I am in Toronto as well, but I tried writing the
questions, and it is not that easy, and I have little
time for it, so I am not sure I could contribute to a
package significantly. I would like to play though.




--- Jessica Pilkington <bookmarker11@...>
wrote:


---------------------------------


Well, I'm going to be in Toronto, so I was planning on
going. Who else is here?



---------------------------------
From: "Eric J. M. Smith" <eric@...>
Reply-To: qb-utoronto@yahoogroups.com
To: qb-utoronto@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [qb-utoronto] Re: June tourney
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 18:44:11 -0400



On 1-Jun-07, at 6:05 PM, Anirudh Dani wrote:
> Any news about the tournament in June?
Yes, it's on for June 30th. I've attached the
announcement from the
qb-canada Yahoo group.

So if any of you out there are interested in forming
teams, now's the
time to discuss it. Note that teams are expected to
write questions
(which is good experience for quiz bowl players). It
might be an
idea for players who have never written questions to
form a team with
someone who has done so. I would suggest Bobby Hsu,
Zhan Zhou, Rico,
and myself as grizzled veterans you might want to
recruit for your team.

Note that the entry fee in Toronto (which works out to
$5/player if
you write a question pack) is to help build up our
club's funds so
that we don't have to repeat the situation where the
club went into
deficit to send a team to the NAQT championships.

E.

NINTH ANNUAL VANCOUVER ESTIVAL TRIVIA OPEN
plus FIFTH ANNUAL VETO'S EASTERN TRIVIA OPEN in
TORONTO
SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 2007

The Vancouver Estival Trivia Open (VETO) is the
nation's longest-
running annual quiz bowl tournament. Again, there will
be a mirror in
Toronto, and we're also hoping to have a championship
match between
the site winners. For up-to-date information, check
the web page
http://caql.org/events/veto07.html
and the weblog
http://veto.caql.org

VETO will be run "guerrilla" style, meaning:
* each team must bring an original packet of
questions, which will
not be edited by anyone else associated with the
tournament;
* participants must moderate and keep score during
rounds when they
aren't playing.

This event is FREE for those playing in Vancouver.
In Toronto, it will cost $20 per team with a packet of
questions,
or $40 without a packet.

Links to detailed reports of VETO in previous years
can be found here:
http://caql.org/results.html

=== WHO CAN PLAY ===

VETO is an "open" tournament in the sense that we
don't exclude anyone
because of age, student status, degrees obtained or
not obtained,
nationality, etc. However, recognizing that people
come to VETO with
vastly different levels of experience, we'd like to
give priority to
those who have a history of providing good questions
in the
tossup/bonus format.

So instead of accepting teams on a "first come, first
served" basis
until space fills up, this is what we'll do:
* Any team that has won VETO in a previous year (in
Vancouver or
in Ontario) has an automatic invitation to play this
year.
* Any other team must apply to the VETO Invitation
Committee.
* Applications are simple: just e-mail two OLD
full-length quiz bowl
packets (at least 20 tossups and 20 bonuses in each),
such that the
majority of the questions in both packets were written
by members of
your prospective team.
* If some of your team members have written a lot of
questions
separately but you don't actually have two packets to
which you've
together contributed a majority of the questions, then
just send us 20
old tossups and 20 old bonuses that were all written
by your members.
* Within a few days of receiving your application, the
Invitation
Committee will inform you of its decision either to
accept or to defer
your application. If your application is not accepted,
you may appeal
by sending us more old questions that you've written.
* Teams whose applications are deferred, either
because they didn't
have enough questions to show us or because their
questions didn't
meet our standards, will have another chance. After
June 16, deferred
teams will be allowed to play if there is still room.
The Invitation
Committee will decide whether each deferred team
should write
questions.

Don't feel intimidated by this application/invitation
procedure. The
point is to make sure that the people who will be
writing the
questions for VETO have experience writing questions.
This is
important because it's a guerrilla tournament, and
nobody else will be
editing. As for how high our standards are: the vast
majority of the
packets in the Stanford Archive would meet our
criteria for
acceptance.

