For many years now the ICAEW Scottish members have entered a team in the Edinburgh Inter-professional Quiz, organised by the Chartered Bankers and contested between various groups and firms of lawyers, bankers and accountants.
This year has been somewhat different from previous norms - with no face-to-face meetings in which to sound out possible members for our team, we had to rely on reappointment from teams of the past, we were without our regular captain SAL this year, and of course the quiz had to take an online format.
The team this time was captained by Richard Hellewell and comprised also Tim Gardiner, Luke Harris and Mark Hunter.
The online format worked well and everyone seemed to enjoy it, thanks to an excellent organising team handling the questions, the screen sharing, the organisation of the virtual breakout rooms and the scoring.
There were three sections to the quiz:
- The normal format of team answers - rounds on Ireland/St Patrick (it being held on 17 March), general knowledge and sport. Despite getting the Kabaddi question right, we emerged from the section fairly well down the order, though not far adrift on points.
- Two rounds of "Pointless" - authors from titles and initials, and then Bob Monkhouse programmes anagrammed. By choosing academic rand (Candid Camera) we got the "pointless" answer and moved up to third place.
- A "fastest finger" section to finish - this was individuals answering for five points a time for the team. Most, if not all of us, managed to get in with an answer or two (Luke was particularly impressive!) and we managed to get our noses in front of the opposition and take the victory, for at least the third time.
As well as the glory, and a bottle of bubbly each, the Griffin Bowl will once more be engraved "Accountants" and will be ours to display until the next annual quiz.
Join our ICAEW Scotland quiz team next time
Even after just approaching past participants and one or two others we filled our team and had people to spare (I guess there's not a lot competing in people's diaries in the evenings!). There is the scope to enter more than one team, and so maybe next year as well as our defending team we can look at ways of recruiting more widely and perhaps being more diversely represented. If you fancy joining the fun and are passably good at recollecting obscure facts, then please let Fiona Ormiston, ICAEW Senior Regional Executive – Scotland, know and we will compile a list of possibles for next year's captain(s).