Saturday 16th November 2024 saw Sunnyside and friends meeting in Church for the Tearfund Big Quiz Night 2024. Katie RS was Quizmaster for a sixth year and it was another brilliant event with a great buzz in Church! There were a record 11 teams this year, totalling 77 people made up of congregation with their families and friends including friends from other Berkhamsted Churches, the walking group, and house groups. There were some great team names! (The Headless Chickens, Samson’s Smarties, The Magnificent 7 and Stuart, Elvis Presley Lives, Permanently Puzzled, Never gonna quiz you up, Cosmopolitans, The Humble-Bumble-Bees, Walkie Talkie, Amnesiacs, and Friday Friends). There were eight rounds – Geography – Capital Cities, General knowledge – Colours, History: Two truths and a lie, Natural landmarks, Sports, Music and Movies, Spotlight on 2023, Food and Drink – with six questions per round.
Finishing scores were spread out from 25.5 to 37 (out of a possible 48 points). Interestingly last year’s winners got 43 – we’ll put it down to harder questions this year. The Humble-Bumble-Bees (Stephen, Sarah and Emelie, Andrew and Kristina, and Sue M) and Permanently Puzzled (Richard, Julian, Marianne, Matthew and James, and John K) both finished on 37 points, so a tie-break was needed again this year. Katie scrabbled around to find a tie-breaker question and then asked “How tall in feet are the letters of the Hollywood sign?” The answer was 45 feet. Permanently Puzzled guessed 20 feet but The Humble-Bumble-Bees were closer with their guess of 25 feet so were each awarded a sweet cone for coming top, with Permanently Puzzled receiving a snack pack of Haribo for achieving second place. Interestingly Permanently Puzzled were runners-up last year too so are consistent contestants and maybe next year will be their year!
Walkie Talkie (Chris and John, Pat and Dave, Richard, William, Marguerite and Paul) were awarded the wooden spoon – not sure who went home with it! We also had a fun game of Heads and Tails – Katie’s Dad Cliff and Julie guessed the same to take Howard out of the running, and then Julie secured the victory and generously donated her £20 winnings back into the pot.
At least 257 churches and 11,011 other quizzers took part this year contributing to a Tearfund total of almost £55,000 and climbing. Another interesting fact: the number of people across the country taking part this year was nearly double! This year we’ve had our best year yet for raising money!! The current total (including Gift Aid) stands at £931.88 and counting – as I know some folks who were unable to attend would like to support the cause. There’s still time to donate here. Many thanks to you all for your generosity!! Amazingly we’ve now raised over £4,300 for Tearfund since 2019 through the quizzes.
Also many thanks to all those who had baked for Community Café and allowed us to raise extra funds for Tearfund in the evening (using leftovers plus extra cake earmarked especially for the quiz!), Dave S for tech support, Samson RS for putting out the answer sheets and collecting Heads and Tails monies, and to everyone working together at the end to get church back ready for the morning.
For now please pop Saturday 15th November 2025 in your diaries as a placeholder (the equivalent Saturday next year) and I’ll let you know when we hear the definite date!
Katie RS
