Barrow upon Soar Twinning Association runs two quizzes during the year. The first one this year was held on the 27th March at the Bishop Beveridge Club. There is no requirement to speak French, as the whole evening is conducted in English. The teams are usually made up of four people who give themselves a team name, these can be very inventive and funny. A hot supper is always served half-way through the evening, and quizzers are invited to supply their own wine or preference of drink.

The questions are set by two very able quiz masters: Alan Willcocks and Roger Grew. There are four rounds of questions on various subjects of general knowledge plus a bingo round, a wipe-out round and a picture-table round that can be worked on during the whole evening.

A grid of 25 squares is provided for the bingo round. The centre square is 25, the other 24 are numbered by the quizzers in any order they want; answers to the questions are put in the appropriate boxes. There is a connection to all the answers, which is then put in box 25. Correct answers in any row, vertical horizontal or diagonal score extra points.

The wipe-out round is a killer! There is no obligation to answer any question you are not sure of, but if you put down a wrong answer it wipes out the total score for that round. This can make a huge difference to the scores at the end of the night. Unusually we had two teams on the night that drew for first place.

The picture quiz in March was pub names. This proved to be very popular and, strangely, showed a lot of knowledge by some of the quizzers!

A raffle is always held and the generosity of people who not only buy tickets, but also supply prizes, is overwhelming. In March, we raised £71 which we donated to LOROS: a very worthy cause.

Any profits from Quiz Evening go into the association funds, to enable us to entertain our friends from Marans, when they join us in Barrow, which will now be 2027, as we go to Marans in June this year.

Our next quiz will be in November, so please come and join us. It is a fun evening, one not taken too seriously.

Val Gillings