Quiz Night 2021

Quiz Night Friday 22nd January 2021

Considering the circumstances our Annual Quiz Night went very well.

Of course, this year was rather different – there was no fish and chips, we stayed at home rather than travelling to Coleshill, and there was less opportunity to socialise, but it was still great fun.

Jonathan Pegler did a tremendous job, in fact several tremendous jobs in setting the quiz, running the quiz and handling the Zoom meeting.
Quiz Night Zoom screen shot
There was a very good turn-out with 40 members split up into seven teams.

We were arranged in groups of about 6 and all signed into the Zoom meeting at 6:45. By 7pm, Jonathan had given each team a colour as its name and arranged who went into which team.

There were 6 rounds of ten questions and at the beginning of each round Jonathan revealed the password to reveal the set of questions. Each team then went into a break-out room and discussed whether any of us could give an answer.

After what seemed to be no time at all, Jonathan called us back together and revealed the answers. The first round was about people ranging from Barbara Windsor to Napoleon.

The questions were up to Jonathan’s usual taxing standard, and after rounds two or three it soon became apparent that the White Team – Team Gwyn – was pulling ahead, scoring almost full points on the rounds concerning balls and tables. The rest of us also wondered where they were playing as the Zoom backgrounds kept changing!

Team Gwyn screenshotAs we moved into the final round Team Goch put on a late spurt, but it was too late, Team Gwyn (appropriately consisting of Gwyndaf and Janet John, Bill Jones, Ruth Huckle and Ann Brown) were too far in the lead.

Asked about their success Gwyn said ”The stars of our team were the women. Ruth could probably have won the Quiz on her own. Knowing the answers to the question on the Book of Common Prayer and also the details of Roulette tables indicates she has eclectic interests. Janet’s years of Electronics teaching meant the binary sum was spotted instantly. Ann’s Chemistry background was recent enough to remember the Periodic table – even if she was too young to remember the 1971 Lions coached by Carwyn James and featuring the incomparable Barry John.

Here are the final scores:

Final Scores for Quiz Night

I think that we’d all like to say a very big ‘Thank you’ to Jonathan for all his work in making the evening such a success.

Virtual Christmas Drinks 2020

Christmas Drinks 5:30 pm 13/12/2020

This year’s Christmas Drinks party was quite different, and at least it didn’t mean a discussion about who was going to drive home.

Janet John acted as the technical host of the Zoom-based event, with Gwyndaf sending out invitations and Janet controlling the meeting in the background. We all signed in and soon saw 25 other screens looking back at us with about 45 members present.

David Powell welcomed everyone and explained how the meeting/party was going to be organised.
As a group we heard from members from their own rooms and were particularly pleased to see those who had not been able to make recent events (i.e. a year ago) or had moved away from the area.

Peter and Pat Chapman spoke from Brecon about the joys of living in the country and the fear of the rising river level!
Elan & Robin Preston-Whyte joined us from Englefield Green and we had a quick glimpse around their new flat.Group Screen shot

It was great to see Bridget Murray (with a backdrop of outer space) and Helen Hall again, who had both had issues attending previous meetings and new member Ruth Huckle introduced herself from Maidenhead.

Founder members, the Owens and the Broombys also gave their updates.
Colin and Di Thomas said that their house was a lot quieter this year than when they hosted last year’s get together!

Janet and Gwyndaf then randomly assigned us to ‘break-out rooms’ where we met in groups of 6 or so, so that we could chat informally amongst ourselves. This worked surprisingly well and it seemed no time until Janet called us all back into the main room and then assigned us all to different groups with new people to talk to. These sessions lasted about 8 minutes each.Break out

After 3 rounds of these chat rooms, David spoke about events planned for 2021.
These are currently ‘virtual’ events with a quiz night on Friday 22nd January and a virtual St David’s Day on 26th February with speaker Lord Williams of Oystermouth, better known as Rowan Williams. Born in Swansea, he was Bishop of Monmouth, the only Archbishop of Canterbury not to be a member of the Church of England, Master of Magdalene College Cambridge and is a prolific author and poet.

Depending on the level of restrictions, we may be able to hold a socially distanced Spring Walk and the AGM, but under current conditions, this looks unlikely. Unfortunately, there won’t be any trip to Wales this year.

After these notifications Jonathan Pegler then took over as master of ceremonies. Everyone’s microphones were muted (apart from Jonathan’s) and Jonathan played a selection of carols with Janet showing us the words on the screen. In effect we were all signing duets with Jonathan!

Finally, Jonathan played the National Anthem and we said our farewells to each other at about 7pm.

I think that everyone thought that the event went well, and our thanks go to Janet, Gwyndaf and Jonathan for making the evening go so smoothly.