VCU Fall High School Tournament: SUNDAY November 16 2008
Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 1:46 pm
This is the general announcement for the first annual VCU Fall High School Tournament. This is a high school academic quizbowl tournament to be held at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond on Sunday, November 16 from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM. It is open to any high school team that wishes to attend.
(Note: We usually run our tournaments on Saturdays, but one of Richmond's seventeen annual marathons is occurring on November 15 in the VCU area, so we do not want to make travel and parking overly difficult for the attending teams. We expect our spring high school tournaments to return to Saturday dates.)
AFFILIATION: This tournament will be affiliated with the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence and will be an opportunity to qualify for the National Scholastics Championship, which is run by PACE and will occur at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA on May 23 & 24, 2009.
QUESTIONS: The questions will be provided by the Harvard University College Bowl Club, and are the same set being used at their tournament on the same weekend. The question format is straightforward ACF; that is, games of 20 tossups with 30-point bonuses, untimed. A sample packet from last year's Harvard tournament may be found at http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~cbowl/sample.pdf .
LOCATION/DIRECTIONS: The tournament will take place in Harris Hall on our Monroe Park campus (aka "Academic Campus"). The nominal address of the building is "1015 Floyd Ave" if you need to put something into your map software of choice, but you may have an easier time finding the side of the building that faces the intersection of Main Street & Harrison Street, just west of the University Student Commons.
PARKING: On weekends, parking on the street is free and available in most places around the campus; the best place to park for access to Harris is directly on Main Street or one of the nearby side streets. If you cannot find an on-street space in that area, then you should use the parking deck at Main & Cherry, which is one block east of the tournament building and will charge you somewhere between $0 and $5 to park all day.
FORMAT: We expect to hit our field cap of 24 teams. If that happens, the teams will be divided into four brackets of six teams each and play five-game round robins in rounds 1-5. The teams will then be ranked. Over rounds 6-11, each first and second place team will play its counterparts in the other three brackets, each third and fourth place team will do the same, and each fifth and sixth place team likewise, to produce a final ranking. The tournament championship will be decided by a final of up to two games if necessary. In the event that fewer than 24 teams register, or that we are able to expand the field and host more than 24 teams, the format will change, but we will strive to offer all teams at least 10 games. Trophies will be awarded to the top four teams, and book prizes will be awarded to the top eight individual scorers.
REGISTRATION AND FEES:
-The fee structure is as follows:
Base fee: $70 per team. There is no limit to the number of teams who can attend from one school.
Buzzer discount: $5 off school's total fee for each fully functional system (control box and eight activators all work)--no limit to # of systems you can bring
Staff discount: $15 off school's total fee. This could be a coach, parent, student who is not playing, etc. Team-provided staffers will keep score for various games not involving the team with which they are affiliated. Volunteer staffers must stay through all the games (except finals) in order to receive credit for their school. There is no limit to the number of staffers you can bring.
Minimum fee: The minimum fee is $0 (you can bring enough buzzers and staffers to eliminate your entire fee via discounts, but you cannot have a "negative fee.")
-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. Feel free to forward this announcement to any schools that you think would be interested in attending. There may be a snail mail version of this announcement going out in October, but follow-up communication will be via email only.
METHOD OF PAYMENT: To pay your registration fees for this tournament, please bring either cash, or a check (institutional or personal) made out to Andrew Alexander, who is the Quizbowl at VCU treasurer. Do not bring checks made out to Matt Weiner, to VCU, to "quizbowl," etc. We cannot use them. We strongly prefer not to deal with purchase orders, but if your school absolutely requires it, then you need to send us the paperwork no later than October 15 so that we can get it back in time for you to have a check written before the tournament. Contact me for details if you need to physically mail something to me or to Andrew.
DELINQUENT PAYMENT: Teams who do not pay on the morning of the tournament will be charged a $25 penalty and will have two weeks to pay their total amount before we start mailing letters to your school administration about it.
TEAM & ROSTER SIZE: There may be a maximum of six players on one team's roster, though only four may play at one time. There is a halftime substitution opportunity in each game. Each player may appear on only one team's roster throughout the day--no switching from the B team to the A team, etc. Teams may also play shorthanded with only three players. Teams consisting of fewer than three players may not play without my express prior permission.
FOOD: Neither breakfast nor lunch will be provided by the tournament. There are several eateries within walking distance of campus buildings and a vast cornucopia within a ten minutes' drive; maps and suggestions will be provided at the tournament.
Post here or mail me if you have any further questions. I'm looking forward to seeing a wide variety of teams from Virginia and surrounding states on November 16.
