Future of High School Quizbowl Round Table: Big Vision Redux

[Beevor Feevor]

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.

[Beevor Feevor]

The link to the first episode is up! Featuring Jeff Hoppes of NAQT and David Reinstein of PACE, this first episode focuses on the interplay between the two primary organizations of high school Quizbowl, and their plans for the future of the game.

[Beevor Feevor]

Episode 2 is now up, featuring Mike Cheyne of HSAPQ and Eric Huff of ACE. Hope you all enjoy!

[Cheynem]

This link is actually to the first episode.

[Beevor Feevor]

This link is actually to the first episode.

My bad, it should be corrected now!

To talk about the episode itself, I'm particularly interested in following up on talk about making better alumni databases. Does something like that exist already, and if not, is there any reason why we don't?

[cchiego]

To talk about the episode itself, I'm particularly interested in following up on talk about making better alumni databases. Does something like that exist already, and if not, is there any reason why we don't?

An alumni database would indeed be a good thing. The big question is who would have access to it and what it would be used for. Given that the vast majority of quizbowl teams (bar a few schools) would not have enough alumni to merit their own personal alumni databases, it seems like there are naturally only a few organizations: NAQT, PACE, and perhaps ACF with the resources and network (if anything, College Bowl actually did a pretty good job keeping an alumni database that I think is still accessible).

I do want to make one point right now though: the absolute last thing that you do in "development" (as foundations and colleges call it) is to immediately start asking for $$. Instead, you want to develop a relationship in some way--send out a yearly newsletter of things that might be relevant to them, brag about what accomplishments your organization has achieved, inform them of local opportunities (perhaps to read at tournaments or just meet up with other former quizbowlers say at a happy hour) in their geographic area, etc. Talk to people and keep them in touch with the game first and foremost.

Once you have this alumni network set up, then you can start to work on developing both volunteers and donations. Note how political fundraising emphasizes donor networks--you want to try to get not just one-off donations, but say the gift of the 2005 ACF Nationals champions (or something like that) to help sponsor new buzzers for new teams. Or help connect alumni in Georgia to come back to staff 350+ team national championships. It's patently obvious when a former school starts calling you the moment you graduate and asking for $$ and it won't do much good for your future relationship.

[i never see pigeons in wheeling]

To talk about the episode itself, I'm particularly interested in following up on talk about making better alumni databases. Does something like that exist already, and if not, is there any reason why we don't?

An alumni database would indeed be a good thing. The big question is who would have access to it and what it would be used for. Given that the vast majority of quizbowl teams (bar a few schools) would not have enough alumni to merit their own personal alumni databases, it seems like there are naturally only a few organizations: NAQT, PACE, and perhaps ACF with the resources and network (if anything, College Bowl actually did a pretty good job keeping an alumni database that I think is still accessible).

Since College Bowl is no longer extant in the US, would it be appropriate to market modern collegiate national championships as "heirs" (for lack of a better term) to College Bowl? That is, of course, not an accurate statement at all given the numerous substantive differences between modern quiz bowl and the bad quiz bowl of the past, but surely there is some support that can come from CB alumni who want to bolster academic competition. I don't support using their database directly, since you could run into all sorts of issues with that, but you could at least have marketing on the websites tailored towards CB alums who want their kids to play academic competition.

[Cheynem]

if there's a point in time when you think your own voice doesn't sound horrible, I think I've reached that point.