Once again this week I found myself the centre of attention. Well, in a group that gained attention. OK. I was probably the least qualified person in the group to be there, but it appears I managed to wriggle in and find another opportunity to talk about myself to the world. How? I managed to pick up a gig hosting an online quiz for the wonderful people at Good Bitches Baking (GBB).

If you’re not familiar with the work of the GBB (not to be confused with The GBB of the Great British Bakeoff) they’re basically really nice people of any particular variation you like (yes, men are welcomed with open arms) that volunteer to bake sweet treats for local deserving people / charities / daycentres etc. It’s been a tough old time for them at the moment, as they’re all trapped inside baking for their families and have nowhere to pass it on. I fear for many people’s waistlines.

Their aim is to make Aotearoa the kindest place on Earth. Who can have a problem with that? So look past the word and see it for the good it brings. Yes. I’m talking about baking. Not always easy for some but still worth all that effort. It’s also worth mentioning that it’s great to reclaim a word that was once synonymous with insults, degradation and being a female dog and turn it around into something yummy, filled with goodness, topped with tasty icing and surrounded by love and aroha.

Anyhow, back to me. I was asked by a random contact on Twitter who turned out to be a bit of a head bitch at the fabulous GBB if I’d be willing to host a quiz to cheer everyone up. Naturally, being the shy, retiring person that I am I responded with a resounding “Yes please!” The only snag being I had to write the quiz itself too.

Wednesday night duly arrived and we’d checked and double checked the quiz, the answers, the setup online. With ten minutes to go I realised I had a critical error on my website. Erk! A tiny matter of – er – exceeding my own disk space. I hastily deleted a number of old files and detritus from my hard disk and was up and running again. Phew!

Then we realised that the living room lights aren’t suited to a live online broadcast Despite having an additional FOUR lamps lit around / beneath it was still gloomy. But people could read the TV, so all was good.

Until.

Everything froze at the end of round four. What?! Turns out Facebook Live takes up a whole heap of memory on your device. I’d used 99% of my phone memory and 79% of my external SD card. Ah. Tried to remove old files. The phone was having none of it. Er. I switched to my laptop. It seemed to work. Thank goodness for quick thinking and lots of backup plans! We only lost one team on the switch. We found them again after the final round, but their points were still counted, because hey, we’re working on trust and being kind, right?!

It was surreal talking to a mobile phone / laptop with not very much interaction in return. Someone remarked it must be what it’s like to be on TV. Chattering away to nobody. It’s an odd feeling, and you’re constantly wondering if people think you’re an idiot or not.

My family and I spent some time going through the comments and pictures posted online throughout the chaos. It was so nice to see so many people having a great time. In fact, we think we had over 100 people going through the quiz with us. Suddenly the penny dropped. We’d found it difficult, immensely stressful and complex. It had taken literally days to put together. I’d thought we’d totally bombed. But there they were – all these happy people smiling into the camera. Some told us it had been the most fun they’d had in a month.

So here’s to you, the Savage Cabbages, the Prawn Crackers, Quarenteam, Flour Power and all the rest. (We loved all your team names by the way, please don’t think we didn’t notice them.) Thank you all for signing up to the craziness, your amazing outfits and hats. (I thought I was a touch mad but who the heck feels the need to own prawn-shaped hats?!)

We reflected the next day that despite our high stress levels, amateur technology (the most professional thing I have is my tripod), and poorly thought through marking strategy (though they got a system going in the end.  Note to self – continue being a control freak - never trust anyone else with an important job), everyone ELSE appeared to have a blast. It felt good. In fact, in felt great. Mr and Miss 10 were especially pleased. (“Can we use this as a homework challenge?”)

Doing things for other people feels good. Baking is still easier than running an online quiz.

Bring on Level Zero.