After nearly 5 years, and 7 quizzes, I’m bowing out as CHAS quizmaster.
It’s been tremendous fun. I originally got the role by default – the previous quizmaster had moved away from the area and I knew someone at work who set quizzes for charity, so I offered to ask him for a quiz-worth of questions. I hadn’t intended to be the person who actually sat on stage and asked them, but in the absence of other volunteers, I took it on. And then I found I rather enjoyed it – especially as people attending the quizzes enjoyed them and many were kind enough to tell me so.
That first quiz had a fairly traditional mix of rounds, although I customised it slightly – geography, Chiswick, television, literature, gardening and famous people who’d been born or died on the date of the quiz. The picture round was of 20 British birds. I didn’t keep the final scores but recall being surprised that you didn’t all get full marks in the gardening round!
Over time, I moved away from trivial pursuit-type subject categories onto themed rounds mixing things up. For example, the “black and white” round last November featured cinema, football, county flags, music, charity logos, TV, literature and cattle breeds. I always try to have a balance of men and women in my questions – and there’s usually a cycling question in there somewhere. All designed to maintain my interest and keep you on your toes!
So what have I learned over the years? A lot!
- CHAS members’ general knowledge can be a bit patchy. You’re very good at art, history & geography but rather less so at science & technology. And you’d all easily pass the Life in the UK test.
- You come up with some excellent team names, with a good line in gardening puns, such as Trowel and Error and Lawn Rangers.
- Ideas for quiz rounds can pop out of nowhere – Saturday’s “not what it sounds like” round arose from a conversation with friends about the correct pronunciation of Oswaldtwistle.
- Pointless is a very good source of ideas for rounds
- You must always prepare a tie-break question just in case (though, sadly, I’ve never had to use mine)
- Check your answers again and again – I fell foul of a misplaced assumption during a picture round (it was a statue of Alison Lapper, not by her) – which I was very quickly picked up on!
- The ideal round has 2 easy questions, 6 medium ones and 2 hard ones, so that everyone can get more than half but not everyone gets full marks – you also need to cover a broad range of subject areas over the whole quiz to play to different people’s strengths
- It’s a good idea to test the questions on your nearest & dearest – your idea of easy or difficult may be very different from someone else’s
Not all of my ideas worked. The “odd one out” picture round last November was a bit over-complicated (I should have tested it on my other half first). And I did start trying to put together a gardening-themed music round but couldn’t rustle up enough potential questions (I thought that CHAS members might not be familiar with the Smashing Pumpkins or the Black Eyed Peas).
I’ll be happy to chat about what it entails to anyone who fancies having a go. And I’ve got plenty of resources to help – from useful websites to a template for the answer sheet and a spreadsheet to keep track of the scores during the evening, even a few half worked-up round ideas.
So please get in touch if you’re interested. I’m sure you’ll find it both fun & rewarding.