members experiences page
Members are invited to send a blog about anything that is pertinant to,
or about, the Camera Club.
First blog from the website administrator, Paul S.
or about, the Camera Club.
First blog from the website administrator, Paul S.
Tuesday 16th December, 2014
Yesterday the club held it's annual Christmas social and quiz night. Boy did we have a great turn-out, so much so that our quite large meeting room in the Cliff Hotel, which is used daily as the hotel's breakfast room, didn't have enough tables and chairs! As more and more people arrived, more and more tables and chairs had to be scrounged from other rooms in the hotel.
My wife and I (Fiona) joined forces with Ron and his wife Carol, plus the larger than life, indefatigable, Bob, whos knowledge about many things was sure to come in handy on our team. Our first task, like all the other teams, of which I estimate to have been eight others, was to give a name to our collective selves. I suggested either "Death or Glory" and "He Who Dares Wins" - the latter was chosen, so we became SAS members for the night, or as Delboy would have said "He Who Dares Wins Rodney, He who dares wins."
Sorry I don't know the name of the quiz master, as I'm a new boy in the club. No doubt, someone will put me wise to his name after reading this blog. Anyhow, what a splendid job he did of asking the questions, filling in with lots of trivia regarding the answers and generally keeping the some times rowdy boys and girls in check. No, I don't mean the youngsters, who were all on best behavour all night - it's the old boys and girls who were the loudest. Fiona and I do like our trivia quizzes on cruise ships and they are always somber affairs and every team whispers amongst themselves in case another team hears their "correct" answer. The professional triviata will often throw a wobbly by speaking out loud what they know is the "wrong" answer, with another member of the team pretending to scold him, thus backing up the lie. No nead to worry last night as everybody was speaking loudly at once and the noise was like being in a night club full of drunken revellers, without the music and no dancing. However, we all started to worry about the team who called themselves "The Lip Readers".
The first two rounds were picture orientated, one black and white and one colour - very camera club competition-like we thought. The B&W round consisted of ten pictures of famous people in baby form, but with pertinent clues about their person. The colour round was ten pictures of board games, some of which Ron, Bob and myself remembered way back that we used to play, but for the life of us, we couldn't remember the names of. Despite that, we managed to hold our our, pointwise and scores were pretty even, apart from "The No-Nuffinks" who started to live up to their name.
The quiz proper rounds, which were all general knowledge and not dedicated to just one subject, really sorted the men out from the boys, however, the three person team that Monique was in, started slowly but was coming up fast on the rails by the time the nosh arrived and the half-time whistle blew. The room started to look deserted as thirty or more men leapt up all at once and made a B line for the bar.
Trivia: B line refers to the direction in which a bee flys after gathering nectar. Bees use the sun to navigate their way around and when they are ready to return to the hive they fly in a straight line back. This is why when someone is trying to get to their destination quickly they are said to be "making a B line".
Yes, I did use the correct term as 15 minutes and 2 pints each later, they more or less flew in a straight line back to the room again - hic.
The "He Who Dares Wins" boys and girls were still holding their own and started to think they had a chance of winning, especially when George's large team of a score or more people, grunted every time we triumphantly told the quiz master our round score. By the 5th round proper and 70 questions had been asked, the quiz master began to increase the exitement for the youngsters and held up first a packet of sweets, which was won by Emma and then a box of Maltesers, also won by Emma, who eagerly looked at them as her mum had starved her of such luxuries for over 10-years! Anna, really!!
The nearest rival to our team was "The Stars", who were also our nearest in location as well - my professional triviata methods could not be heard above the general cacophony that was the Harwich Olympic Noise Makers in training for the Rio games in 2016 and so all my efforts to reduce their score, fell on deaf ears. As the last round was announced it was like the Grand National - some had fallen at a fence but the horses were still galloping riderless, others were drunk out of their brains and didn't know why they were still running and a few were battling on towards the last fence. By half way through the questions we sensed that it was perhaps a two horse race to the finish - "The Stars" and us.
As the final scores were read out, a ruckus ensued as apparently for the second year running, Mandy's team were annoynced as coming last and winning the wooden spoons. There was a 10-point discrepancy from the quiz masters tally and Mandy's. As the quiz master pointed out before the quiz started "The quiz master is always right!" so the spoons never departed from Mandy's table. Suddenly Bob shouted over the din to me - "Paul, quickly add up our scores" as "The Stars" had been declared to have scored 99. 105 is what I made it and so did the quiz master - we had won by six-lengths !! A Large box of Quality Street was placed on our table and Bob shouted "Where's the other four boxes"
So ends the best night I have had for ages - can't wait until next year.
