Transportation For New HS Team

New high school teams looking for advice should post here.
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Rahulr
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Location: Belmont, MA

Transportation For New HS Team

Post by Rahulr »

Hello everyone,

I recently started a quizbowl organization at my high school, and I held an informational meeting first so that everyone would be well aware of what exactly quizbowl is. After the meeting, everyone who attended signed up for quizbowl and were very enthusiastic.

My faculty advisor and I have been poking around for tournaments for our team to attend, which has been going quite well. We've found about 4 tournaments that we'd like to attend this year and seem really great.

These tournaments, however, aren't really close to the town in which the high school is located. Unfortunately, only one tournaments out of what we found is located <30 minutes away (MITBAT VII), and we can't find any other nearby tournaments. Being in Eastern Massachusetts, finding nearby spring tournaments is quite complicated, but we're easily able to find tournaments that aren't too too far (e.g. Yale, Hanover, etc.).

The team is excited to be able to attend tournaments in Connecticut and New Hampshire (for example) but we're not quite sure how to get there. We'll need to transport 10-12 people to tournaments over a 1-2 hour drives, and we can't figure out a good method for it. Begging our parents for rides is our last resort, so I was wondering what others have done that would be the most optimal way to go about this.

What other ways have people gone to tournaments? What is the best way to transport the quizbowl teams over long drives? Any help is appreciated. Thanks guys!
Rahul Ramakrishnan
President, BHS Quizbowl
Belmont High School '16
Belmont, MA
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i never see pigeons in wheeling
Rikku
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Re: Transportation For New HS Team

Post by i never see pigeons in wheeling »

If you have a faculty adviser who's willing and able to drive you long distance, he/she might be able to secure you a school bus.
Ankit
Cal '16
Bellarmine College Preparatory '12
David Riley
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Re: Transportation For New HS Team

Post by David Riley »

If there are <15 of you, your advisor might also find it cheper to rent a van from Enterprise or Budget.
David Riley
Coach Emeritus, Loyola Academy, Wilmette, Illinois, 1993-2010
Steering Committee, IHSSBCA, 1996 -
Member, PACE, 2012 -

"This is 1183, of course we're barbarians" -- Eleanor of Aquitaine in "The Lion in Winter"
Rahulr
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Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2012 10:08 pm
Location: Belmont, MA

Re: Transportation For New HS Team

Post by Rahulr »

I was thinking about securing a school bus to use so that we can go to tournaments a bit farther away. There are parents who'd be willing to drive long distances, but I think they may become a bit reluctant after learning that they have to drive a bus rather than a car.

Also, we don't need a huge school bus to transport a (relatively) small amount of people, so it may be seen as a waste. We only need a small bus or larger minivan to get us where we need to go.

I guess the real question I want to ask is, do you (or anyone else reading this) know of any bus rental services or methods that would be optimal for transporting a small amount of people for ~1.5 hours?

Thanks so much guys!
Rahul Ramakrishnan
President, BHS Quizbowl
Belmont High School '16
Belmont, MA
Rahulr
Lulu
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2012 10:08 pm
Location: Belmont, MA

Re: Transportation For New HS Team

Post by Rahulr »

Sorry disregard my last reply; David's reply was posted while I was composing mine, and his solution seems excellent.

Thanks to you both for so much help!
Rahul Ramakrishnan
President, BHS Quizbowl
Belmont High School '16
Belmont, MA
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Matt Weiner
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Location: Richmond, VA

Re: Transportation For New HS Team

Post by Matt Weiner »

In my experience with high school tournaments, sharing carpooling duties among team parents (or team members, if your school permits it) is what the majority of programs do when attending tournaments that are a day trip away. You should probably look into that first rather than last as it's way simpler on your budget than renting vehicles.
Matt Weiner
Advisor to Quizbowl at Virginia Commonwealth University / Founder of hsquizbowl.org
EasyBakeOven
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Re: Transportation For New HS Team

Post by EasyBakeOven »

Being a new Massachusetts team as well, I'd agree that your best bet is to carpool since buses are absurdly expensive. Hopefully we'll see you at some tournaments later in the year.
Brandon Nguyen
Lexington High School '13
Northeastern '17
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