The December general meeting for Permaculture Sydney West (PSW) is when we hold our Annual General Meeting (AGM) which takes some time so this year, rather than have a formal talk to end our year with, we decided to have a trivia night. I can’t take credit for the idea, it came from our hard working secretary and then was fleshed out by her and couple of the committee members, with all of us contributing ideas for questions and activities. It turned out to be a hugely fun night.
Hall Set Up
Normally, when we have a general meeting the chairs are set up in the middle of the hall and the tables are left around the outside so that we can fit more people into the central open area of the hall. To run the trivia night though we needed to have tables for people to sit around, both so they could write answers when required but also so we could break them up into small groups, because most of the activities were group activities.
When we did the set-up, the tables were laid out in a herringbone fashion so that most (if not all) people would be able to see the quiz master from their seat and there would be a minimum of jockeying for position required. Fortunately some of the members came along early so they enabled us to get the chair and table pattern set up before the majority of people turned up. To make running things easier, each table was given a number.
The Prizes
You can’t have a trivia night without prizes! But having said that, this is a Permaculture Group so we had to be a bit circumspect about what we were offering. In the end, we came up with the following -
- George Foreman Grill – This was second hand from one of the members but it good condition, in fact rarely used. It was to be a door prize, Linda gave everyone a lucky door prize ticket when they signed in, prior to entering the room.
- Bags of Compost and bottles of worm juice – These were provided by the garden team leader
- Seeds and seedlings – provided by the seed saving team
- Bottles of wine – also provided by members
- Movie Tickets – paid for out of PSW coffers, most of which came from memberships or presenters fees, so it was just giving back to the membership a bit, and
- Books on gardening/permaculture related themes obtained from the local St Vincent De Paul op shop.
The Personnel
It helps if your quiz master is a bit of an extrovert. Our vice president does corporate training for a living and knows his way around a crowd so it was generally agreed that he should MC the night. That proved to be the correct decision!
To make it easier a running sheet for the trivia night was put together for the Quiz Master, which also included the answers, making the job easier. A copy of our sheet can be downloaded here as can the rest of the documentation developed for the night.
There was also a score keeper who wrote the points gained from each round on a white board against each table number so that they could be tallied up at the end to determine the overall winning table. Two ladies from the committee also assisted the score keeper and quiz master by collecting completed answer sheets. Also where an activity required a participant to get their hand in the air first to answer a question they helped to determine who was first.
The Activities
There were a number of activities enjoyed on the night, and after running the lucky door prize, which I pulled out of an organic yogurt container, we moved on as follows –
- Round 1 Questions - 8 “what is….?” questions (eg What is hugelkulture), followed by,
- Round 2 Questions - 8 “number” questions (eg how many queens in a bee hive)
The people at each table were allowed to discuss the questions for a few seconds, then enter their answer for the table on an answer sheet. The quizmaster read out the answers after each round and the table were allowed to score their own answers. After scoring, the scorekeeping assistants collected all the answer sheets and then passed them on to the scorer, who entered the results onto a whiteboard, keeping a running tally of the results. The people on the winning table from each round were allowed to collect prizes from the prize table.
- Table Game #1
This was a sheet of paper left on each table, which the participants could fill out after discussion with everyone at the table. The table game was broken up into 3 parts, the first part required the group to write down as many Movie or Song titles with a Permaculture reference as they could think of (EG how green was my valley). There was a point given for each title written down.
The second part of the game was unscrambling 8 words or phrases, with a permaculture flavour of course, and them writing them down on the sheet for 2 points each. So in that way “r i e o n m t t f a n e” became “fermentation”. The third and final part of the game was a series of 8 multiple choice questions. Once the sheets were completed, the answers were read out by the quizmaster, the sheets corrected by their table and then they were collected and tallied.
- Novelty Game #1
This was an individual game with no points accrued. Everyone stands up and the quizmaster explains that this is a game of heads or tails. The quizmaster asks a question and then has two answers, if a participant thinks the first answer is correct (heads) they place their hands on their head, if they think the second answer is correct (tails) they place their hands on their bum. The participants who got it wrong sit down and the process continues until only one person is still standing, they are the winner and got to pick a bottle of wine from the prize table.
- Table Game #2
This game used images on slides projected onto a screen and was again divided into 3 parts. The first part was a series of pictures of seeds for 10 vegetables and the tables had to match which seeds were from which vegetable name, each correct answer getting one point. The second part was a slide of 8 different national flags and the participants had to match the flag with the country for 8 points and the third part required the participants to match 8 faces of well-known permaculture people with their names on the sheet, also for 8 points. On completed slides with the correct answers put up, the sheets scored and then collected for a tally.
- Novelty Game #2
Again, no points for tables but a lot of fun. The winner was the first person to stand up with - a green item; a recycled item; wearing something made out of hemp or bamboo and if required there could be a 4th item, which had been made by the participant.
- Round 3 Questions – 8 “true or false” questions (eg lavender is a perennial, true or false?) followed by,
- Round 4 Questions – 8 “finish this sentence” questions (eg the mustard plant family is commonly known as _________).
These were run in the same way as rounds 1 and 2 above, each correct answer being worth one point for the table.
- Table Game #2
Again, a sheet was handed out with three sections, the first was 4 well known proverbs which had to be matched up with a permaculture principle (worth 4 points), 4 pictures of unusual fruits which had to be named (worth 4 points) and 10 multiple choice permaculture related questions. The sheets were picked up and tallied after each table scored their own.
- Novelty Game #3
This game had only one part. It was based around the old song – “Old MacDonald had a farm, E I E I O. And on that farm he had a....” and at the end the idea was to put in an element or function of a permaculture garden eg water tank/banana circle/herb spiral etc. The team who could come up with the most ideas was the winner………..then they had to sing it! This was mercifully short.
This was the end of the night, all of the scores were tallied up and the overall winners were announced and the table who won had their pick of the books on the prize table. I then thanked everyone for their attendance and said we looked forward to seeing them all again in the New Year.
Prior to the meeting, everyone was asked to bring in some Christmassy food for the food table, we provided a Christmas table cloth and some Christmas themed plates and after the trivia quiz was completed everyone shared the assembled food and the usual tea or coffee and a chat.
Note: All available documents for this activity can be downloaded here.
