Financial Problems

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... and the chaos of Mexican modernity
Rikku
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Financial Problems

Post by ... and the chaos of Mexican modernity »

My school is somewhat not willing to support the academic team because it's "not big" therfore we have to obtain money ourselves. Can anyone contribute any ideas of what we might be to do to we can actually go to tournaments out of our state and what paths you took to obtain finances to pay for tournaments?
Zach Foster
North Myrtle Beach High School class of 2009
George Mason University class of 2013
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AndyShootsAndyScores
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Re: Financial Problems

Post by AndyShootsAndyScores »

The best fundraiser for a team is to hold a house-written tournament. Not only does it raise funds for your program, writing questions is one of the best ways to help your team improve at the game.
Andy Knowles
Brindlee Mountain, '08
University of Alabama, '12
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The Time Keeper
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Re: Financial Problems

Post by The Time Keeper »

Like Andy said, hosting a tournament or two is by far the best idea. Since your team isn't experienced enough to write a solid pyramidal tournament, I would suggest contacting one of several people about mirroring something that currently doesn't have a site near South Carolina. You'd make a little less than if you had written it yourselves, but you know you're getting a quality product and you could probably get a lot of SC/TN/GA/etc teams to come.

Aside from tournaments, teams have tried things like collective garage sale type deals where team members' families sell off some old stuff to people. My team did this way back in the day and it actually pulled in a respectable amount of money. I imagine you can also go around asking local people/companies to straight up donate as well, it couldn't hurt. Once your program starts piling up some wins and trophies here and there, have your coach keep hounding the administration for money. Principals and the like are usually happy to fund something that gives random people the impression that his school is academically successful. Having your coach get stories in local papers about tournament/game success (with the addition of some respectable embellishment where useful), can be useful to have something to point to administrators when asking for money.

Worst case scenario, your team and their families can pitch in a little bit. I don't know much about the specific geography of the southeast, but I imagine there are tons of tournaments each year where you can drive there early in the morning and drive back that night. Not having to worry about hotels really helps keep costs down.
Pat Freeburn - No particular affiliation.
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AKKOLADE
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Re: Financial Problems

Post by AKKOLADE »

Pat is very correct.

Step one: Host a tournament (mirror a good house-written one, or use tournament in a can NAQT)
Step two: Do random work as a team to make money

There you go.
Fred Morlan
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AndyShootsAndyScores
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Re: Financial Problems

Post by AndyShootsAndyScores »

Also, car washes.
Andy Knowles
Brindlee Mountain, '08
University of Alabama, '12
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Matthew D
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Re: Financial Problems

Post by Matthew D »

Don't forget about letter writing to your local state representatives and local businesses.
Matt Dennis
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Re: Financial Problems

Post by David Riley »

I afree with everything said above; I would also check with Mac Hanna at Aiken and the other SC folks; they have had a long tenure in quiz bowl and can probably give you some great ideas as well.
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Mechanical Beasts
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Re: Financial Problems

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

Sell blood plasma. You can donate several times a week.
Andrew Watkins
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Re: Financial Problems

Post by AKKOLADE »

everyday847 wrote:Sell blood plasma. You can donate several times a week.
Sketchy ideas ITT
Fred Morlan
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theattachment
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Re: Financial Problems

Post by theattachment »

leftsaidfred wrote:
everyday847 wrote:Sell blood plasma. You can donate several times a week.
Brilliant ideas ITT
Fixed.

Often times schools free up funds to clubs for doing work for them, i.e. cleaning up after football games, selling concessions. EP usually would do a couple stadium cleanups a year and get a couple hundred bucks out of it. That may be another avenue to look in to.
Colin O'Donnell -- ex-Eden Prairie High School (man, that feels nice to say), eventually University of Minnesota
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Re: Financial Problems

Post by cdcarter »

The funding at South varies from minimal to nothing. We all pay a good fair share of tournament entry fees, and our coach sells juice and granola bars (Healthy Alternatives (tm)) to help us make some money. It ends up working out, and this year we are hosting a tournament, which should help a lot.

It's not a great situation to be in to have no funding from the school, but if you have local tournaments, and good TDs who will understand your issues and offer discounts and stuff, you can still have a good season. You don't need to travel all over, even if the "top teams" do it. Just go to as much as you can on what you can pay for out of pocket, and build up a program that one day can be getting solid income from a good tournament.
Christian Carter
Minneapolis South High School '09 | Emerson College '13
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