Category Archives: Quiz Night

Quiz Night 2025

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On Friday 17th January we held our Quiz Night.

We all arrived at Coleshill Village Hall around 7pm and it did not take long to arrange the tables and chairs in a semi-circle around the question master.
We eventually organised ourselves into 4 tables of 5.

Colin Picton had created the quiz and was acting as question-master, assisted by his glamourous assistant Kate, though she introduced herself as ‘Samantha’ (after the fictional assistant on Radio 4’s I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue).

As is traditional, each team then had to think of a team name. These included the Red Dragons, the Floribundas, and the Annesiacs.

By the time this task had been completed, the Fish and Chips had arrived, so we all took a break to enjoy them, before the quizzing started.

As well as the 9 rounds, there were two table rounds to ponder. The first was a set of cryptic clues to Welsh towns or places. The second involved maps of Wales with twenty missing place names, plus a list of 25 places all starting with Llan……. It was quite amazing how difficult this was.

Kate came round with our question papers and Colin read the questions out. Colin had made many of the questions multiple choice this year, which made it a bit easier.

There were several rounds on Wales and Geography.

Questions included:

Where did Dylan Thomas die? (New York)

Who played Nessa Jenkins in Gavin & Tracey (Ruth Jones)

What is the longest road in Wales (the A470)

What is Buckinghamshire’s oldest railway station (Cheddington 1838)

Name the London Underground line that extends into Bucks (Metropolitan Line)

Which WWII aircraft was substantially made in High Wycombe (the Mosquito)

After each round we passed our answer papers to the next table and the scores were declared.

When all the question sheets had been gathered in, there was one team clearly in the lead – The Floribundas were way out in front.

We all thanked Colin and Kate for their efforts and making the evening so enjoyable and we ended the evening at about 9:30.

Quiz Night 2024

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19th January 2024

We all gathered at Coleshill Village Hall at 7pm for our first engagement of the year.

30 of us formed into 5 teams to do battle in Colin Picton’s Quiz Evening.

We were pleased to welcome some new (and newish) members and their guests –

Lorraine Boyd and her partner, Ian,  also Heather Roberts with her son Mark Roberts and daughter Susan Paul.

Chairman Gwyndaf John opened proceedings and handed over to Kate Picton to give an update on Jonathan Pegler’s progress in hospital. We all wished him a speedy recovery

Colin set us the first task of coming up with team names.

 

Team names were:

Lloydia (reflecting Gwyndaf and Janet John’s adventure finding a rare lily on Snowdon)
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (thanks to Bill Jones)
Wyddfa (Snowdon)
Old Speckled Hen (reflecting the team’s tipple of choice)
The Magnificent 7 (the team having a numerical advantage)

Colin’s quiz had a definite Welsh theme with rounds on…… Welsh Celebs, Welsh Geography and Welsh History.

There were 8 rounds of questions plus a picture round. However, the questions were not as difficult as some that we have had in previous years and even the English players were able to answer most of the questions.

At 8pm the Fish and Chips were delivered, and we paused to enjoy them. The Village Chippy at Three Households really does a fine job.

After our meal, the quiz continued, and in the end, Lloydia won by a comfortable margin.

The final scores were:

Lloydia                                              172
Llanfair pg                                        164
Wyddfa                                             130
Speckled Hen                                   123
The Magnificent 7                             150

 

There were no prizes, just the honour and bragging rights for winning (I have to say that Mr John did look rather smug).

Gwyndaf then thanked Colin on behalf of all the participants for all the work that he had put in to devising and running the quiz and we cleared up and went home just after 10pm.

Thanks again to Colin for all his hard work.

Quiz Night 2023

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Our 2023 quiz evening was held on Friday 20th January at Coleshill Village Hall. It was a cold night and people were pleased that the hall’s heating was turned up.

This year Ruth Huckle set the quiz and was our quizmaster, ably assisted by her friend Lesley, who acted as scorekeeper.

We divided ourselves up into 5 teams, and decided on our team names.
This year the names chosen were mostly Welsh: Stargazers, Yma o Hyd (Still Here), Gwin a Dwr (Wine and Water) Pobl Yr Wyddfa (People of Snowdon) and Eryri (Snowdonia). Most tables were well provisioned with nibbles and drinks to act as brain food.

