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2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

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Jeffrey Hill
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2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

The Missouri Quizbowl Alliance is pleased to announce that it plans to host the 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier on March 1, 2014, at the University of Missouri-Columbia. We look forward to hosting a diverse field of talented Missouri teams competing for bids to NAQT HSNCT in Chicago and PACE NSC in Washington, DC.

We anticipate that the field will be capped at 36 teams, but we will be working to secure staff early so that we can announce any expansions well in advance to accommodate as many interested teams as possible. Anyone interested in staffing this tournament should contact me at jeffrey@hillonline.net.

A formal announcement will be sent in the fall.

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

The Missouri Quizbowl Alliance would like to invite all Missouri high school quizbowl teams to participate in the 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier, which will be held on the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia on March 1, 2014.

The Missouri Quizbowl Alliance is an organization dedicated to providing high-quality quizbowl tournaments to all Missouri teams. Visit http://www.moqba.org for more information. As MOQBA's flagship event, this tournament regularly features a diverse field of teams from throughout Missouri, creating a championship atmosphere and recognizing the state's top teams for national tournament qualification. Jeffrey Hill and Alex Dzurick will serve as tournament directors of this official NAQT event, which will use untimed NAQT rules only modified where necessary to comply with MSHSAA requirements.

We are using an online registration form this year. Please complete the form at http://www.moqba.org/qualifier/register/ to reserve your spots in the tournament. Registrations will be processed in the order they are received through this form. This tournament traditionally fills very quickly, and a limited number of openings remain as several teams have already registered, so we strongly recommend that you reserve your spots now.

Format:
This tournament will be run in the twenty tossup/bonus format on NAQT Invitational Series #134. Games consist of twenty tossups worth ten points each followed by non-rebounding bonuses worth up to thirty points. Tossups will feature "powers" (additional points awarded for correct buzzes early in the question) and "negs" (five point deductions for incorrect answers before the question is finished).

The field is currently limited to the first 30 teams to register, though we intend to expand the field once we have confirmed that we have a sufficient number of staff. We are offering a $20 discount for providing a scorekeeper and a $30 discount for providing an experienced moderator, so if you are able to take advantage of these discounts, we would certainly appreciate your help as it will allow more teams to participate.

If the field fills, a waitlist will be formed on a first come first served basis, though we may allow waitlisted schools that are able to provide staff to enter the field ahead of other waitlisted teams. There will not be a separate junior varsity division, but schools are welcome to register multiple teams.

The tournament will feature a bracketed round robin and playoff, the exact specifications of which will be determined by the final field size. The field will not be divided into small and large school divisions, but the top-finishing small-school team (as well as the top four teams overall) will receive trophies, and an all-tournament team will be recognized.

The top fifteen percent of the field will automatically qualify for the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament (HSNCT), to be held in Chicago on May 30-June 1, 2014, and the PACE National Scholastic Championship, which will be held in the Washington D.C. area on May 24-25, 2014 (Memorial Day weekend). In addition, the champion of this tournament is guaranteed a spot in the 2014 HSNCT, and the top team that had not qualified at any previously-held tournament will also receive a bid to HSNCT. We encourage all teams to participate even if they do not plan to attend a national championship.

Beginning this year, the top small school team by NAQT's definition will no longer receive a special bid to HSNCT. Instead, the top 15% of small school teams will qualify for NAQT's new Small School National Championship Tournament on May 2–4, 2014 in Minneapolis, and the top small school team that had not qualified at any previously-held tournament will also receive a bid to SSNCT.

Pricing:
- Base fee for each team: $60
- Buzzer discount: $5 discount for each working buzzer system your school brings. Each system must be fully functional for eight players to receive the discount.
- Travel discount: $10 discount for every 100 miles your school travels to the tournament (one-way, as determined by Google Maps)
- The minimum entry fee is $25 per team.

Staff discounts:
Please let us know as soon as possible if you will be able to provide any moderators or scorekeepers. All staffers will be needed throughout the preliminary and playoff rounds since all teams will be playing. Staffers will be provided lunch.

- You will receive a $20 discount for each competent scorekeeper your school brings.
- You will receive a $30 discount for each experienced moderator your school brings. Moderators must be able to complete a 20 tossup/bonus game in 25-30 minutes to keep the tournament on schedule. We will reserve the right to choose our moderators.
- For schools providing scorekeepers or moderators, the minimum entry fee is $0.

