rotary celebrities. Then we had Sylvia and David Courtney, experts at line dancing (or is it American square dancing? It’s one of those anyway), and Janet Matthews who would be very good with any questions on sailing in Corfu. We would play our Joker if there was a round dedicated to one of these specialisms.  On balance I thought we had a good range of topics covered between us, with a corresponding good chance of winning. The DG, on the other hand, didn’t want any of the Aurora teams to win. In her view, the shield had been blocking up our storage cabinet for seven years, and she wanted someone else to look after it henceforth. Tonight’s winners would, in fact, hold the trophy for ever, as it was to be the last Quiz ever to be organised for District 1140, as it merges with District 1250 at the end of the Rotary year.

                                                                American Square Dancing

As the day of the quiz approached, I think it only fair to describe an incident which will henceforth be called Shieldgate, in which I didn’t cover myself in glory. At our club meeting in the Bridge Hotel, Chertsey on the Wednesday before the quiz, the DG asked me to get the Shield out of our storage cabinet. Off I went, to the cupboard next to the Hotel Reception desk where the cabinet is, but I couldn’t see the shield anywhere. I went back to the meeting room and asked Ken Howe, normally a font of knowledge about everything, if he knew where the shield was. He suggested I ask John Dumbrell, who had recently cleared a lot of stuff out of the cabinet to keep it tidy. John wasn’t sure if he had removed the shield, but if he had, it would be stored in his garage, where much of the Club’s equipment is stored. I agreed to meet him there later in the day to collect the shield and our large display board, which was required for a different event.  The display board was easily found but extensive search of his garage failed to locate the elusive shield.

                                           Bridge Hotel Reception - our cupboard is to the right of the desk

So the next morning I was back at the Hotel, determined to have everything out of the Hotel cabinet, in case the shield was still hiding somewhere. We use a lot of plastic boxes to keep things in, and I took all of these out of the cabinet, looking inside all of them, underneath them, behind them, and still found no sign of the shield. To tell the truth, I didn’t take everything out, I think there were a couple of plastic bags that I left in. So with a heavy heart, I locked the cabinet up, and went home to report to the DG that in two days’ time we were holding the first District Quiz for eight years, and the shield was missing. I also told John, who said he would have another look at home, but thought it unlikely that he had it. I also sent an APB (All Persons Bulletin – I think I watch too much Kojak on TV) to all club members, marked red for priority, asking if anyone could shed any light on the missing shield.  A few hours later, just as the DG and I were thinking about buying a new trophy so we had something to hand out at the quiz, John e-mailed. He had been to the Hotel and found the shield in our storage cabinet! With some degree of embarrassment, I wrote back to all club members, telling them to call off their search, adding that I should have gone to Specsavers.

                                                                        Who loves ya baby?

On the evening of the event, the DG and I arrived early at the Hotel, although not as early as we planned. Our normal route through Hampton was not a good option, as there were roadworks causing havoc to traffic. We knew about this, so instead we went over Walton Bridge, and through Esher to get to Surbiton.  Unfortunately we had been unaware that there was racing at Sandown Park that day. Our journey past the main gates of the Racecourse coincided with racegoers leaving the car park, and it consequently took us over half an hour to get through Esher.

                                                                     Sandown Park racecourse

We still arrived in good time at the Holiday Inn. The DG is well known here and it seemed that nearly all staff and management came out to greet her. They had also laid on a red carpet between the main entrance and our function room. At last, I thought, someone recognises the presence of the Consort to the District Governor. In truth, the Hotel staff couldn’t do enough for us. Our every need was catered to, including two additional tables as soon as we indicated a need for them. I was brought a hot chocolate by a waitress as I directed operations in setting up the room. Shortly after us, our quizmaster Des arrived with his lovely wife Moira, and also John Dumbrell with his wife, the equally lovely Jean. John was to keep the scores this evening on a spreadsheet which would be permanently displayed on a big screen. Other organisers to arrive shortly after were Gill Fawcett and Peter and Ann McDonough. So with the management team in place we were ready for the quiz teams to arrive.

