The Fleurieu Community Foundation on Friday night (March 22) hosted a sports quiz night at the Victor Harbor Lutheran Church.
Co-ordinator of the event Chris Horwood said there were three goals for the night.
“We wanted to design an enjoyable activity for the community, raise some money for the Foundation and provide an opportunity for local sporting clubs to win some prize money,” Chris said.
“A design that included small team sizes (four people per table) and multiple-choice questions (four possible answers provided for each question) seemed to meet with the approval of the players – a common resistance to quiz night participation is that people, particularly us older folk, find it frustrating because we know the answer, but really struggle to drag it out from the deep inner sanctums of our minds…a multiple-choice design alleviates that problem.
“The small teams seemed to encourage greater collaboration and communication than you might find with larger teams.”
Thanks to the generosity of the event’s sponsors, Bartel and Hall, plus some other donors, the night was was able to offer $3000 prize money, to be split across the top five placed teams; each participating team nominated a local sporting club to be the recipient of any prize money they won.
There were eighty rounds, nine questions per round, and no joker rounds or the like, so it was just a simple contest to be a top-five finisher after the 72 questions.
The teams started slowly in round 1, with only one team scoring more than five (Victor Harbor Dragons team 1 scored seven) and the quiz designer was a little concerned that maybe the questions were a little too obscure.
Such concerns were alleviated in round 2 when 12 of the teams scored five or more, led by Back Valley Tennis Club (BVTC) team 2 scoring eight and Inman Valley Tennis Club (IVTC) team 1 scoring seven. Round 3 saw the team from Great Southern Table Tennis (GSTTA) score a perfect 9; the only other team to do that on the night was IVTC1 in round 7.
Going into round 8 there were three teams genuinely vying for first place – the Victor Dragons 1 led IVTC1 by 1 and BVTC2 by 3, so the room was pretty quiet while host Brad Butler ran through the final set of questions.
BVTC2 and IVTC1 scored solid 7s in the final round, the Dragons managed 6, so it was a tie for first place, scores of 52 apiece.
BVTC2 finished 3rd with 50, IVTC2 4th with 45 and GSTTA 5th with 44.
The winning clubs pocketed $825 each, third place $600, fourth $450 and fifth $300.
After the final round, but prior to the big reveal of the final scores, Brad and Bryan Littlely auctioned off a couple of pieces of donated sporting memorabilia – a signed photo of Rod Laver in full swing and a 2021 Adelaide Crows Indigenous Round jumper, signed by the Crows’ Indigenous players from 2021, as well as AFL Legend Michael O’Loughlin.
“Overall, I believe we achieved our three goals,” Chris said.
“Feedback from attendees has been very positive; the Foundation netted approximately $4500 by way of the entry fees, the auction items and assorted donations, including some money generously donated by the prize-winning teams; and the Victor Harbor Dragon Boat Club, IVTC, BVTC and GSTTA have all earned themselves some additional funds that go towards providing recreational sporting opportunities for us all to enjoy on the Fleurieu.
“Finally, may we thank all the clubs and their families and friends that supported this event – we managed to fill 17 tables – an excellent result.
“Also we are most grateful to Jane Bassham, Brad Butler, Renee Butler, Caitlin Hogg, Flora Huang and Lei Zheng for forming a great team that enabled the event to run very smoothly and to Marg Paech from the Victor Harbor Lutheran Church, who was extremely helpful and supportive of the event.”
