Scotts Valley Rotary Club invites the community to participate in its first ever Annual Trivia Cup Challenge.
The event, scheduled for 6 p.m. Saturday night at Bruno’s BBQ, aims to test the wits of the community in a fun and social way.
All are welcome to participate and work in teams to answer a series of questions, with the winning team ultimately taking home the trivia cup — which will be passed to the new winning team each year.
Bruno’s BBQ owner and co-chair for the Rotary’s fundraising committee, Rosanna Herrera, said the trivia cup challenge was created as an alternative to traditional dinner and auction fundraisers.
The club got the idea from the Santa Cruz Volunteer Center, which holds a popular trivia challenge of their own, attracting people from all over. Scotts Valley Rotary hopes to achieve the same success with their event in the years to come.
“We want people to come out and have fun,” Herrera said, “have some good food and drink and win some prizes.”
Herrera emphasized that all members of the community are invited, not just Rotarians. Playing a friendly game is a good way to get people of all ages to interact constructively, she said, and the funds raised from the event are primarily slated to help youth programs in Scotts Valley.
“Mainly it would be literacy and education,” said Scotts Valley Rotary President Laureen Yungmeyer.
One of the specific ways to spread the wealth will be to provide Scotts Valley youths with scholarships to leadership camp.
The challenge is set up so that teams of up to eight people can work together in answering trivia questions posed by Thomas Todd, trivia master and former Jeopardy contestant. There will be four rounds of questions, so that participants have plenty of opportunities to get ahead.
Mingling and snacking is also in store for participants between the rounds. Herrera said Bruno’s plans to serve substantial appetizers — such as their sliders — to keep everyone’s bellies full.
And though Herrera and Yungmeyer were not giving away any hints about the questions that will be asked, they both said they are excited to get challenged themselves.
Trivia master Todd is a local celebrity. He won second place in Jeopardy last year and is known as the man who hosts the trivia nights at Woodstock’s Pizza, Poet and Patriot, and Rosie McCann’s. His reputation for keeping things lively precedes him.
When asked about his questions, Todd said he writes them himself. Over the past six years, he estimates having written approximately15,000 trivia questions.
Todd’s favorite subjects — for those who want to prepare — are history, movies, sports, science, geography, literature and music. But there may also be questions regarding pop culture, and current events.
“The great thing is that anything is possible at any moment,” said Todd. “You could have a host that’s really into a time period in history, and suddenly you find yourself figuring out the history of early Romans, or what Sting’s real name was.”
Since Todd is not sure whether The Rotary Club’s challengers play trivia regularly, he plans to rely on questions that are somewhat common knowledge.
“It’s not about right or wrong, it’s about having fun,” he said.
The cost to participate in the Trivia Cup Challenge is $50 per person. Information about joining the Rotary and its mission will be available at the event.
