News & Views - Week 2 (22/10/2013)

Change of venue for two teams...

As many of you will have seen from previous correspondence, the Plough on Prestbury Road is having a change of licensee etc and in addition is going to be closed for at least the short term, so both teams who play from there (Horntails and Taverners) have decided to relocate and they are both moving lock, stock and barrel to the Bate Hall on Chestergate. 

The two teams will henceforth be known as the Bate Horntails and Bate Taverners. 

All records will be amended from the next News & Views onwards. 

Week 1...

Week 1 kicked off with an excellent week of scoring as you can see, with no less than two ‘57s’ (Alice Walker and Peter McBride), a ‘54’ (Keith Pointon) and two ‘51s’ (Alan Levitt and Graham Bailey). Congratulations to all concerned.

Two teams also scored over 200 points in total, namely the Ox-fford ‘C’ and the Dolphin, a feat that hasn’t been done before to my knowledge. Let me know if you know otherwise…

Well done again to all the above. Records are there to be broken!

News & Views - Week 1 (15/10/2013)

Cup Round 1 Draw

New Season 2013-14

It is that time of year again - Season 33 of the Macclesfield Quiz League looms!

At the AGM on Tuesday we had a nail-biting Plate Final which ended in an 81-79 win for the Plough Taverners over the Park Taverners. Congratulations to both teams for an exciting contest and particularly to the Plough for securing their first trophy for many years – since their previous incarnation as Macc Cricket Club, I think. 

The game was question mastered by Paul Morrissey and I would like to thank him along with the Lamb Inn and the Nags Head who provided the questions – special thanks to Paul Griffiths, Chris Butler and Billy Stubbs.

The AGM had slightly more business than usual to determine but a good debate was had by all present and the below two changes were decided upon ultimately:-

1. Our first subscription increase in 5 years was agreed, thus subscriptions will rise to £50 per team for this year.  Looking back through our records, we have only raised the subs twice in the last 14 years (up to £30 in 1999 and then to £40 in 2008) so hopefully the new level will be with us for some time to come.
2. A small change to the Specialist Question categories was agreed which will be explained fully in the new 2013/14 Rules, but in essence we will have six “fixed” Specialist rounds instead of five from now on. Geography, History, Science and Sport will remain but the Arts and Entertainment round will effectively be split into two rounds to be called Art and Culture and Entertainment. This will leave two rounds to the discretion of the question setters rather than three. The new 2013/14 Rules will have full guidance as to what the new categories of questions should contain.

I am currently working on the fixtures which will be complete by next Tuesday the 8^th of October.

You can pay the subs and collect all the fixtures / rules / documentation etc from the Weaver, Thornton Square between 6.30pm and 8pm on Tuesday the 8^th of October 2013. I will be there along with Marshall Barnard who will issue the usual receipts etc.

The first game will be the following week on Tuesday the 15^th of October.

Question Setters – Weeks 1 and 2

The following teams have volunteered for question setting in the first two weeks of the season – many thanks to them:-

Week 1 questions – i.e. the 15^th of October will be done in their entirety by the Ox-fford.

Week 2 (22^nd of October) questions will be set by the Harrington ‘B’ (Specialist) and the Waters Green Rams (General Knowledge).

Week 3 (29^th of October) will see an A League team setting all the questions again, I will let that team know who they are ASAP.

All will be done by Tuesday and I will email everything out after that.

And Finally - Rob Parkin’s Berlin Marathon effort

Some of you have already sponsored the Harrington Academicals’ Rob Parkin who ran the Berlin Marathon last weekend – an event notable for a new Marathon World Record time set by winner Wilson Kipsang in 2 hrs 3 mins 23 secs (it will be a question soon, you can be sure of that!)

Rob achieved his target of going round in well under 4 hours which deserves our collective hats being taken off to him and some sponsorship going in his direction if you haven’t done such a thing already. Rob ran to raise money for East Cheshire Hospice once again and has a Justgiving page at the below link…

http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Parkin 
 

See you next week if not before…