Ruth is an enthusiastic quizzer herself, and this year’s questions had more of a flavour of a pub quiz.

The occasion was more of a get-together and a chance to meet other members after the Christmas break, but teams still wanted to perform well!

There were rounds on General Knowledge, Wales (of course), Geography, a chocolate based round and one where some knowledge of cockney rhyming slang was an advantage.

Embarrassingly, the round that everyone found hardest was the Welsh round (many of us had forgotten that the Welshman Michael Barratt was better known as Shakin’ Stevens).

Halfway through the evening the fish and chips delivery arrived. It had been supplied by ‘The Village Chippie’ in Three Households was really very good and they had managed to deliver them still hot and crisp. Some of us had ordered ‘naked fish’ (without batter) and they reported that these were excellent.

We finished the quiz at 10pm and Ruth announced the scores.

Out of a possible total of 75: Yma o Hyd came in first with 68 points, followed closely by Eryri with 64.5. Third was Gwin a Dwr with 64,while Pobl Yr Wyddfa had 63. Stargazers came fifth  with 61.5, but they did really well given that there were only four of them.

As we pushed the tables and chairs to one side, people were saying how much they had enjoyed the evening and what an varied and interesting quiz it had been.

Our thanks to Ruth and Lesley for giving us a splendid evening.

Quiz Night 2022

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Our 2022 Quiz Night was held on 21st January, and as with last year, it was a virtual event. Unfortunately, this meant that there was no fish and chips.
Jonathan Pegler had devised the quiz and hosted it over Zoom all the way from Porthcawl. Screen image of 2022 Quiz
In total there were 5 teams of either 5 or 6 members battling it out to try to answer some pretty fiendish questions set by Jonathan. I think that in terms of difficulty I would put this quiz somewhat between ‘University Challenge’ and ‘Only Connect’.

Jonathan started the quiz at 7pm. First, we were divided up into 5 teams each named after a colour in Welsh. I noticed that the members of last years winning team were split up to give other teams a chance!

Jonathan had already given us the questions and answers, but the files were all password protected so that we couldn’t access them until he gave us the code.
Each team was given a separate virtual ‘breakout room’ so that they could discuss the answers without being overheard by the other teams.

There were 6 separate rounds of questions with themes such as trying to identify obscure European languages (I didn’t even know that there was a Galician language), Science, opening lines from books, plays or music, Geography, Miscellaneous and General Knowledge – 70 questions in all.

From the start it was clear that Team Glas (Blue) was the team to watch, as they won each of the early rounds, and as the evening progressed their lead increased. The team comprised of Lloyd and Pamela Jones, Liz Seely and Rob Brett and Ruth Huckle.

We finished a bit later than expected, and Jonathan revealed the scores – Team Glas were the runaway winners scoring 102 out of a possible 115, but the other teams had all done creditably, with an average score of 78 or about 68%, so it was not Jonathan’s toughest quiz (apart from Round 1).

The results are shown below (note this is for the 2022 Quiz not the 2021 one)

2022 Quiz Scores
We congratulated the winning team (no prizes this year) and thanked Jonathan for his hard work in preparing, hosting, scoring as well as acting as chief technician in running the Zoom meeting and breakout rooms.
Let us hope that we will be able to meet in real life for our future events.

PS I have attached the Questions and Answers below, so if you want to either take the quiz yourselves or just check some of the answers, please click on this pdf file:

Questions and Answers

Quiz Night 2021

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Quiz Night Friday 22nd January 2021

Considering the circumstances our Annual Quiz Night went very well.

Of course, this year was rather different – there was no fish and chips, we stayed at home rather than travelling to Coleshill, and there was less opportunity to socialise, but it was still great fun.

Jonathan Pegler did a tremendous job, in fact several tremendous jobs in setting the quiz, running the quiz and handling the Zoom meeting.
Quiz Night Zoom screen shot
There was a very good turn-out with 40 members split up into seven teams.

We were arranged in groups of about 6 and all signed into the Zoom meeting at 6:45. By 7pm, Jonathan had given each team a colour as its name and arranged who went into which team.

There were 6 rounds of ten questions and at the beginning of each round Jonathan revealed the password to reveal the set of questions. Each team then went into a break-out room and discussed whether any of us could give an answer.

