Geneva (NY) Invitational at Geneva HS (2/8/2020)

[Ithaca Cricket Ump]

The Geneva High School Quizbowl Team and I would like to invite your quizbowl team to compete at the Third Annual Geneva Invitational Tournament, a quizbowl tournament to be held at Geneva High School on Saturday, February 8, 2020. The Geneva High School quizbowl team will serve as the hosts, and, as in past years, I (Scott Blish) will be travelling from Tampa to my old stomping grounds in upstate New York to serve as tournament director.

Registration for the teams participating in the tournament will commence at 7:45 with staff and player meetings at 8:30. We plan to start the first round of play no later than 9:00 am.

We will be using NAQT Invitational Series Packet 190 for this event. We hope that teams that attending any or all of Delaware Valley’s Tri-State Tussle, Ithaca’s BrainBusters Fall (or upcoming BrainBusters Spring), and any active upstate New York MasterMinds teams, will consider competing in this tournament, as the question set will not conflict with any of these events.

REGISTRATION:
Registration for this tournament will be handled through the tournament registration page on the NAQT website, found at https://www.naqt.com/go/register/10819

You will need to log in to the NAQT site in order to register; if you do not already have an account, you can quickly create one on that site. On initial registration, please provide a minimum of your school name, number of teams intended (this can be changed later), your name/contact information, the number of buzzer systems and staffers you are bringing, and any other information we should know. You may enter rosters at registration if you wish, and shortly before the tournament we will ask for your rosters to expedite data entry on the day of the tournament, but this information can be provided later if you don’t have it now.

Payment is NOT required at the time of registration. Payment will be due upon arrival at GHS on the 8th, but feel free to mail checks ahead of time to:
Geneva High School Quizbowl Team
c/o Victoria Lehman, Quizbowl Coach
101 Carter Road, Geneva, NY 14456.

Registration will close at end of day on Friday, January 31, 2019. This will be a solid closure date since TD Scott Blish will be out of the country with little or no access to e-mail or Internet from February 1 through 5, returning on the afternoon of February 6.

If you are having trouble navigating the NAQT website and wish to register, please contact Tournament Director Scott Blish at [email protected] , but the site is relatively user-friendly.

The field cap for this tournament is 36 teams. This cap may have some wiggle room if many teams bring staffers and buzzers, but we anticipate the field being around that size.

FEE STRUCTURE

The base price is $85 for the first team and $75 for each additional team. We are also offering the following discounts:
• -$5 per functional buzzer system, capable of supporting four players per side (please bring extension cords if you have them!)
• -$10 per staffer provided by the school
• -$10 per 150 miles traveled to Geneva High School (one way, according to Google Maps).
• -$10 for any new school/program (a school that has never before played at a Geneva Invitational – each team from a school that qualifies may take this discount)

The minimum fee per team is $50. Checks should be made out to "Geneva High School Quizbowl Team" and mailed to:

Geneva High School,
c/o Victoria Lehman, Quizbowl Coach
101 Carter Road, Geneva, NY 14456.

ON-SITE CONTACT INFO
Longtime BrainBusters Fall and Geneva Invitational tournament director Scott Blish will be flying up from the Tampa Bay area to direct the 2019 Geneva Invitational. He can be reached for questions at [email protected] or contacted via cell phone at (607) 339-6749.

LUNCH
As they did last year, the Geneva Quizbowl team will be providing lunch on site – most likely through pizza delivery, although other options may be available – we will update registered teams as the tournament date approaches. We recommend staying at the school for lunch or bringing your own - you may leave for lunch at your own risk, but with the warning that we will restart the tournament promptly at the announced restart time, and will start reading packets to whoever is in place at that time.

TOURNAMENT FORMAT
Games will consist of 20 tossup/bonus pairs, read in untimed matches. During play, we will use ACF five-second timing rules (five seconds to buzz in after tossup completion, five seconds to start answer to tossup after buzz, five seconds to start answer to bonus after bonus completion). The exact bracketing format used will depend on the final number of registered teams, but we expect to run a seeded round robin format in the morning, followed by a rebracketing and another round robin after lunch, with a single final match to determine tournament champion if needed. All competing teams are guaranteed a minimum of nine matches, perhaps more depending on format.

Top finishers (the top 15% of the field, rounded up) will qualify for the 2020 NAQT High School National Championship in Atlanta and 2020 NAQT Small School National Championship Tournament in Chicago (top 30% of finishers among eligible schools, with traditional public and private/charter schools separate), and/or the 2020 PACE National Scholastic Championship in Reston, VA (a suburb of Washington, DC) - (the top 25% of the field, rounded up, anticipating Platinum certification from PACE)

A separate small school trophy will be awarded to the highest-finishing team that qualifies as a small school by NAQT standards (a traditional public school with noncompetitive admissions that has fewer than 500 total students grades 10-12, or a magnet, charter or private school with fewer than 350 total students grades 10-12.) Please note that small schools will compete against larger schools in this event – the small school trophy and small school nationals spots will be awarded to the highest finishers in the overall tournament among qualifying schools.

Middle school teams and homeschool collectives are ineligible for the small school championship or to qualify for SSNCT, but either may qualify for HSNCT or PACE NSC with a sufficiently high finish.

Middle school teams are welcome to compete at Geneva Invitational, and have done so in past events, with the caveat that they will be competing against mostly high school students on high school-level questions.

Homeschool collectives are also welcome to compete, as long as at least one of the following conditions is met:
- All members of the team attend the same homeschool, or
- All members of the team are members of a homeschool collective that exists at least in part for some reason OTHER than academic competition (socialization, arts/science appreciation, athletic competition, religious worship/fellowship, etc.)

We hope to see as many of you as possible on February 8 for a great, enjoyable day of quizbowl competition!

-- Cordially, Scott Blish
Geneva Invitational 2020 Co-Director

[Ithaca Cricket Ump]

Due to available buzzer, room and staffer constraints as well as convenience of scheduling, the field size for the February 8 Geneva Invitational quizbowl tournament is now limited to 24 teams.