West End Henley Tour 2012: Quiz Night Success!

Man, what a night! It was an awesome event for the three of us. Here is how it went:

Knowing that we were a man down, Henry, Joe and myself set up all the tables and chairs the night before. We figured that we would be too busy to do this on the night. Henry also managed to do the shopping and luckily for us we did this otherwise we might not have made it!

Tom complained that WERC couldn't afford a proper peeler

The night kicked off furiously with Henry and his team of friends bringing in the drinks and setting up the tub of hummus and trays of bread from the Stone Oven team (a big thanks!) and the carrot cutting crew. Meanwhile, I was busy helping set up the technical side of things with the projector and computer. Another thanks to Henry's friend Rory, for providing us with a PA system and mike and Garth Tremeer for the projector.

Pretty soon people were turning up. We could only hope that we had enough chairs for everyone as we had 100 people confirmed and we didn't know how many were going to turn up on the night. The plan for that was to make the young 'uns to sit on the ground.

Fortunately it never came to that and we kicked off the quiz with the first round and it was game on. My old man, Michael was the Quizmaster and he did a great job. The Wikipedophiles were off to a quick start and they were followed by some of the teams of the older generation. Not to be undone however was the young team, the Quizlamic Extremists.

During the drinks break we encouraged people to come outside for the "Coin Toss". We had a bottle of Chivas Regal, kindly donated by Henry's family and we had quite a few people throwing all sorts of coins to claim the prize. It was eventually won by Mike Tolhurst as he managed to get within two inches of the bottle. Despite many others trying no one could get closer.

We got back into the quiz and with two rounds to go there were only two points separating the top three teams. Before the last round, we had a raffle and an auction. The raffle prizes were two bottles of champagne, a t shirt signed by Mahe and Juliette (two of our clubs Olympic hopefuls), and a bottle of Pimms that Brad bought through Duty free on the way to Henley last time, only to find out it was cheaper over there anyway. Then there was one final item to be auctioned off, a framed picture collection of the Henley crew with each of our signatures. A collector's item for sure. One our favourite masters, Harry Waalkens bought it for $200 which was fantastic!

Who wouldn't want this?

Then it was into the final round. Some teams had given up already and were handing in some great answers which were completely irrelevant. But the team that took it out were the youngsters from the Quizlamic Extremists. Well done to them. They received West End Event Trophy, kindly donated by the Henley 4x and we hope that the tradition continues. We were pleased to hear the next day that people had a great night and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Some of the winning team with their trophy

It was a great night to host and a massive thanks to all that helped out. It was a great turn out and a great way for us to see people before we all leave. A big thanks goes out to my father and Joe's family who helped us clean up, we would have still been there in the morning if you weren't there.

So in the morning it was back to business for the three of us with racing pieces as if we hadn't hosted a quiz the night before. It was a swift return to reality as now that our last fundraising venture is over we only have just over a month until the regatta begins. Henry is leaving this Friday and it will be left up to Joe and myself to organise the last few things before going over ourselves. Also our best wishes for Brad who begins racing today over in Switzerland as he tries to be the first Samoan rower to qualify for the Olympic Games.

I will leave with some photos of the night: