A Quizzical Day out

Our District organised a great event for all its clubs to raise awareness for Rotary in the community, to raise money for Lancaster special needs school in Southend, and if possible, to break the world record for the number of people taking part in a quiz.

Our club was represented by President Mike Ginn and wife Sue, and Peter Greene and wife Wendy, family and friends, all going along to Southend United Football ground on Saturday June 6th., 2015.

The weather was beautiful, a classic English summer day, sunny but not too hot – which was great for the event – but not so good for getting into Southend as the traffic was horrendous!  In the end, the event fell short of breaking the record, but that made it far easier to park at the ground and enabled it to pass off without significant problems.
There were eight rounds of questions, each of eight questions each, and each round was sponsored by a local business such as Waitrose in Southend, Southend Mercedes Benz, Graphic Impressions of Chelmsford, etc. with questions on subjects close to their interests.

Despite the (in)sensitivity of the microphone, with only every third word being audible, the technology and the logistics in the ground worked very well.  And the microphone, that was solved by our Questionmaster Nick Sillitoe standing at the East stand, near the base station, while the rest of us were all in the west stand.  It looked as if he was frightened to be too close to his audience (see photo above)!  … But I’m sure that wasn’t the case.

How did we do?  Well pretty good – coming in with the third highest score thanks not only to the adults present, but also to the 3 answers contributed by a six year old grandchild!  We all had a great time!

But that wasn’t as important as the money raised and increasing awareness of Rotary.  “I always said it was a Rotary Awareness Day to raise the profile of Rotary and this was a complete success” said District Governor Stan Keller.  “We had articles in several local newspapers, I was on the radio three times talking about Rotary and it was also on many Social Media sites and there were lots of leaflets around”.  “We have also raised money for Lancaster Special Needs School in Southend” he emphasized. 

For the report in the Southend Echo, please click here on: Three hundred turn up on the Day