The Quizbowl Resource Center

I'm pleased to announce the formation of the Scholastic Community Outreach Program (SCOP). SCOP will work to help Illinois teams with limited resources or funding by connecting them with experienced mentor schools, by distributing study aids, and by lowering the cost of tournaments around the state.

Mentor schools are experienced high school or college teams who work directly with novice schools to help them improve their game. Mentor schools provide each participating novice school in their area with two team workshops (one in October, one in February) on study methods and teamwork in various formats.

Study aids will consist of basic lists in major (literature, history, science) and minor (fine arts, RMP, social science, math) areas of interest. Packets distributed to teams will include links to sites that are useful for further study and community involvement, information on quiz bowl formats played in Illinois, and practice questions with links to providers.

As funding is a major concern for many Illinois teams, schools participating in SCOP will receive discounts at various Illinois tournaments and a full tournament schedule to ensure that teams are aware of tournaments in their area (a problem that I have encountered in running the Huskie Bowl is that local teams are often unaware of a tournament until it is too late to register). We also hope to promote the sustainability of teams by providing coaches with information from experienced tournament directors on running a cost effective and efficient tournament.

Please let me know if you are interested in becoming a novice or mentor school in the 2010-2011 academic year. It is not difficult to mentor teams; all materials will be sent to you, along with suggestions as to the curriculum of the team workshops. Budget permitting, we may be able to compensate mentors for travel.

Contact me with questions as [email protected]. I'd love to hear from you with any suggestions; the best way we can improve and expand Illinois quiz bowl is by helping each other!

Is there a website up and going?

Very nearly. My computer decided it didn't like receiving power any more, so I'm going to have to rebuild the site on another PC. Hopefully, it will be up within the next two weeks. I will post a link in the original post of this thread as soon as it's up.

The website is now up! Let me know about any problems!

TheDoctor wrote:The website is now up! Let me know about any problems!

You might want to consider emphasizing the varied locations of the SCOP Novice tournament mirrors by detailing the addresses, etc. of the host schools. Also, at the moment, it's somewhat difficult to pick out the mirror locations from the overall list of tournaments which offer discounts to SCOP members, so you might want to emphasize the existance of the SCOP Novice tournament as written by SCOP members as opposed to all tournaments which offer benefits for novice schools.

Great stuff.

I may be able to offer Greenville as a site for Oct 30, but I'm afraid that would be over-egging the pudding in this part of the state since you have sites at Springfield & Carbondale.

I'll be in touch.

CometCoach72 wrote:Great stuff.

I may be able to offer Greenville as a site for Oct 30, but I'm afraid that would be over-egging the pudding in this part of the state since you have sites at Springfield & Carbondale.

I'll be in touch.

I think a late mirror of this tournament may be in order for your neck of the woods, Mr. Winter. I feel like the audience targeted by this tournament may balk at an October tournament, so (Fischer, Strey, and company willing) maybe a late November or even a January mirror might attract a truly "novice" (e.g. "WHERE HAVE THE FOURTH PARTS OF MY BONUSES GONE?") field. On top of that, your team could totally play at another site and then staff your own mirror (never a bad experience). After a brief glance at the map, you might also be able to attract some MO teams that can't attend the earlier mirrors. I think Charles Hang and Charlie Dees would be good people to contact about this if you were thinking about this method.

tl;dr: Play the early mirror and host a later mirror, maybe even partially for additional Missouri people, because I feel like many schools wont field a team in October.

Geringer wrote:After a brief glance at the map, you might also be able to attract some MO teams that can't attend the earlier mirrors. I think Charles Hang and Charlie Dees would be good people to contact about this if you were thinking about this method.

I'm actually thinking of possibly hosting a mirror of this at St. Charles CC, but if we don't, then this would be rather cool. Just to note, though, there's apparently a bit of bureaucracy involved in hosting tournaments where Missouri teams attend (due to MSHSAA), so be advised to this issue.

I'd be well pleased for either of you to mirror this. Let me know what you decide.

TheDoctor wrote:I'd be well pleased for either of you to mirror this. Let me know what you decide.

Sorry if this has already been answered, but how much were you considering for out of state mirror fees?

Frater Taciturnus wrote:

TheDoctor wrote:I'd be well pleased for either of you to mirror this. Let me know what you decide.

Sorry if this has already been answered, but how much were you considering for out of state mirror fees?

We're doing $10/team for out of state mirror fees, but a couple sites have volunteered to help write and receive a discount off the fees - indeed, the sites that have volunteered as such so far are going to get the set for free. There is still room for schools to get in on that offer, as well, because the number of questions we'd expect to get in return for free mirroring is rather low.