What a great fun Winter’s Quiz!
After a brief introductory welcome by our PGM Tom Quinn who was, remarkably, kept extremely well in order by his lovely wife Eunice, we progressed to the quiz itself. This was designed and constructed by W.Bro Dr Attilio Grandani in his own inimitable style. Regrettably, Attilio was called out on a contract early on Friday morning so was unable to present the quiz personally. Bro. Ameet Watts, however, stepped up to the mark (excuse the pun – Ed.) and took over the delivery of the event without any problems at all and did a fantastic job as quizmaster. There were almost 50 families attending and it was really gratifying to have so many present on this rather special occasion. The questions ranged from movies to Christmas hits, TV sitcoms to singers and general knowledge with a festive bias. The compilation and putting onto a USB must have taken many hours – thank you Attilio for all your continuing hard work.
Everyone enjoyed themselves and raised £400 which was matched by the PGM’s fund so that the PGM will be sending £800 to the United Nations Refugee Fund who do immeasurably great works throughout the world and who were selected as recipients by W Bro Mahir Kilic who, yet again, supported us on his Zoom platform.
There have to be winners and those who didn’t win, so we would like to single out W.Bro. Roger Hare of The Macdonald Lodge for being the recipient of the coveted “Wooden Spoon” award for supporting the infrastructure of the whole evening by setting a baseline which we all had to struggle to beat! Then in ascending order, the following:
4th Howard & Marilyn Markham (Euclid Lodge)
3rd Ralph Craig & Mary (Carnarvon 616 Lodge)
2nd John Waggott and family (Hibernia Lodge)
1st Daniel Gearing and family (Studholme Lodge)
Let us leave you with the closing address of Tom Quinn, our genial host.
“Most of you will be well aware of the tremendous support which W.Bro. Mahir Kilic gives to our Province in terms of his time and his provision of the Zoom licences for our large-scale events – the Virtual Provincial Meeting in July when we had over 500 Brethren present on one Zoom session (even though 200 of them were called ‘Tom Quinn’) it was still a great success and in addition to the execution of all our annual Business Matters, it raised £7,500 which has been distributed amongst our own Provincial Benevolent Fund, Silverline, Suited & Booted, Shelter and the WLMC.
More recently, Ameet Watts and Gurdeep Virdee hosted our Remembrance Day celebration which raised another magnificent £2,750.00, which has been sent off to the Royal British Legion for its Poppy Day Collection. And for his great Movember shave-off, Attilio has also raised the sum of £3,000 for the Mark Benevolent Fund!
Thank you once again to you all for your continuing generosity and your participation in the fun of this evening. Your donations have raised the very fine sum of £400 and I’m delighted to be able to announce that this figure will be matched by the PGM’s Discretionary Fund; so I have £800 to be allocated to charity. As a thank you to Mahir for all his good work on our behalf, I have asked him to nominate the charity and he has requested that the £800 goes to the United Nations Refugee Agency. This organisation works to protect the most vulnerable people fleeing war or persecution and seeks to guarantee access to adequate shelter in humanitarian emergencies by rushing in emergency aid where it is most needed. The Agency also works alongside other respected partners such as the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies – the world’s largest humanitarian network. On your behalf I am delighted to be able to donate tonight’s charity proceeds to the UN Refugee Agency.
Ladies and Brethren, nothing now remains but to thank you again for your attendance tonight. A special round of applause please, even in his absence, for Attilio who devised this evening’s torture! To Mahir for hosting this event and to Ameet and also in the background Gurdeep, for their technical assistance and running the show. Watch out for the London Mallet in a couple of weeks’ time which will contain all our usual informative articles and my closing address for 2020.
In the meantime, can I ask you all to raise your glasses, as I say “Season’s Greetings” and, however your particular faith may celebrate it, a very Merry Christmas to one and all.”