After what seemed to be no time at all, Jonathan called us back together and revealed the answers. The first round was about people ranging from Barbara Windsor to Napoleon.

The questions were up to Jonathan’s usual taxing standard, and after rounds two or three it soon became apparent that the White Team – Team Gwyn – was pulling ahead, scoring almost full points on the rounds concerning balls and tables. The rest of us also wondered where they were playing as the Zoom backgrounds kept changing!

Team Gwyn screenshotAs we moved into the final round Team Goch put on a late spurt, but it was too late, Team Gwyn (appropriately consisting of Gwyndaf and Janet John, Bill Jones, Ruth Huckle and Ann Brown) were too far in the lead.

Asked about their success Gwyn said ”The stars of our team were the women. Ruth could probably have won the Quiz on her own. Knowing the answers to the question on the Book of Common Prayer and also the details of Roulette tables indicates she has eclectic interests. Janet’s years of Electronics teaching meant the binary sum was spotted instantly. Ann’s Chemistry background was recent enough to remember the Periodic table – even if she was too young to remember the 1971 Lions coached by Carwyn James and featuring the incomparable Barry John.”

Here are the final scores:

Final Scores for Quiz Night

I think that we’d all like to say a very big ‘Thank you’ to Jonathan for all his work in making the evening such a success.

2019 Quiz Evening

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CDWS Quiz Evening 25/01/19

Thirty-six members of the Chiltern and District Welsh Society attended the 2019 Quiz Night (held on Burn’s Night) and we arranged ourselves into tables of six for a 7:30 start.

Jonathan set the quiz and delivered it with help from his with (lovely?) assistant Graham. This was a relief to many as Graham Beavan’s team has often won the quiz in prior years.

Each table had first to devise a name for its team. These were: The Gladiators, The Haggis, The Commoners, Dragons, Y Frrinda and Rebellion.

We started at 7:30 and Jonathan’s fiendish questions were set in 6 rounds with titles such as Name that advert and decade, Food & Drink, Science, General Knowledge, Cities with 2 names and Famous faces.

After the first two rounds Fish & Chips were delivered from the Three Households Fish and Chip shop ‘The Village Chippy’ – they were prompt, hot and tasty.

As the rounds progressed it became obvious that one team were drawing ahead, and at the end of the evening, the winning team, The Commoners, were revealed to be a team comprising of Gwyndaf & Janet John, David & Irene Powell & Rose Edwards. Two Committee members in the winning team? They denied any inside knowledge, but one never knows…..

David thanked Jonathan for all the work that he had put into organising the quiz and a show of hands supported the proposal to change to the September trip from a tour of Bath to a coach trip to Slimbridge, where Peter Scott’s house will be opening with the opportunity of seeing his pictures and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust site that he founded.

Say Cheese (and Wine)

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As a change from our usual January Quiz Evening, this year we had a Cheese & Wine (& Beer) event. Approximately 40 CDWS members assembled at 7pm in Coleshill Village Hall (26th January).

Jonathan Pegler had scoured the country for Welsh Cheeses, and even a Welsh wine. He started by teasing us with the question of which was best with cheese – red, white or beer, then explained that it all depended on the type of cheese, but beer usually worked (think Ploughman’s lunch).

Jonathan had done his research and was able to describe in some detail each of the various beverages and cheeses we were about to try.

Cheeses came to each table two at a time and everyone could choose what should go with each. The seven cheeses varied from Brie-like, through Caerphilly to strong tangy cheddars (most people’s favourite). Among these were a smoked goat’s cheese which divided opinion between those who loved it, and some who thought it inedible.

There were two wines, two whites (including Glyndwr from the Vale of Glamorgan) and two full bodied reds from France and Italy.

The four Welsh beers were also very popular – ranging from light Reverend James and Madog’s Ale to a dark, liquorish and tar tasting Cwrwgl.

We all had notes with the names and sources of each cheese and wine, with details of the suppliers, and Jonathan asked us to guess which were the most and least expensive of each cheese, wine and beer. Jonathan and Graham Beavan also had several additional bottles of wine and beer which people could buy at cost. They did a roaring trade.

We finished the evening around 9:30 or so and everyone thought that this was nice to have a change. Thanks to Jonathan for his painstaking research and entertaining talk.

David Powell