Formalities:
Please complete the form at http://www.moqba.org/qualifier/register/ to register for the tournament. Check-in on the morning of the tournament will begin at 7:45. We will have a short team meeting around 8:30. The first round of tournament play will begin no later than 9:00. All teams will be guaranteed at least 9 games, ending around 4:00. Depending on the format, the top 4-6 teams should anticipate up to 4 additional games that should end no later than 6:00. If no small schools remain in contention for the overall trophies and the top two small schools are close enough in the standings, those two teams will play a small school final of up to 2 games, ending by about 5:00.

After the completion of the tournament, each school in attendance will receive a copy of the questions used.

Tournament information, including a list of registered teams, will be updated regularly in this thread.

We hope to see you in Columbia in March and wish you the best of luck as you compete this season. If you have any questions about the tournament, don’t hesitate to ask us at qualifier@moqba.org.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Hill and Alex Dzurick
2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier Co-Directors

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

Final Field (22)
* - 11 teams were small school eligible

22 bold teams attended
strikethrough teams had to drop due to weather

Brookfield*
Centralia* (2)
De Smet Jesuit (2)
Fatima* (2)
Hallsville* (2)
Helias Catholic (2)
Hickman (2)
Kirksville
Ladue (4)
Lutheran (St. Charles)
Marquette
Mehlville
New Haven*
Oakville
Pilot Grove*
Raytown South
Richland* (2)
Savannah
Thomas Jefferson

On standby to be formed as needed
Fatima C*
New Haven B*

Special thanks to these schools for offering to provide staff
Hallsville
Lutheran (St. Charles)
Marquette
New Haven
Oakville
Last edited by Jeffrey Hill on Sat Mar 01, 2014 8:28 pm, edited 50 times in total.
Reason: updated

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

This tournament is now officially platinum certified by PACE, meaning that the top 25% of the field will qualify for PACE NSC in Virginia on Memorial Day weekend!

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

I just sent an email update to registered and waitlisted coaches.

We will almost certainly not have enough staff to expand past 30 teams, and could use more help - particularly scorekeepers so that we can minimize the number of single-staffer rooms to ensure the tournament runs efficiently. If you're available to staff, please let us know at qualifier@moqba.org.

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by L-Town Expatriate »

:x :x :x :x
Image

Edit: National Weather Service is now saying slight chance of snow/sleet/rain Friday, with considerable cloudiness Saturday. The real "fun" begins Saturday evening.

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by MichaelMenkhus »

I won't be able to make it this year, but I hope this tournament runs excellently (as always). Good luck and safe driving to all involved.

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by scphilli »

Mr. Chekhov wrote:I won't be able to make it this year, but I hope this tournament runs excellently (as always). Good luck and safe driving to all involved.
Curse you Speech & Debate!

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

At this point, unless a large number of teams drop, we are still planning to host tomorrow, but the weather after the tournament is definitely a concern. We've already had a couple of schools cancel this morning.

We fortunately have an abundance of staff that should allow us to easily keep rounds to 30 minutes. We will likely run 9-10 games for everyone, ending around 3:00, with finals/tiebreakers following. Since this is an Official NAQT Event, NAQT's tie breaker policy calls for us to play off any ties for rebracketing and final placement for trophy spots. If we drop to a schedule that is 9 rounds + finals, we will plan to play tiebreaker half-games for rebracketing, which will still allow round 9 to finish by 3:00. If we have a 10 round schedule, we will consider going with a PPG tiebreaker despite NAQT's policy. We plan to play off all ties for trophy spots.

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by socalcaptain »

Teams in contention for the championship (in 2 parallel playoff brackets):

Maximus Bracket:
Hallsville A
Thomas Jefferson
Helias A
Helias B

Titan Bracket:
Savannah
Richland A
Pilot Grove
New Haven

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by socalcaptain »

In other news:

- 22 teams arrived this morning to compete.
- We were actually OVERstaffed. Nice feeling. :)

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

I made it back to KC around 7:00 without any major issues. I hope that everyone had a safe drive home.

The round 10 championship bracket games were effectively a game for third place between Savannah and Thomas Jefferson, and an overall AND small school championship game between the remaining undefeated teams, Hallsville A and Richland A. Savannah won its game 460-135 to take third, with Thomas Jefferson taking 4th. Hallsville A won what was effectively the first game of a best of three final 395-215. Richland A then conceded the planned advantaged final to Hallsville A so that they could get home safely in time, making Hallsville A the 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier Small School Champion AND Overall Champion!