                                                          The red carpet is rolled out for us

In the event we were one team down on the evening. Two teams who had registered did not turn up, and one team did turn up which hadn’t registered.  My team (who called ourselves Jamydasy using the first two letters of each of our names) found ourselves sitting opposite the Aurora ‘A’ team, (the team I should have been in) which comprised Ken Howe, Doreen and Tony Pipe, and Pauline Hedges.  We decided to suspend normal friendly relations with them and treat them as enemies for the duration of the quiz, and  so we communicated in whispers so the enemy can’t overhear us.

Aurora 'A' team, Ken Howe, Pauline hedges, Doreen and Tony Pipe (John & Jean in background)

When everyone was settled the quiz got under way.  The DG, acting as MC, got things started, before handing over to quizmaster Des Mulvany. There were 8 rounds in all, and teams could play their joker before the start of any round. This had the effect of doubling their score in that round. Our team didn’t find any of our specialist subjects listed, so we opted instead to play our Joker in the first round, which was History and Geography. We have all travelled, and between us had lived  through a lot of history, so we thought this round would be our best chance of a good score. We were mistaken. With only 5 out of 10 scored in this round, we felt our Joker had been wasted. However, we did rather better than the Shepperton Aurora ‘A’ team sitting opposite us, who only scored 1 on their Joker round, Quotations.

                                                       The scoreboard after the first round

It was a good quiz, with the right balance between difficulty and ease. The way Des organised it was to give out printed sheets with the questions at the start of each round. We were then given 5 minutes or so to write the answers down, before passing our answers to one of the other teams to be marked. We learned some new things that evening, including the word ‘Pollex’ which is apparently the anatomical word for ‘Thumb’. I don’t think anyone in the room got that one. As usual, Sylvia amazed us with her encyclopaedic knowledge. One question had everybody foxed: What do the following have in common – Hell, Intercourse, and Normal? Well it didn’t fox Sylvia, who said that Intercourse was a town in Pennsylvania, and she had been there! She also knew that Normal was another US town. We therefore came up with the correct answer to the question, which was that they were all US place names.

                                                      The Aurora 'C' Team, David & Sylvia Courtney and Janet Matthews (plus me)

Half way through the quiz, food was served, and we all had sausages and mash, excepting vegetarians, that is, who had vegetable lasagne. There were even seconds available, and Tony Pipe had a complete new plate of sausages and mash. The rest of us on the table got a few sausages to share between us. I was naturally furious at this outrage, where the Consort, being the highest-ranked person on the table, was overlooked in favour of Tony, who wasn’t even a Rotarian! I know he would have been embarrassed about that error by the serving staff, but was certainly very good at not showing it.

                                                 Some of the organising team - Jean Dumbrell, DG, Gill Fawcett

As the competition progressed we got some better scores, with a couple of 7s, but also some worse ones, including a 2 and a 3. You may think, therefore that we didn’t do very well in the competition, but Jamidasy actually finished third overall in the competition, just 3 points behind the winners. So if we had played our Joker on a different round, we could have won, and brought the trophy triumphantly back with us.

The final scoreboard shows us pipped into third place

The two top teams tied on 49 points after the final round, and so a tie break was required. The captains of New Malden and Camberley had to face a final question, and the first with the right answer was the overall winner. Peter Skinley of New Malden was quicker on the draw, and his team went off with the trophy, which they will keep in perpetuity.  In presenting the shield to them, the DG also gave each member of the winning team a Smarties Easter egg. The runners up got, I think, smaller Smarties eggs, and the wooden spoon winners, Walton on Thames also received a consolation prize of a single mini-egg. The DG had been searching for a ‘Dumbo’ Easter egg for the last placed team, but had been unable to find a supplier.

                                                           The winning team from New Malden with the DG

It had been an entertaining evening, with a lot of hilarity, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. That, after all, was the main point of the evening. As we left along the red carpet, we reflected on how nice it was to leave the venue without having to clear up afterwards.