Lockdown. The 23rd March 2020 will be a date long engrained in our history. This is the date Boris Johnson announced that the country would be locked down as a safeguard against the COVID-19 pandemic. During the first weeks of lockdown, it became obvious to me that as a local councillor, I very much needed to get involved in doing everything possible to assist the people in my home village of Bishop’s Hull and the wider Taunton area. So, with that in mind and along with other fabulous local volunteers, I helped to set up a series of COVID help groups. Organising volunteers to assist people with their shopping, collecting prescriptions, giving advice and where possible (COVID rules allowing) visiting people at home, chatting through open windows – wearing masks of course. My daily exercise (remember that?) was basically chatting to people on my daily walk around Bishop’s Hull, which I have to say was as therapeutic for me, as I hope it was for them.
The Lockdown Quiz was born. During the first week of lockdown, it quickly became apparent that there would be a great many local residents (me included) needing some sort of distraction, from the daily grind of lockdown. An obvious way of connecting with many of you, without breaking lockdown guidelines, was to connect with you using my social media offerings. It needed to be something I could broadcast ‘live’ that residents could interact with and so the twice weekly quiz began.
In the videos above, you’ll see an ‘advert’ for my very first ‘Lockdown Quiz’ on Sunday 29th March 2020 and a second video giving some examples of quiz questions.
The content below is a taken directly from a social media post made on the 7th September 2020.
Thank you for playing the lockdown ‘Virtual Quiz’ – As of today, I’ve decided to suspend the weekly Quiz for the time being, therefore there will not be a quiz this evening.
Understandably, as we move out of lockdown and into the ‘new normal’ (whatever that looks like), participation in the quiz has reduced as people get back to work, school and their busy post-lockdown lives.
It is my intention to bring the quiz back on an ad hoc basis, perhaps when the weather is horrid, and everyone is stuck at home. You’ll remember the Snow a few years ago, it would have been ideal back then wouldn’t it. The one thing I can promise you all, is that the quiz will come back, should lockdown return.
The first virtual quiz took place on Sunday 29th March, with a much larger than expected audience. Using the ‘live chat’ facility, residents from Bishop’s Hull, Comeytrowe, West Taunton and further afield, were able to connect with each other and myself during the one-and-a-half-hour broadcasts. We also had relatives and friends of those taking part, joining in the quiz from near and far, including some from Canada and New Zealand.
Families took part as a team and neighbours joined together to play, some interacting with each other in groups via Zoom, Facetime and WhatsApp.
Much of the reason for doing this, was to engage with those residents living alone and many joined in, enabling them to have some much-needed contact with the outside world.
I’ve received lots of lovely messages of thanks from so many of you and would like to say a huge thank you to everyone for taking part. It was a great pleasure to present all the 35 quizzes to you and I can assure you that your company, particularly during lockdown, was something I very much enjoyed and looked forward too.
A few facts for you: 35 Quizzes, approximately 52 hours of live broadcasting and an estimated 1,500 questions asked.
Update – The quiz returned in the following lockdowns with in excess of 2,500 questions and circa 100 hours of ‘live’ broadcasting.