Thanks to all of the 22 teams that ultimately made it today, including a tournament-record 11 small school-eligible teams! The tournament could not have started earlier than originally scheduled or run nearly as smoothly and to planned completion without your assistance in eliminating possible delays throughout the tournament.

We also certainly would not have been able to complete 10 rounds by 3:00 without the incredible assistance of the entire tournament staff: Christina, Ciara, and Ashley from Tuscumbia; Sam, Haley, Shayden, and Amber from Hallsville; fellow Liberty Scholar Bowl alumni Chris and Julia Halsey, Diana Hilton, and Amanda Smith; Isaac Baumann and Daniel Raymon from Mizzou; Brandon Daake and Sawyer Magnus from SEMO; Gordon Arsenoff from WUSTL; and fellow MOQBA members Jacob Billingsley, Sam Haynes, Jason Loy, and Sean Phillips. Special thanks to Alex Smith and my brother Kyle for the tremendous help you also provided before and after the tournament on Friday evening and Saturday.

While we ultimately didn't need them to staff with our smaller field, we also must thank the generous coaches who offered to help: Scott Allen from Hallsville, Michael Flandermeyer from Lutheran High School of St. Charles County, Pete Kahn from Marquette, and Jared Pruessner from New Haven.

And finally, I must of course thank my co-director, Alex Dzurick. Without all of the work you did for this tournament, particularly in the few days leading up to it, there is no way this tournament would have run nearly as smoothly as it did.

The uncertainty about the weather has certainly had its constant shadow over this tournament over the last few days, and we sincerely appreciate the efforts of everyone in attendance to ensure that we could run a successful tournament under these difficult circumstances.

Stats should be posted sometime tomorrow once I get the last few rounds entered. Thanks for your patience!

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

Also, I suppose special thanks should go to the National Weather Service for getting the forecast right! Hopefully I won't have to constantly monitor a bunch of graphs next year!

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by socalcaptain »

I also hope everyone made it home safe and sound and warm! The day ran very smoothly, and much of that is thanks to our teams in attendance who moved between rooms quickly, arrived early, and kept the games moving along.

I'll echo that our staff was AMAZING today. Simply put, without them this tournament would have fallen apart. The quality and attitude of every one of the staff today made this tournament a breeze once it got started.

I'd be amiss if I didn't thank Jeff for EVERYTHING. He's a tournament director extraordinaire! All the planning, all the new things that worked so well, we're all Jeff's ideas. I couldn't have pulled off anything at all close to what happened today without his help and guidance.

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by scphilli »

If any of you get a chance at any point to work with Jeff at any tournament and in any capacity (especially when he is TD) DO IT! He's not only an absolute joy to work with but unquestionably the best of the best.

Definitely a lot more enjoyable than the last time I saw a lot of you in Como.

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

Now that I'm hopefully caught up on sleep, prelims are finally up. The rest will be up in the next couple of hours once I get those scoresheets entered.

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

The 22 teams were originally divided into 2 pools of 6 and 2 pools of 5: Prelims

We then took the top 2 teams in each pool (8 total) to the championship tier. These teams were divided into 2 parallel pools of 4, which played a round robin for rounds 6-8. The top 2 in each played crossover games in rounds 9-10 to determine the top 4, and the remaining teams crossed over to determine 5th-8th.

The remaining 14 teams were ranked #9-22 by position in prelim pool, then record (byes count as wins), then points per bonus.
  • Teams #9-14 went to a 6 team "Consolation 1" playoff pool, which played a full round robin to determine 9th-14th.
  • Teams #15-22 advanced to the "Consolation 2" tier, and were divided into 2 parallel pools of 4, which played a round robin for rounds 6-8. The top 2 in each were scheduled to play crossover games in rounds 9-10, as were the bottom 2 in each.
Initial playoff pools (rounds 6-8 for the championship and consolation 2 tiers)
Final playoff pools (rounds 9-10 and carry-over game for the final championship and consolation 2 pools)
All playoff games (all round 6-10 games, including the Consolation 1 round robin)

All games (all games that counted toward record at some point during the tournament)

In the prelims, the two bye teams played a friendly scrimmage match. I have scoresheets for a couple of these games; I may post those as a separate report sometime.

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by CentraliaCoach »

When I saw that the first match was scheduled to start at 8:45, I laughed out loud. When I told my wife that we would be done by three, she said, "so, 4:30?"

We stand corrected on both counts. Masterfully done, sirs.