Even if your team doesn't write questions, we expect
you to have
enough familiarity with the quiz bowl format to be
able to staff games
during your bye rounds.

A team can have any number of players, but no more
than four can play
at a time. If you don't have a full team of four, we
can match you up
with other players. Solo teams are OK, too: we'll set
the schedule so
that other teams will have byes and you won't have to
staff more than
one room by yourself.

The size of the field in Toronto is capped at 12
teams.
The cap in Vancouver is 8 teams. There may be room for
a 9th team if
it rotates players in and out so that it can supply
people to moderate
games in every round.

=== WHEN ===

Saturday, June 30, 2007, from about 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
local time.

VETO will be on the same day as the unrelated Sun n'
Fun VIII and a
1/2 tournament at the University of South Florida in
Tampa, and also
the NAQT HSNCT mirror at the University of Maryland in
College Park.
But if you are interested in either of those events,
you can play in
mirrors in other locations on June 23: a mirror of Sun
n' Fun VIII and
1/2 at the University of Maryland in College Park, and
a mirror of
NAQT HSNCT at both the University of Minnesota in
Minneapolis-
St. Paul, and the University of Tennessee in
Chattanooga.

If you would like to participate in VETO, please
notify us by June 16,
2007.

=== TORONTO LOCATION ===

VETO's Eastern Trivia Open will be held in Sidney
Smith Hall (100
St. George St.) at the University of Toronto's
downtown St. George
campus. Named after the Secretary of State for
External Affairs under
Diefenbaker, Sidney Smith Hall is a 7-floor, fully
air-conditioned
facility, whose modern design showcases (aside from
the Quiz Bowl
team), U of T's Faculty of Arts and Science. It is
easily accessible
from West of the city (Gardiner Expressway, exit at
Spadina) or
East/West on the 401 (exit at Avenue Road). On-campus
parking is
available either at the Rotman Building (second
driveway north of
Harbord St.) or along St. George, though many
off-campus and nearby
alternatives are possible. Located in the downtown
core of Canada's
largest city, Sidney Smith is surrounded by Bloor,
Spadina, and
College Streets, all of which offer food and shopping
for every taste
and a wealth of other attractions. A quick drive to
either Yonge or
Queen St. W will yield more popular stops and diverse
cuisine. For any
additional directions or details contact the site
coordinator.

=== FORMAT ===

VETO 2007 will be run "guerrilla" style, without
central editing and
will be staffed by players. We'll play at least a full
round-robin, as
many rounds as packets from the two sites, likely
ending in a site
final (which some may consider an unfair format).

Games will be conducted according to NAQT rules,
except that matches
will be untimed, with 20 tossups per round, and there
will be no
15-point "power" tossups.

=== QUESTION PACKETS ===

Detailed question guidelines are on a separate web
page:
http://caql.org/events/veto07q.html
which includes a section with many, many useful
reference links
categorized by subject.

Rounds will be untimed, with 20 tossups played in
each. But you will
have to write more than 20 tossups and 20 bonuses,
because you may
need tie-breaking questions, or you may end up having
to throw out
some questions because of game errors or because they
ask for
information that already came up in somebody else's
packet.

So your packet should include (at least):
* 24 tossups, each worth 10 points -- no 15-point
"powers";
* 22 bonuses, each worth 30 points -- but no
single-part,
single-answer questions.

Use the following subject distribution for both
tossups and bonuses:

Science, Math, Technology 3 -- 4
History 3 -- 4
Literature 3 -- 4
Geography 2 -- 3
Current Events 2 -- 3
Fine Arts 1 -- 2
Religion, Philosophy, Mythology 1 -- 2
Social Science 1 -- 2
Popular Culture, Games, Sports 1 -- 2
General Knowledge 0 -- 3

Canadian content quota:
Of the first 20 tossups, at least 4 must refer to
Canadian people,
places, things, events, and created works. The same
goes for the first
20 bonuses. But overall, don't exceed 50% Canadian
content in your
packet. Your Canadian questions should also cover
diverse subject
areas and not be clustered in Geography or Literature,
etc.

Tossups should include at least two separate clues,
preferably at
least four. