SoQ it to me!

A report on the Summer of Quiz 2010 quiz camp, written by one of its organisers, Navin Pai

Over-excited kids, even more excited QMs and truckloads of brain picking is what you'd have witnessed if you lurked within spitting distance of the International Centre Goa, Dona Paula anytime on the 10th and 11th of May, for this was the epicenter of the event that we’d humbly named the Summer Of Quiz (SoQ) 2010. After months of torturing kids with mind-numbing questions at the monthlies, SEQC has had a stretch of children specific events, and SoQ, a quiz camp for kids in the 10-16 age group, was another way of us thanking the youngsters for maintaining a straight face through the gruelingly difficult monthlies (and introducing newbies to the world of Quizzing).

Despite being an event that was organized in a very short timespan, a bit of targeted publicity helped quite a bit, and about 30 young quizzers signed up for the quiz camp. And these 30 young guys and gals along with the quizzards from SEQC embarked upon the two day SoQ journey.

Day one had consecutive general quizzes by Amit and Anant . These two quizzes were, to say the least, marvelous! The aim of these quizzes was to get the participants in the groove of quizzing, and boy, did they get into the groove of things. They say a building is only as strong as it’s foundation, and these 2 quizzes set up a Reinforced Carbon Concrete (RCC) foundation for day zwei.

Day two had topic specific quizzes on Sports, Entertainment and Cartoons&Comics by Amit, Adish and yours truly, besides a treasure hunt and an innovative game called Around the World in 80 minutes, both organized by Annie. The treasure hunt was by far, the wildest event of the day, with kids running around the ICG premises like geese on an icy lake. Infact, they had so much energy that it did actually seem that they were high on sugar coated ….well, sugar! The quizzes were great, and most questions the QMs posed were answered, albeit sometimes with a clue or two thrown in. Around the World in 80 minutes, a NatGeo Explorer style around the world trip, was a great addition, and was well received by the participants. We witnessed history in the making, as a team actually managed to complete the around the world trip, at the last breath of the tournament, with a little help! :)

A bit of late night photoshopping and a some early morning bhaaga-daudi later, we had our cheekily named “Certificate of Quizzitude” ready for the quizzers who’re gonna rule the quizzing world in days to come! Curtains were brought down on the event after the certificates were handed out, and promises to meet again at the next SEQC kids event were made.

The entire event was a resounding success, to say the very least! Many participating quizzers suggested we make this an annual event…. others suggested we make it bi-annual! So we may very well be looking at a Summer of Quiz Winter Edition as well! :)

Over the 2 days of the event: I slept for 4 hours, nearly got mauled by a bunch of 12 year olds, had a bad headache, had my laptop hacked into (unknowingly) by a 14 year old, was requested by a kid to play a certain song with highly explicit lyrics, was mocked by teenage girls, realized that managing kids ain’t as easy as it seems, realized that kids nowadays are weird (as Adish puts it, They actually like quizzing!), signed 36 certificates along with a bunch of other SEQC-ites, phew……. And now they want a sequel??

BRING IT ON ,I SAY!! :)