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Nate Kinast »

Just wanted to reiterate our gratitude for an exceedingly well-run tournament. Thanks to Jeff and everyone else involved for all the hard work involved in planning and running everything smoothly.

The thing that set this apart from other tournaments in terms of execution was the consistent communication in all steps of the process. I have been to tournaments with 12 teams and no external complications whatsoever that could barely manage to get through its games. But Jeff kept everyone updated regarding the weather, field changes, possibilities for format change, etc. both in the weeks prior to and on the day of the event, and so despite those concerns everything ran quickly and efficiently.

We have to make a decent drive to get to a tournament in Columbia, but my players and I are in agreement that it was completely worth it.

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

The top 15% (4 teams) qualified for the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament on May 30-June 1 in Chicago. Congratulations to Hallsville A, Richland A, Savannah, and Thomas Jefferson for qualifying at this tournament. Hallsville, Savannah, and Thomas Jefferson are already registered for HSNCT, and Richland had already qualified at a previous tournament. Since this is the official NAQT State Qualifier for Missouri, we believe Helias B's fifth place finish will qualify a team from Helias for HSNCT by placing as the highest team that had not previously qualified!

Of our 22 teams, we had an impressive tournament-record 11 small school-eligible teams! The top 15% of small school teams (2 teams) have also qualified for the NAQT Small School National Championship Tournament on May 3-4 in Minneapolis. Congratulations to Hallsville A and Richland A for once again earning bids to the SSNCT! Pilot Grove has also already qualified and registered for SSNCT, which should mean that New Haven will receive a bid to SSNCT for finishing as the highest-placed small school not already qualified!

Since this tournament is Platinum-Certified by PACE, the top 25% (6 teams) qualified for the PACE National Scholastic Championship in the Washington D.C. area on Memorial Day weekend. Congratulations to Hallsville A, Richland A, Savannah, Thomas Jefferson, Helias B, and Helias A for earning bids to NSC!

We appreciate any and all feedback anyone has about how this tournament ran. We're curious to know if the pace of the tournament seemed rushed or if you think a similar pace would be appropriate for future tournaments. If there are certain aspects of the tournament (such as the "on our way" texting, buzzer/question pickup information sheets, etc.) that you thought worked well and would like to see implemented at future tournaments, please let us know.

Thank you once again everyone for attending. We hope to see you all again next year, hopefully on a warm, sunny day!

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

CentraliaCoach wrote:When I saw that the first match was scheduled to start at 8:45, I laughed out loud. When I told my wife that we would be done by three, she said, "so, 4:30?"
One of the things that has delayed Round 1 start times in the past has been the uncertainty of whether or not the last couple of teams are actually going to show up or not, because the correct schedule for the tournament is so dependent on the exact field size. After we didn't start the team meeting at the 2013 Qualifier until after 8:50 because we were still printing schedules, and an experience earlier this year where we had to throw out schedules we just distributed and print new ones because a team showed up late after we assumed they were not coming (just to name a couple of examples), I knew we had to do something to get the correct schedules printed sooner.

That's why we decided weeks before the tournament (well before we knew about the weather) to have teams text us when they left their school to reassure us that they were still coming. As soon as we got confirmation from everyone, we knew for sure that we would be distributing an accurate schedule. We also announced numerous times that we would make several attempts to call teams we hadn't heard from by a certain time, and if we didn't have this confirmation by 8:30, we would drop their team(s) from the tournament. If someone were to have shown up after 8:30 without texting us ahead of time as we repeatedly requested, they would have been out of luck. (I think we may move this deadline to 8:15 next year.)

I thought this system worked EXTREMELY well. We had confirmation from every team by 7:44 (at which point we actually weren't even set up to check teams in yet), which allowed me to set up my computer and printer and have all of the preliminary schedules printed by 8:05. (I also already had the 22 team schedule with teams divided into pools and ready to print, which was unfortunately not the case last year.) I encourage all tournament directors to adopt this system as a simple way to confirm earlier in the morning that everyone is still coming.

Of course, that's not the only thing that delays tournament start times - for instance, if you don't have a schedule for a plausible field size prepared ahead of time (which is simply irresponsible and unacceptable), your tournament IS going to start late. You should always prepare for a couple of teams to drop at the last minute and have schedules available for those field sizes.

We also realized that it made no sense to have the schedules printed but wait until the opening meeting to hand them out, as is typically done. Once the schedules were printed, they were available at check-in, and I immediately handed schedules to teams that had already checked in and were waiting in the auditorium.

