The first round of TravelManagers’ second annual trivia championship has been completed, with the second round due to get under way later this week.
“The inaugural competition was held in August last year as a light-hearted way to bring together personal travel managers (PTMs) and National Partnership Office (NPO) staff in a fun, virtual environment,” said TravelManagers’ executive general manager, Michael Gazal. “The event was a massive success, and a new tradition was born.”
This year’s tournament was once again organised by Noree Kahika, who is TravelManagers’ Business Partnership Manager (BPM) for northern New South Wales, southern Queensland and the Northern Territory. The competition, which is conducted via the Kahoot app, attracted 64 hopeful participants in the first round, each with the dream of bringing glory to their home state thanks to a State of Origin-style format.
And while many participants had high expectations of victory, given that last year’s champion, Luke Vaughan, is temporarily located in Toronto, Canada, Kahika says Luke wasn’t going to let a little thing like a fourteen-hour time difference stop him from notching up another victory! “He logged on from Toronto at 2am local time and put in another huge performance, scoring the maximum 30 points on behalf of his home state of Victoria.”
Champion Vaughan said, although he was half a world away in Canada, nothing was going to stop him from helping to defend the VIC crown.
“Our 2020 State of Origin trivia competition was so much fun and a brilliant way to connect with my colleagues when we couldn’t catch up and celebrate as usual.”
Despite Vaughan’s win putting the Victoria/Tasmania combination into an early lead, an impressive performance by Christie Gowan (representing QLD) and Tania Myles (representing NT) put the QLD/NT team into the lead at the end of the first round.
Gazal says the light-hearted format of the competition underpins an important aim: boosting the morale of an industry that has endured and is continuing to endure an incredibly tough time.
“The sense of family that has always been a big part of the TravelManagers culture remains strong – right down to the friendly rivalry, heckling and shameless bribery that are key components to everyone’s enjoyment of the competition.”
IMAGE: Round 1 of TravelManagers’ second annual State of Origin trivia competition via Zoom
