Any interest in a HS Tournament in NW FL?

[Jesus vs. Dragons]

We here at Chipola have decided to POSSIBLY run a tournament in the fall. We host an annual NAQT tournament in the spring, but we would like to host another one this fall. It is going to be house written (ACF/NAQT style questions, not the horrible state format,) and we are pretty sure we will be able get our usual 10-14 teams that attend our annual spring tournament, but we would like to know of any interest from teams in the surrounding area. I must stress this is not an official event yet, and I am simply putting out a feeler for any interested teams. As a graduate from this area, I understand there are not very many tournaments ran, and we would love to get some more interest generated. Email me at ethan[dot]hewett[at]yahoo[dot]com if you or your team is interested!

[Kwang the Ninja]

In case Ethans post was not clear enough:
this is not just a tournament for teams in Northwest Florida. Though we would be extremely happy if Chiles, Rickards, Pensacola, etc. come, we would also like to hear from Brindlee Mountain, Ransom Everglades, Bainbridge, et al. Chipola College is in Marianna, Florida, which is about twenty five miles from the Al-Fl border and ditto with Georgia. It's really a centralized location, so even if you're from north Alabama just put Marianna in google maps and check it out! Were possibly closer than you think! Please don't let us write a whole tournament for nothing...:P

[mhawlik]

I think my high school's team (Ransom Everglades) would be interested, as you are correct in saying that Florida has a definite dearth of quality high school tournaments. However, it's a long drive (maybe 8-9 hours?). Contact my former coach, Steve Frappier, at [email protected] if you guys want to pitch the tournament idea to him. Hope you guys run a successful tournament!

[Jesus vs. Dragons]

I think my high school's team (Ransom Everglades) would be interested, as you are correct in saying that Florida has a definite dearth of quality high school tournaments. However, it's a long drive (maybe 8-9 hours?). Contact my former coach, Steve Frappier, at [email protected] if you guys want to pitch the tournament idea to him. Hope you guys run a successful tournament!

Thank you. I sent him an email, hopefully it can spark some interest.

[Matthew D]

What time frame are we looking at for this... DAR might be interested if I can get things worked out.. it would be an over night trip for us

[Jesus vs. Dragons]

September or October. We are still writing questions and all of that fun stuff, so it is pretty much impossible for August, but late September to October is not out of the question. Our local teams do not participate in any other tournaments besides the ones we run, so we are willing to accommodate to a reasonable request (at least I would imagine.)

[Kwang the Ninja]

I just talked to our coach and he said it is most likely going to be one of the last two weekends in September.

[kayli]

Pensacola in all likelihood will be coming. I expect to be astonished by Florida Caverns State Park . Also, is the format mACF? What's the distribution looking like? At what difficulty will the questions be?

[Kwang the Ninja]

We're shooting for invitational difficulty as far as answer space. Early clues may be a little bit harder. Distribution is:
American Lit 2/2
British Lit 2/2
World Lit 1/1
History 3/4
Government 1/1
Economy/Anthropology/psychology/Sociology/Geography 1/0
Biology 2/2
Chemistry 1/1
Physics 1/1
Earth Science/Astronomy 1/1
Comp Math 1/0
Art/Music 1/1
Religion/Mythology/Philosophy 2/2
Trash 1/2
lol I can take yall on a tour of the caverns if there's times I used to go back there atleast twice a week

[AlphaQuizBowler]

May I ask why Art/Music only get 1/1 total? And why does Lit and Science get 5/5 while History gets 3/4? or Government get a whole 1/1 itself?

[Mechanical Beasts]

Might I ask why you wouldn't want to mirror the Fall Novice set, which charges you $0 in mirror fees and is very high quality?

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

Because writing questions makes you better at quizbowl, maybe?

[Kwang the Ninja]

Yeah we want to write it do we can improve. I'm not sure if that qualifies as selfish or not. Also, in regard to the distribution, we made it with our local teams in mind, teams that couldn't convert a Schubert tossup if their lives depended on it so we figured it'd b easier for them if we had maybe one a round on like Beethoven or the Mona Lisa. And as far as history gos, included economy/etc and government under social sciences with history so those are really more history oriented questions.