We had also already planned to keep the team and staff meetings more brief than in the past. At last year's Qualifier, because we didn't get the team meeting started until about 8:50, I rushed through the rules review to the point where I think it was pretty much a waste of time for both experienced teams (because they already knew the rules) and inexperienced teams (because I was going so fast it was probably not helpful). At this point, we've been running 20 tossup/bonus tournaments for so many years now that pretty much everyone knows what's going on, and not much really needs to be reiterated other than things that vary from tournament to tournament like whether or not the tournament has powers, negs, and/or rebounding bonuses. I also sent the full rules to coaches almost 3 weeks in advance and asked them to review the rules with their teams if necessary. (It also helps that nearly all of the schools at the tournament had been to a previous Qualifier.)

Since we kept both the team and staff meetings short, the room staff were all ready to go when teams arrived and we got round 1 started around 8:47.

The seven scorekeepers provided by Hallsville and Tuscumbia were tremendously helpful in keeping games to 30 minutes by allowing us to have a dedicated scorekeeper in every room (except Sean's, because he's so amazing at running a room by himself). Without these scorekeepers, it is extremely unlikely we would have been able to keep that pace. A shortage of staff at last year's Qualifier contributed to round 10 ending around 4:00 that year.

When we had the playoff schedules printed, we also made sure to have someone standing outside the auditorium with schedules so that we didn't have to wait around for people to walk up during the post-lunch meeting to collect schedules - at 12:20, we read the names of the 10 top scorers, everyone applauded once, and everyone went to their round 6 rooms where moderators and scorekeepers were already waiting for teams. Doing individual awards at this time (which we first did last year) also allows teams a couple extra minutes to return from lunch.

Since we were originally expecting 30 teams and planning to run 2 rounds of superplayoffs and then up to 2 rounds of finals and tiebreakers after round 10 (which in retrospect would not have been wise to attempt with the weather had we actually had 30 teams for this tournament), we were already planning to have the championship rooms on their own floor. That way, if the championship rooms ran significantly faster than the rest of the tournament, we could immediately rebracket into the superplayoffs without waiting for everyone to assemble for an "awards ceremony" where we wouldn't even know who was getting which plaque yet, since we already did the individual awards after lunch and there were more games to play.

Because we had no need for a closing meeting but teams still needed to pick up their buzzers and questions, we realized we could simply give each school's "A" team a piece of paper telling them where their buzzers were and that they should pick them up there, along with their questions. Instead of having moderators bring their stack of read questions back to the control room where we would add the unread packets and then distribute questions to teams, we sent moderators to their round 10 games with a folder containing packets 11-14, labeled with the school whose buzzer system was in their room, and instructed them if they should stay in the room after the buzzer system was packed up (if that was the school's only buzzer system) or if they should bring it back to the control room (if the school brought multiple buzzer systems). I was downstairs running the championship control room, so I'm not sure how well this worked upstairs.

Those are just some examples of new things we tried at this tournament to eliminate delays, whether it was due to the weather or just because nobody likes slow tournaments and I wanted to improve on last year's Qualifier. The original announcement said round 10 would end around 4:00 to allow for the possibility of rounds running a little slower than 30 minutes - nobody's going to complain if an announced 4:00 end time becomes 3:00, but they sure will not be happy if you announce 3:00 and it turns out to be 4:00!

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Re: 2014 NAQT Missouri Qualifier - March 1 at Mizzou

Post by socalcaptain »

Because we had no need for a closing meeting but teams still needed to pick up their buzzers and questions, we realized we could simply give each school's "A" team a piece of paper telling them where their buzzers were and that they should pick them up there, along with their questions. Instead of having moderators bring their stack of read questions back to the control room where we would add the unread packets and then distribute questions to teams, we sent moderators to their round 10 games with a folder containing packets 11-14, labeled with the school whose buzzer system was in their room, and instructed them if they should stay in the room after the buzzer system was packed up (if that was the school's only buzzer system) or if they should bring it back to the control room (if the school brought multiple buzzer systems). I was downstairs running the championship control room, so I'm not sure how well this worked upstairs.
So, by the time I got back upstairs with these slips of paper to label the packets, a few moderators had already started Round 10. Therefore, this system was not going to work. I abandoned it and modified it a little, and tried to catch people in the hallway to make sure they knew where things were. I think this system will probably work in the future, but we decided to implement it about 4 minutes too late this time around.

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