Although Matt Jackson's seminal mega-post on the future of Quizbowl has recently passed its 2nd birthday, I'm astonished to say that not enough has yet been done to fulfill the sprawling vision that Matt has suggested the Quizbowl community could potentially be. Public discussion about the big-picture community has been relatively silent since the initial flurry of activity following the posts, and our community is still nowhere near the level of cohesion and professionalism that much poorer extracurriculars are able to maintain. Kids in high school who are interested in Quizbowl still have to go through an acronym salad in order to get a feeling for the bigger picture of the game, and due to this flurry of disparate organizations, all working with different messages/histories/aims, the community suffers.
For this reason, I have taken the liberty of convening a Quizbowl Round Table with some of the leaders of various large "Good Quizbowl" organizations, in order to foster such discussion. It is my hope that this Round Table will serve as a catalyst for productive conversation between relevant parties on the structure, future, and development of high school Quizbowl, as well as create opportunities for real collaboration between historically separate organizations. The Round Table, most likely taking the form of a 30 minute - 1 hour long podcast, will be posted on the Forums and on my former podcast website, Up Late with Eric Xu, for public discussion and comments. The confirmed participants in this Round Table are:
Jeff Hoppes - VP of Communications for NAQT
David Reinstein - President of PACE
Mike Cheyne - President and Head Editor of HSAPQ
Rob Carson - Chief Moderator of the HSQB Forums
Eric Huff - Director of ACE Quizbowl Camp
It is my dear hope that the community will find this useful and enlightening in thinking about the future of this game, both at the high school level and at the college level.