The Queen Margaret’s Quiz Night

On Friday night I did my part to help pay for a new gymnasium or equipment at Queen Margaret’s College. I got co-opted to one of the teams, purely I think because I live nearby.

The quiz night was lots of fun. Our team did okay, but were behind the students’ team. Of course one round was on youth culture and the music round was all 21st century songs which did help them somewhat. We did quite well on the politics round, and got 10/10 on the anagram round which was a surprise as at first we thought we wouldn’t get any of them.

I was quite interested in how the school did the quiz night as a fund-raiser, as quiz nights are normally not huge fund-raisers. I suspect their PTA has some accountants on it.

First each team table was $200, with up to 10 members is $20 each. That was quite smart as people like larger teams, as more likely someone knows the answer. They held it in their school hall, so had room for 15 tables or 150 people. So that is $3,000.

Then they had raffle tickets on sale, with most doing 6 for $10. So that is another $1,500 or so.

Then they had the silent auctions for everything from john Key signed wine to dinner and a hotel room in various nice Wellington hotels. The principal was doing such a hard sell on people buying these romantic packages that I was tempted to suggest to the pupil’s team that one of them should bid for the hotel room, just to see the principal’s face when they won it 🙂

The auctions probably raised another $1,500 – maybe more.

Then there was the final capitalist triumph. Each team could purchase one answer per round for $10. Of course every team did that, so there is another $1,500. I loved the idea of being able to purchase answers, and think this could be a great policy for NCEA. That way schools could buy their way up the league table 🙂

So all up, I suspect the school managed to bring in $7,000 or so from the quiz night – which is a great tribute to their commercial acumen. And it was a very enjoyable night – good teams, and fun questions.

The only thing that disturbed me was again a reminder of how small Wellington is. Despite having no connection to the school, I actually knew a reasonable proportion of the people at the quiz night!

First quiz night I have taken part in for some time. Normally I am the one who writes the questions for them and/or MCs them. I need to improve my knowledge of Oscar winners and artists (as in painters and sculptors).