Announcement: MUT mirror at VCU: 3/22/08

[Matt Weiner]

Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond will be hosting a mirror of the Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament on Saturday, March 22. The tournament will be called VCU Undergraduate Tournament 2008: James Branch Cabell Has a Posse.

This tournament is open solely to people meeting the letter or spirit of the ACF definition of an "undergraduate," and teams comprised of such people. Namely, you must be in your fourth or fewer year of collegiate quizbowl participation, and must not have received a BA or equivalent at any time before this academic year. There is no participation by nonstudents or mixed-school teams in this tournament.

We can guarantee enough staff to accommodate the first 18 teams who register.

To register, post in this thread or mail me at [email protected] with the number of teams, buzzers, and staffers you want to bring, and an email address where you can be contacted with details.


LOCATION, DIRECTIONS, PARKING: The entire tournament will take place in the Hibbs Building on our Monroe Park campus (aka "Academic Campus"). Please meet in room 303 of Hibbs no later than 8:30 in order to register. Games may begin anytime after 8:30 so please do not be late.
-The nominal address of the building is "900 Park Ave, Richmond VA" if you need to put something into your map software of choice, but be aware that Hibbs does not actually face the street, so you will have to park and then walk to the area where the building is in order to find it. I suggest printing out the appropriate campus maps and bringing them along--note that Hibbs is directly across from the Cabell Library, which will probably be easier for you to find if you have not been to the VCU campus before.
-On Saturdays, parking on the street is free and available in most places around the campus; the best place to park for access to Hibbs is on one of the residential streets such as Park Avenue, Floyd Avenue, or West Avenue that branch off Harrison Street to the west near the Hibbs/library area. If you cannot find a space in that area, then you should use the parking deck at Harrison and Broad, which is about three blocks north of the tournament building and will charge you somewhere between $0 and $5 to park all day on a Saturday.
-Breakfast and lunch will not be provided on-site, but there are plenty of eateries within walking distance of the building, and you'll get a list of options at the tournament.

The tournament format will most likely be a full round-robin, which will followed by division into playoff brackets if the round-robin alone gives teams fewer than 12 games, and will end with ACF-format finals. Games will be played under the official ACF rules. If there are enough teams to warrant it, the highest-finishing all-Division II teams will receive recognition, and may play in a final if there is no overall final, but all teams will play in the same field for the bulk of the tournament.

Packet submission is not required at the VCU site.

Schools who have not participated in a non-trash, non-College Bowl/HCASC, non-high-school-questions tournament in the last three academic years may enter teams for the minimum $50 fee.

For all others, the fees are as follows:
$100 base fee per team
$10 discount per fully functional buzzer system (control box, power cord, and at least eight activators all work)
$30 discount for a full-time competent and experienced moderator
$15 discount for a full-time new moderator
Travel discounts are negotiable.

The minimum fee per team is $50.

The $30 discount is to encourage grad members of teams to show up and read.

Financial arrangements will be handled by Quizbowl at VCU treasurer Andrew Alexander. All teams must pay him on the morning of the tournament, in one of two forms: cash, or a personal or institutional check made out to Andrew Alexander. Do not bring checks made out to Matt Weiner, to VCU, to "quizbowl," or so forth. We can't do anything with them, and you will be asked to pay us out of your own pocket if you bring unusable checks. Unless you have made a specific arrangement with me or Andrew, you must pay your full registration fee at or before the tournament. If you need an invoice ahead of time so that your sponsor can cut a check, let me know. Otherwise, all teams will receive invoices at the tournament.

Post here or mail me if you have any further questions about the tournament itself, travel strategies, or so forth.

--Matt Weiner, tournament director
[email protected]

Teams/buzzers/staffers so far (to be edited as registrations come in):

Carnegie Mellon (1 team)
Georgia (1 team)
Gonzaga HS (1 team)
J. Sargeant Reynolds (1 team)
Maggie Walker HS (1 team)
Maryland (3 teams)
North Carolina (1 team)
Penn (1 team)
South Carolina (1 team)
Virginia Tech (1 team)
William & Mary (1 team)

Total teams: 13 out of 18 available spaces

[theMoMA]

If any overly zealous VCU teams wish to write a packet (which you're certainly not expected to do) you can get a corresponding discount.

Packet by February 2: -$30
Packet by February 23: -$20
Packet by March 22: -$10
Packet requires minimal editing: -$30 no matter what
Half-packet: halve the above numbers

Send them to me at [email protected]

Andrew

[ieppler]

Can mixed high school teams play in this tournament?

[Matt Weiner]

Can mixed high school teams play in this tournament?

No, but teams from single high schools are welcome.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

Dr. B. is working on putting a Gov team together...

[STPickrell]

I assume most of the Virginia teams that would want to play here already know about this. :)

If a non-regular makes a splash @ VHSL states, I will let them know.

[theMoMA]

I encourage any team looking to capitalize on packet discounts to send me an email. All you need to say is that you're planning to write a packet, or half-packet.

[email protected]

Thanks.

[Matt Weiner]

As you can see in the first post, we now have thirteen teams registered. There are three more teams who have expressed interest, which would bring us past our 14-team cap. Thus, it is a good idea for any interested teams to move from the "interested" to "registered" list as soon as possible, or contact me for the first time if you have not yet done so, in order to ensure your spot in the field.

[Lapego1]

By the way, Penn should have a set of buzzers for sure. Staffers are more questionable...

[wwellington]

UNC will have two buzzer sets.

[Mike Bentley]

The current plan is to bring 1 moderator and like 2-3 buzzers.

[Matt Weiner]

We have found enough staff to expand to an 18-team field, so we should be able to accommodate everyone who wants to come.

[fett0001]

Virginia Tech is coming.
We will bring:
1 Team
1 or 2 Moderators
1 Buzzer

[Matt Weiner]

We're now back to 13 teams after some movement in and out of the field. I'm inclined to close registration at this point since 13 is an ideal number format-wise. However, if Coppin State, VMI, or anyone else who was on the fence about coming has decided to come, they should get in touch with me and I'll certainly add them to the field, as long as I hear from them pretty soon.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

We're now back to 13 teams after some movement in and out of the field. I'm inclined to close registration at this point since 13 is an ideal number format-wise. However, if Coppin State, VMI, or anyone else who was on the fence about coming has decided to come, they should get in touch with me and I'll certainly add them to the field, as long as I hear from them pretty soon.

We found a fourth person today...

Edit: There's a guy on our team who loves to read if you still need staff. We could probably convince him to come.

[Matt Weiner]

Edit: There's a guy on our team who loves to read if you still need staff. We could probably convince him to come.

We're not in a crunch for staff by any means, but you can still get the discount and we can still find something for him to do if he's interested in coming.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

Edit: There's a guy on our team who loves to read if you still need staff. We could probably convince him to come.

We're not in a crunch for staff by any means, but you can still get the discount and we can still find something for him to do if he's interested in coming.

He's Catholic; he might have a church thing on Saturday. But I'll ask him.

[Matt Weiner]

Congratulations to overall winner Maryland A and Division II winner Maggie Walker, who took titles at today's tournament.

Stats are at http://www.hsquizbowl.org/jbchp/jbchp_standings.html . Teams played in prelim brackets of 7, then were divided into a 10-team championship bracket and a 4-team bottom bracket for 5 games of playoffs.

Questions are being used again at Minnesota next weekend, so please do not discuss them publicly until that time.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

Thanks to Matt Weiner and VCU for another well-run tournament. Our captain was a bit tired and edgy by the end, but I think we all had a good time. And we get to surprise Dr. B. with a trophy in a week, which is always fun.