Where: Ford Canteen, Chennai
When: March 27, 2009 Friday at 2.45 PM (India time)
Quizmaster: yours truly
Writeup about the event:
People thronged the Canteen on March 27th, 2009. The Occasion!! the first of its kind: Ford Quiz, open for employees of Ford in India. Eighty teams of two each lined up for the preliminary qualifiers. Top six teams from the prelims would compete for the top honours in the Finals. All proceeds of the Quiz going for community service. The audio/visual event kicked off at 2.45 PM, with Sri & Balaji (Team no.1), (Wow! this displayed the commitment for community service by top management) seated in the front row.
The prelims had 30 questions with inbuilt tie breakers. Questions ranged from current affairs, mythology, entertainment and sports. The quiz master kept the participants on their toes till the end of the prelims. Once the prelims was through, an army of eight HR members did the scoring while the quiz master was announcing the answers one by one and the participants awaited with bated breath to know the result. Only six teams would play the finals and so there was a nail biting suspense as to who those six teams would be. Some teams agonizingly missed qualifying by a single Point!!
The Super Six were:
Team 1 – Sunil Chandrasekar & Sreeram
Team 2 – Karthik & Shrikanth Ayambare
Team 3 – P.Ashok and R.Ganesh
Team 4 – Samatha & Deepak Chitrapu
Team 5 – Harikrishnan & DG Ganesh
Team 6 – Srinath Balaji & S.Arulpathy
After a short break the grand showdown -Finals commenced at around 4.30 PM. There were totally five rounds – all based on Formula One grids. Team 1 got off the mark early and maintained a good lead over the other teams. The others caught up in the later rounds, but Round 4 (Theme round) totally belonged to Team 1. The other teams actively competed with each other in the last round. The competition was fierce and good to watch.
Team 1 emerged winners and managed to crack almost all the questions that came their way. The other teams were equally placed and it was anybody’s game. In the end it was what some would like to call – Photo finish. Team 1 won the quiz, followed closely by Teams 5 and 2. The audience were in rapt attention and maintained decorum throughout the whole event. There were many oohs and aahs as the teams tackled each question.
The quality of the quiz was high and so was the quality of the quizzers on stage. Even the audience were able to crack some of the questions that the on-stage participants couldn’t answer.
There was a quick presentation ceremony with our HR Director, Pandiyan gave away the prizes to the Winners at 1st, 2nd and 3rd places and audience prizes respectively. Overall, it was an evening where the SUN may have set, but the FUN never set. Everybody had their fill of fun, learning and lots of laughter.
In fact, what started off as a purely Community Development initiative became as intensity as a professional quiz!!