Now you can see what a great camera club we are - Please come and join us.
Yesterday the club held it's annual Christmas social and quiz night. Boy did we have a great turn-out, so much so that our quite large meeting room in the Cliff Hotel, which is used daily as the hotel's breakfast room, didn't have enough tables and chairs! As more and more people arrived, more and more tables and chairs had to be scrounged from other rooms in the hotel.
My wife and I (Fiona) joined forces with Ron and his wife Carol, plus the larger than life, indefatigable, Bob, whos knowledge about many things was sure to come in handy on our team. Our first task, like all the other teams, of which I estimate to have been eight others, was to give a name to our collective selves. I suggested either "Death or Glory" and "He Who Dares Wins" - the latter was chosen, so we became SAS members for the night, or as Delboy would have said "He Who Dares Wins Rodney, He who dares wins."
Sorry I don't know the name of the quiz master, as I'm a new boy in the club. No doubt, someone will put me wise to his name after reading this blog. Anyhow, what a splendid job he did of asking the questions, filling in with lots of trivia regarding the answers and generally keeping the some times rowdy boys and girls in check. No, I don't mean the youngsters, who were all on best behavour all night - it's the old boys and girls who were the loudest. Fiona and I do like our trivia quizzes on cruise ships and they are always somber affairs and every team whispers amongst themselves in case another team hears their "correct" answer. The professional triviata will often throw a wobbly by speaking out loud what they know is the "wrong" answer, with another member of the team pretending to scold him, thus backing up the lie. No nead to worry last night as everybody was speaking loudly at once and the noise was like being in a night club full of drunken revellers, without the music and no dancing. However, we all started to worry about the team who called themselves "The Lip Readers".
The first two rounds were picture orientated, one black and white and one colour - very camera club competition-like we thought. The B&W round consisted of ten pictures of famous people in baby form, but with pertinent clues about their person. The colour round was ten pictures of board games, some of which Ron, Bob and myself remembered way back that we used to play, but for the life of us, we couldn't remember the names of. Despite that, we managed to hold our our, pointwise and scores were pretty even, apart from "The No-Nuffinks" who started to live up to their name.
The quiz proper rounds, which were all general knowledge and not dedicated to just one subject, really sorted the men out from the boys, however, the three person team that Monique was in, started slowly but was coming up fast on the rails by the time the nosh arrived and the half-time whistle blew. The room started to look deserted as thirty or more men leapt up all at once and made a B line for the bar.
Trivia: B line refers to the direction in which a bee flys after gathering nectar. Bees use the sun to navigate their way around and when they are ready to return to the hive they fly in a straight line back. This is why when someone is trying to get to their destination quickly they are said to be "making a B line".
Yes, I did use the correct term as 15 minutes and 2 pints each later, they more or less flew in a straight line back to the room again - hic.
The "He Who Dares Wins" boys and girls were still holding their own and started to think they had a chance of winning, especially when George's large team of a score or more people, grunted every time we triumphantly told the quiz master our round score. By the 5th round proper and 70 questions had been asked, the quiz master began to increase the exitement for the youngsters and held up first a packet of sweets, which was won by Emma and then a box of Maltesers, also won by Emma, who eagerly looked at them as her mum had starved her of such luxuries for over 10-years! Anna, really!!
The nearest rival to our team was "The Stars", who were also our nearest in location as well - my professional triviata methods could not be heard above the general cacophony that was the Harwich Olympic Noise Makers in training for the Rio games in 2016 and so all my efforts to reduce their score, fell on deaf ears. As the last round was announced it was like the Grand National - some had fallen at a fence but the horses were still galloping riderless, others were drunk out of their brains and didn't know why they were still running and a few were battling on towards the last fence. By half way through the questions we sensed that it was perhaps a two horse race to the finish - "The Stars" and us.
As the final scores were read out, a ruckus ensued as apparently for the second year running, Mandy's team were annoynced as coming last and winning the wooden spoons. There was a 10-point discrepancy from the quiz masters tally and Mandy's. As the quiz master pointed out before the quiz started "The quiz master is always right!" so the spoons never departed from Mandy's table. Suddenly Bob shouted over the din to me - "Paul, quickly add up our scores" as "The Stars" had been declared to have scored 99. 105 is what I made it and so did the quiz master - we had won by six-lengths !! A Large box of Quality Street was placed on our table and Bob shouted "Where's the other four boxes"
So ends the best night I have had for ages - can't wait until next year.
Now you can see what a great camera club we are - Please come and join us.
(c) Copyright Paul H. Simmons 2015
