Aston Charles reigns supreme at the Harrogate Insurance Institute Quiz
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19-Mar-15
The Team at Aston Charles were rewarded for braving a trip to North Yorkshire, on a cold winter’s night, by coming first in the Harrogate Insurance Institute Quiz. Held annually at Harrogate’s Rugby Union Club House, the ‘Harrogate Quiz’, as it’s most commonly known, is a firm favourite of the social calendars of institutes across Yorkshire.
Buoyed by a record turnout for recent years, the quiz set off at a frenetic pace, and the Aston Charles Team, having received ‘10 out of 10’ for the first three rounds, established a firm lead. This is thanks, in no small part, to Bluefin’s ‘Recruiter for the night’ Mark Wilding, who quickly proved himself to be a regular fountain of all knowledge. To his credit, and the rest of the Team’s embarrassment, Mark sportingly offered his team members the chance to answer, before coming up with the correct result.
A sprit of good natured competition soon filled the Club House, with many a joke answer put forward before teams got down to the serious business of putting pen to paper. This includes one hilarious gaff by Aston Charles’ MD, James Heald, who admits that sporting trivia is not his strong point. James boasted to knowing the answer to ‘at which Olympics was the film Cool Running’s based?’ – his team mates’ shocked stares were met with James proudly stating ‘the Winter Olympics, right?’.
From round four onwards, Aston Charles started to falter and their lead all but disappeared over the music round, resulting in a nail biting finish on the few last sets of questions. Fortunately, the penultimate round was on Mark’s specialist subject , History(after Sports, Trivia, People and Places, Literature, Science and Nature….) and the Team from Aston Charles managed to cruise to a reasonably comfortable finish.
Aside from enjoying a pleasant evening with colleagues, clients and friends, Aston Charles were delighted to win the inaugural ‘Julia Pattimore Memorial Trophy’. Julia, who sadly died in 2009, was a prominent figure within the local insurance community, and a big supporter of the ‘Harrogate Quiz’.
James comments, ‘Having worked with Julia Pattimore when I started my insurance career at Smart & Cook, I am honoured that Aston Charles are the first team to lift the trophy bearing her name, and look forward to setting the quiz next year and continuing this fine tradition’.
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