Date: Friday 13 September, 2024
Venue: The Hornet’s Nest (Halswell Rugby League Clubrooms)
Kindly supported by: Speight's
Host: matt heath
Report by: Ryan Astle
“Quiz and Some Other Shizz 2024 was an unforgettable night, and I’m not just talking about the photos of the gaping wound in G Lane’s forehead that Matt showed us that I can’t unsee.”
After the success of last year’s Quiz and Some Other Shizz event, where Scotty Stevenson smashed it out of the park, we thought it was only right to have another one.
A lot of deliberation went into who should be the host this year, but top of the list was Matt Heath. We knew he’d nail the fun and banter side of things given his background of working on Hauraki and for the Alternative Cricket Commentary (ACC), but also that he’d be able to go deeper given his recent book "A life less punishing", which delves into the ways one can, well frankly, be a better man (or woman).
We’re still unsure on how Todd convinced Matt to come down. Maybe it was because they bonded over many a red wine at this year’s Black Clash. Or it could have been guilt, Matt did after all come up with one of Todd's ACC nicknames - Eric Trump... 🤣
If there’s one thing guys are good at, it’s buying tickets to an event at the very last minute. It really keeps you on your toes as an event organiser… Thankfully, given that attendees from last year’s quiz had had a great time, ticket sales this time went pretty smoothly with only a bit of cajoling.
Game Day
Come game day and there was a nervous excitement. Eric/Todd picked up Matt from the airport and we all met up at the Hornet’s nest (Halswell Rugby League clubrooms).
Running an event like this there are a number of factors that could go wrong that you’re hoping like heck aren’t going to happen. Last year we were sweating bullets over the tech, thankfully once again everything played ball. It definitely helped to have a good run through prior with Matt and we weren’t testing the questions as guests came in like last year…
180 people over 27 teams all filed in and got a complimentary Speight’s. A huge thanks to Nigel Smith and the Speight’s team for teeing that up for us along with the night's prizes.
After Todd set the scene and got a bit of crowd participation going, the teams got stuck into some quizzing. Queue serious faces…
At the end of each round we encouraged some yarns with questions that tied into the theme of the round. Matt led the charge on that telling some ripper yarns including one about Mr Hesson (former Black Cap Mike Hesson’s old man) smuggling booze into Carisbrook.
The Games
Ged, once again, excelled as games master, including a game of Heads and Tails (essentially fifty-fifty questions where you put your hands on your head for answer A, and tails for B). We got down to two contestants who had to vie for the win by blowing a balloon up the fastest until it popped. Ged did consider just giving the win to Stuart Cameron given he’s the headmaster of our kids’ school, but thought better of it. Unfortunately Stuart lost so hopefully that doesn’t mean a bunch of detentions for the Astle and Robinson children...
Another one of Ged’s games is Mr Freeze where as soon Ged freezes you have to too. Last person to freeze loses. Pretty hard case watching people stop what they're doing mid walk or sentence. We had three rounds, with the culprits then having to play finish the lyrics. Drew Smith managed to pull off the win (incidentally Drew stepped up to take the hit as his Dad had been the last one to freeze. Given Drew had invited his Dad along to help strengthen their relationship, he thought it was only fair. From a BetterMan perspective, it's awesome to hear that people are bringing along their family members as we’re constantly looking at how we can improve the relationships a man has in his life).
Matt’s speech:
Mid quiz, Matt stopped to present his speech. Starting with showing how much of a maniac he was in his younger days (I was a huge fan of Back of the Y so was good to reminisce over some of that footage), he progressed to talk about a lot of the great things in his life but despite that he was still not happy. His turning point (which he speaks about in his book A life less punishing, which I highly recommend, available in all good bookstores 🤣) was realising how good he had it. After running a half marathon in Queenstown with three good mates, shortly afterwards one of the guys got hospitalised, G Lane got a type of rare cancer, and Scotty Stevenson (who spoke at last year’s quiz and is BetterMan Patron) lost his wife Claire to brain cancer. This realisation that there are going to be bad things around the corner made him appreciate the good but also led him on a journey to look at, and report on ways to love the life you’ve got.
After interviewing and researching some of the great philosophers, scientists and specialists in the wellbeing field Matt distilled some key takeaways. The one that resonated the most with me was about the Boston Harvard Happiness study with Matt quoting the director of the 86-year old study Robert J. Waldinger "Good relationships with friends and family keep us happier and healthier. Period."
Matt nailed it.
The Quiz
After six rounds of quizzing it was then onto drawing raffle winners before we held an auction. Matt’s ploy of loudly yelling gibberish and sporadically inserting a number seemed to pay off. We had some fantastic bidding wars for the three items we had on offer including an Ultimate Crusaders experience, a round of golf for 4 at Clearwater, and a spot on the BetterMan XI for the upcoming charity T20 cricket game under lights at Hagley Oval on Sunday December 8 versus Movember (pencil it into your calendar now and keep an eye out on our socials for more details).
By this stage the scores had been added up and with two teams locked on the same amount of points a tie breaker was in order. Both teams were coerced to the front and had to submit on pen and paper their guess to this question: “Anders Backe holds the World Record for the fastest speed skiing downhill backwards - what is it in km/h?”
What’s your guess? Answer at the bottom of this article.
One team were only a few kilometres off. Pretty impressive stuff. Unfortunately for them though it meant the other team won a prize as the teams were vying for last place 🤣.
Third, second and first also scored themselves some great prizes courtesy of the good buggers at Speight’s. Here's a shot of the winning team (and some photobombers):
Thanks
Events like this couldn't happen without the support of our friends and family, and some generous people and companies that helped us out. So, a huge thanks to the following:
All the attendees
Our wives Nicola, Rachel and Shaanti along with Jess Swift for helping both on the night and during the build up
Speight's for the prizes, complimentary drinks and for pulling a crew together to compete
Jess Devereux and the Halswell Rugby League Club
Robbie Fisher from Ghost&Co for the photos and video reel.
Leigh Hart from Snackachangi for donating a boot-load of chips
Chris Robinson from Yeah Nah quizzes for pulling the quiz together
ASICS, Blitz Fitness, Clearwater Golf Club, and the Crusade with Heart Foundation for very generously donating prizes or auction items
The wedding shot
Finally, just a reminder that if you want to be kept up to date with our events then please subscribe for our updates.
Cheers,
Ryan, Todd and Ged.
* Anders Backe holds the World Record for fastest speed downhill skiing backwards at 133.4 km/h!
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