Matt Weiner
Tournament Director, VCU Fall High School Tournament
[email protected]
Field (to be edited as registrations come in):
Charlottesville (1)
Collegiate (1)
Grafton (1)
James Monroe (1)
Maggie Walker (3)
Thomas Jefferson (3)
Walter Johnson (1)
(Note: We usually run our tournaments on Saturdays, but one of Richmond's seventeen annual marathons is occurring on November 15 in the VCU area, so we do not want to make travel and parking overly difficult for the attending teams. We expect our spring high school tournaments to return to Saturday dates.)
AFFILIATION: This tournament will be affiliated with the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence and will be an opportunity to qualify for the National Scholastics Championship, which is run by PACE and will occur at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA on May 23 & 24, 2009.
QUESTIONS: The questions will be provided by the Harvard University College Bowl Club, and are the same set being used at their tournament on the same weekend. The question format is straightforward ACF; that is, games of 20 tossups with 30-point bonuses, untimed. A sample packet from last year's Harvard tournament may be found at http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~cbowl/sample.pdf .
LOCATION/DIRECTIONS: The tournament will take place in Harris Hall on our Monroe Park campus (aka "Academic Campus"). The nominal address of the building is "1015 Floyd Ave" if you need to put something into your map software of choice, but you may have an easier time finding the side of the building that faces the intersection of Main Street & Harrison Street, just west of the University Student Commons.
PARKING: On weekends, parking on the street is free and available in most places around the campus; the best place to park for access to Harris is directly on Main Street or one of the nearby side streets. If you cannot find an on-street space in that area, then you should use the parking deck at Main & Cherry, which is one block east of the tournament building and will charge you somewhere between $0 and $5 to park all day.
FORMAT: We expect to hit our field cap of 24 teams. If that happens, the teams will be divided into four brackets of six teams each and play five-game round robins in rounds 1-5. The teams will then be ranked. Over rounds 6-11, each first and second place team will play its counterparts in the other three brackets, each third and fourth place team will do the same, and each fifth and sixth place team likewise, to produce a final ranking. The tournament championship will be decided by a final of up to two games if necessary. In the event that fewer than 24 teams register, or that we are able to expand the field and host more than 24 teams, the format will change, but we will strive to offer all teams at least 10 games. Trophies will be awarded to the top four teams, and book prizes will be awarded to the top eight individual scorers.
REGISTRATION AND FEES:
-The fee structure is as follows:
Base fee: $70 per team. There is no limit to the number of teams who can attend from one school.
Buzzer discount: $5 off school's total fee for each fully functional system (control box and eight activators all work)--no limit to # of systems you can bring
Staff discount: $15 off school's total fee. This could be a coach, parent, student who is not playing, etc. Team-provided staffers will keep score for various games not involving the team with which they are affiliated. Volunteer staffers must stay through all the games (except finals) in order to receive credit for their school. There is no limit to the number of staffers you can bring.
Minimum fee: The minimum fee is $0 (you can bring enough buzzers and staffers to eliminate your entire fee via discounts, but you cannot have a "negative fee.")
-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. Feel free to forward this announcement to any schools that you think would be interested in attending. There may be a snail mail version of this announcement going out in October, but follow-up communication will be via email only.
METHOD OF PAYMENT: To pay your registration fees for this tournament, please bring either cash, or a check (institutional or personal) made out to Andrew Alexander, who is the Quizbowl at VCU treasurer. Do not bring checks made out to Matt Weiner, to VCU, to "quizbowl," etc. We cannot use them. We strongly prefer not to deal with purchase orders, but if your school absolutely requires it, then you need to send us the paperwork no later than October 15 so that we can get it back in time for you to have a check written before the tournament. Contact me for details if you need to physically mail something to me or to Andrew.
DELINQUENT PAYMENT: Teams who do not pay on the morning of the tournament will be charged a $25 penalty and will have two weeks to pay their total amount before we start mailing letters to your school administration about it.
TEAM & ROSTER SIZE: There may be a maximum of six players on one team's roster, though only four may play at one time. There is a halftime substitution opportunity in each game. Each player may appear on only one team's roster throughout the day--no switching from the B team to the A team, etc. Teams may also play shorthanded with only three players. Teams consisting of fewer than three players may not play without my express prior permission.
FOOD: Neither breakfast nor lunch will be provided by the tournament. There are several eateries within walking distance of campus buildings and a vast cornucopia within a ten minutes' drive; maps and suggestions will be provided at the tournament.
Post here or mail me if you have any further questions. I'm looking forward to seeing a wide variety of teams from Virginia and surrounding states on November 16.
Matt Weiner
Tournament Director, VCU Fall High School Tournament
[email protected]
Field (to be edited as registrations come in):
Charlottesville (1)
Collegiate (1)
Grafton (1)
James Monroe (1)
Maggie Walker (3)
Thomas Jefferson (3)
Walter Johnson (1)
