Quiz brings out the friendship and ... competitiveness

The annual Rotary Quiz  is always an excuse for a good laugh and the 'clash' between the Rotary Clubs of St Johns and Auckland East was the very finest example.  Typically St John put up its finest - a team of our younger members being Team Leader Anil, Fiona (dressed as a fairy to bring on the spells) and our Ambassadorial Scholar Wesley. 

It was clear they had been weel briefed on the 15 minute preparation rule that applies to all St Johns Rotary teams but held their own in the first Rotary question round against the formidable experience of the much more mature Auckland East Rotary team.  After the draw of the first quesytion round the second did not fare quite so well but the courage and daring of Fiona in attempting a couple of questions that did not quite pay off was applauded. Throughout the audience participated fully with appropriate cheers, jeers, cat-calls and estatic applause ... at times.

A fun meeting yet again!

Other highlights were the comparison of the Rotary Calendar vs the delicious Rotary Christmas Puddings - both are very good personal and corporate gifts with the bonus of supporting the community at the same time.  For both you can contact Christie or email stjohnsrotary@gmail.com   The 2012 Calendars are $10 and the puddings $20.

Trivia in abundance but what a night!

Saturday night saw 170+ people making up 20 teams gathered at the St Heliers School Hall for a night promoted as "FUN, LAUGHTER & TRIVIA".  It was all of that.  Teams comprised some Rotary club, corporate, political and mixed teams. 

Quiz Master extraordinaire, Steele, ensured that the thoughful, interesting and sometime outright obscure questions developed by our resident knowledge-bank Frank were delivered and answered professionally and with the Four Way Test in mind ... possibly.  This of course was helped by the wine (yes we had a licence for the wine, beer .. and soft drink) and the atmosphere created by the teams of whom most dressed up to represent their values (or lack of) and intent to have a FUN night out.

Being reponsible hosts the table decorations included plentiful snacks to nibble on, followed by delicious pizzas and finshed off with desserts on a stick.

However, in addition to the fun, the other purpose of the evening was to raised funds for the club's community projects in the year ahead and give members of the community the opportunity to support this.  To this end, in addition to the admission investment of a whole $25 per person there were a series of raffles, the opportunity to purchase quiz answers (a certain political group did this well - thank you and please come back next year) plus an auction with some amazing items donated including an impressive painting done by Brenda (what talent).

The total for the evening was over $8,000.  Thank you everyone for taking part - come back next year and bring even more friends.

To see a 3 minute video from the evening CLICK HERE 

Golfers in support of SHINE

Tuesday 8 November saw a full course at the Remuera Golf Course for the second annual Brian Gibbes Memorial Golf Tournament by the Rotary Club of St Johns Inc.  Brian Gibbes was a past member of the club and passionate about golf and helping youth.  Therefore the memorial tournament was established to raise funds to then be applied to a scholarship in Brian's name for promising youth needing a helping hand up.


The day was fine and every person on the course had a thoroughly great time and a huge thanks go to the main organisers, Gary Key and Andy McCarrison who of course were ably assisted by many club members. But the main thanks goes to the main sponsor and the many corporate teams supporting this fantastic cause. 


The scholarship will be implemented in partnership with SHINE.  This year's tournament raised at least $18,000 and this will be added to the $20,000 from last year to provide a capital base from which the scholarship will be funded.