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shelter.org.uk/quiz
Registered charity in England and Wales (263710) and in Scotland (SC002327) RH7664
Getting started
Pick a time
All the Let’s Get Quizzical questions and
promotional materials are available to
download throughout the year, so it’s up to
you to decide when to hold your quiz. Pubs
may let you use their space for free on a quiet
night to get more customers in mid week.
Some places may charge a fee – it’s worth
asking if there’s a discount charity rate when
you book the venue.
If the venue is large, or you are expecting a lot
of people (which hopefully you are!), you might
want to get a microphone and PA system set
up so you don’t have to shout!
Number crunching
Spread the word
Your aim is to recruit as many teams as
possible so there’s a good level of friendly
competition. Think about how many people
you would like to attend and then scale the
maximum team size accordingly. Bear in mind
that you probably don’t want to have more than
six people per team to keep things manageable.
There are lots of ways to promote your quiz:
We recommend that each team member
pays £5 to take part, but price the quiz to suit
your audience’s pockets. You may want to
charge more if you have to pay extra for the
venue or prizes, or if drinks are included in
the price.
Whatever you charge, ideally you should collect
the money before the event, but realistically
some people will probably want to pay on
the door. Either way, make sure you’ve got
somewhere safe to keep the cash.
Find a venue
If you’re holding your quiz at work, a
large conference room or canteen is ideal.
Alternatively you could try:
•pubs, bars or restaurants
•hotels/conference centres
•community centres
•health clubs
•local schools or places of worship
•your home (if it’s big enough!)
shelter.org.uk
page 2
•download the Let’s Get Quizzical poster
from shelter.org.uk/quiz and fill in your
event details
•set up a Facebook event and invite people
•use Twitter to tell everyone about your quiz
•if you’re organising a quiz at work, see if you
can use internal communications channels
or if you can send out a general email.
Do some PR
You might want to publicise your quiz to the
local press and radio to show how you or your
company is supporting Shelter.
Arrange prizes
You will need to find a prize for the winning
team, and maybe the runners-up as well.
Try approaching local businesses (for example,
restaurants, salons, gyms or retailers) and ask
for vouchers, freebies or experiences.
You could also ask your employer to donate the
prizes, or if you’ve arranged a pub as a venue,
try asking the landlord to donate a free round
of drinks.
And don’t forget a booby prize for the
losing team!
On the night
Questions
Get some help
Let’s Get Quizzical is a really flexible format
that allows you to build a quiz that suits your
audience. The Shelter team have built sets
of 10 questions under a range of category
headings, which you can then mix and match
to create your quiz.
As the quiz organiser, you’ll need to allocate
tasks to a few willing helpers:
The categories are:
•General knowledge
•History and current events
•Geography
•Science and nature
•Sport
•Music
•Film, TV and literature
•Quirky questions
•Picture round
•Shelter
If you prefer, you can always create your own
questions, or alternatively there are lots of sites
that offer free quiz questions.
shelter.org.uk
page 3
•quiz master – a confident public speaker to
read out the questions and answers
s
• corers – to mark the answers and resolve
any disputes
•raffle co-ordinators – to sell raffle tickets at
tables, draw out winners and allocate prizes
•photographer – to keep a record of your event
On the night
Keep tally
Security
Participants can use the Let’s Get Quizzical
answer sheet to record their responses. This is
based on each round containing 10 questions
so if your rounds are longer or shorter you may
prefer to create your own answer sheets.
Make sure that you stay safe while collecting
the money from your quiz.
When it comes to marking the quiz, you can
either have a designated impartial scorer or you
might like to get teams to mark each other’s
answers – it depends how competitive your
teams are!
If you keep a score after each round, it can
be fun to keep a tally on a scoreboard to
encourage a bit of competition between teams.
•Encourage participants to pay you in advance
to reduce the amount of money being carried
on the night.
•If you do collect cash on the night, make
sure there are always two of you doing the
collecting and count up the money at the end
of the evening.
•Some venues may have a safe where you can
store the money overnight – ask your venue
in advance if they can provide this service.
•If you’re carrying large amounts of cash,
leave the venue in a vehicle, not on foot – this
is particularly important late at night.
Drum up some more cash
Your fundraising efforts don’t need to stop with the quiz. There are lots of fun extras you
can do on the night to raise a bit more money...
Hold a raffle
Organising a raffle as part of the quiz night will raise even more money for Shelter.
All you need is a book of tickets – available cheap from most stationers.
Check the guidance on the Shelter website for keeping it legal:
http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_involved/organise/keeping_it_legal
Food and drinks promotion
It’s worth approaching local supermarkets or restaurants to ask if they would donate
food or drink in exchange for advertising at your event. Or if you’re holding a quiz in a bar
or pub, you could ask the landlord to donate a percentage of their sales for the evening
– remember, you are probably bringing in business for them, especially on what might
otherwise be a quiet week night!
Fun and games
Whether it’s a Sweepstake or Name the Bear, arranging a cheap and simple game can be
an easy way to raise extra donations. You might like to intersperse extra games between
quiz rounds to keep people interested.
shelter.org.uk
page 4
After the event
Thank you!
Feedback
You’ll probably have distributed the winner’s
(and loser’s!) prizes on the night, but if not, be
sure to get these out shortly after your event.
We’d really like to hear how your quiz
went, you can always drop us a line to
[email protected] If you took any photos
on the night, we’d love to see those as well!
It’s also worth sending a thank you email to
everyone who took part, and if you’re thinking
of holding another quiz in the future perhaps
you could include a teaser.
Paying in
Once you’ve finished your quiz, it’s best
to collect together all the entry fees and
additional donations into one single donation.
You can then pay everything by cheque or
card payment – but please don’t send
us cash!
By cheque
Please make your cheque payable to ‘Shelter’
and send it in with a brief note about your
event to:
The Shelter Events Team
88 Old Street
London EC1V 9HU
Online
To donate online, visit our secure online
payment page and enter your card details.
Some people prefer to set up an online
donation page to collect their quiz fees, using
Virgin Money Giving or a similar site. If you do
decide to set up a page, please send an email
to [email protected] to let us know the
web address so we can keep track of
your donation.
shelter.org.uk
page 5
Where your money goes
Shelter believes everyone should have
a home.
More than one million people a year
come to us for advice and support via
our website, helplines and national
network of services. We help people to
find and keep a home in a place where
they can thrive, and tackle the root
causes of bad housing by campaigning
for new laws, policies and solutions.
We’re proud that we spend less that
1% of our income on management and
admin, and that we generate an average
of £4.45 for every £1 we spend on
fundraising.
We need your help to continue our work.
Thank you for supporting us.
For more information about Shelter,
visit shelter.org.uk
or email [email protected]