[Cheynem]

I mean, writing questions is always a good thing, but from what I understand about the Fall Novice Set, it is supposed to be written for teams with little quizbowl experience and thus exactly the sort of teams who may have trouble convering a Schubert tossup (this is just me talking, I have no connection with the production of this set).

[Terrible Shorts Depot]

As someone who is involved in the production of the Fall Novice set, I can guarantee that the set will be of high quality and of a difficulty more than appropriate for teams with little to no quizbowl experience. As far as I know, we do not yet have a mirror lined up in Florida, but we would love to have one.

[Mechanical Beasts]

I mean, writing questions is always a good thing, but from what I understand about the Fall Novice Set, it is supposed to be written for teams with little quizbowl experience and thus exactly the sort of teams who may have trouble convering a Schubert tossup (this is just me talking, I have no connection with the production of this set).

This is totally true, speaking as someone who has every connection with the production of this set.

I'd like to add that it's generally extremely difficult to start writing questions, and starting by writing an entire tournament is, generally speaking, a bit of a baptism by fire. It's cool if you want to try it in any event, but you might get a more satisfying experience (particularly when it's the night before and you're trying to figure out where your twentieth bio tossup is going to come from) to start by contributing to packets for packet-submission projects, getting involved in collaborative editing projects, et cetera.

[Jesus vs. Dragons]

We run a spring tournament with NAQT sets, and we have been doing so for the past 5 years, so we have a little bit of experience running tournaments, so we decided to take the next step was to write our own questions. This is for us to improve our game while raising money and expanding the circuit further throughout Florida. It is a win-win-win scenario. We could always mirror the Novice set later this year or do next years set (if it is available.)

[Matt Weiner]

I have no stake in either this tournament or the Fall Novice event. I'm just curious as to what a "government" question looks like. Are you going to be asking current events questions and tossups on Constitutional amendments here? Because I don't think asking people what "logrolling" is and stuff like that can really get you a full tournament's worth of material.

[vcuEvan]

Is there any European lit?

[at your pleasure]

European liteature not in english is probably getting rolled in with world lit for some reason.

[Kwang the Ninja]

I have no stake in either this tournament or the Fall Novice event. I'm just curious as to what a "government" question looks like. Are you going to be asking current events questions and tossups on Constitutional amendments here? Because I don't think asking people what "logrolling" is and stuff like that can really get you a full tournament's worth of material.

Yeah I'm not sure how Ethan and the other writers are handling government, but the way I did it is I incorporated government based questions in American, British and world history. i.e. Supreme Court cases, basic terms, positions in governments, etc.

Is there any European lit?

European liteature not in english is probably getting rolled in with world lit for some reason.

This is a true statement. We consider Dante, Tolstoy, Baudelaire et al. world lit for the sake of distribution.
EDIT: made explanation of government tossups coherent.

[Sir Thopas]

Having twice as much Brit lit as European AND world lit combined is a poor choice.

[at your pleasure]

Yeah I'm not sure how Ethan and the other writers are handling government, but the way I did it is I incorporated government based questions in American, British and world history. i.e. Supreme Court cases, basic terms, positions in governments, etc.

Okay, so put the history stuff into history and the political science stuff into sociology. Then use the 1/1 dedicated government for either fine arts(so you have at least 1/1 visual and 1/1 audio per round) or some other underrepresented academic category,

[Kwang the Ninja]

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with my coach. He has submitted a bid to mirror the fall novice October 10 or thereabouts. There will be an official announcement to this effect if it gets approved. That pushes our house written tournament back to late fall (read: probably November or December).
Also, I apologize for any and all problems people may have with the distribution and will be taking a long, hard look at changing it with my fellow writers now that we have a much longer window in which to write this bad boy. Thank you all for bringing these errors and miscalculations to my attention.

[Jesus vs. Dragons]

Yeeah we will now (hopefully) mirror this Novice Set as well as running the CSI later this fall/winter. This is great as it gives us (the writers) more time to properly edit, research, and write our questions to the utmost of our abilities. I for one believe that the added 2-3 months will greatly improve the standards of my questions and hopefully the same will happen for all of the other writers involved.