Friday night saw members of Hotspur Lodge No.1626, which meets at Fern Avenue Masonic Centre, pitting their wits against 20 other teams, in the inaugural UGLE Universities Scheme Universally Challenged Inter Region quiz.
The quiz, hosted on Zoom, had over 80 contestants and commenced with a thank you and good luck from Scheme President and Assistant Grand Master, Sir David Wootton and Howard Griffin, Scheme committee member.
The Hotspur Lodge team was made up of two students, one undergrad and one post grad, and two longer serving brethren. As this was a Zoom call the team members were participating, not just from Newcastle as with W Bro Tom Clifford, but also from Alberta, Canada (-7 hours GMT) where W Bro Gary Alderson is currently working and from Kent, home for their post grad student Bro Chris Baker. The wonders of modern technology!
The rounds consisted of five questions each and ranged from chemistry to films, TV, sport, politics, history, music, current affairs and geography. The team was captained by the undergraduate student, who co-ordinated the answers and forwarded them to the Question Master. He thought the oldest member of the Hotspur Lodge team was only there for the history questions and had assumed that as he had known the answer to ‘When was the general strike?’ he must have been around at the time!!
There were the usual hiccups such as someone blurting out an answer when not on mute but, all in all, a good time was had by all. The team felt they worked very well together and there was some banter among the brethren in the call; both between the team and inter team. It was a very enjoyable evening, for which the team thanked the organisers and other participants.
The inaugural winning team, the London Management team, included RW Bro Sir David Wootton, VW Bro Dr David Staples and RW Bro James Hilditch, PGM Oxford and Scheme Chairman.
Well done Team Hotspur Lodge who came a commendable joint second.
The final scores were
45 London Management
43 ULS Staffordshire
43 Hotspur Lodge
42 City of Lancaster Lodge
42 University of Liverpool
42 Province of East Kent
41 Apollo Lodge
40 Hartington Lodge
37 Province of Norfolk
37 Old MancunIans with Mount Sinai
36 Province of Durham
35 Yorkshire, West Riding
34 Southampton
34 Surrey and Sussex
34 Lodge of Chisel
33 Iron Bridge Lodge
31 Leadership team – The A-Team
29 Blockley Lodge
28.5 St David’s Lodge
22 Collegiate Lodge
15 Cumberland Lodge
Many thanks to W.Bro Philippe Pagès for the submission of this article.
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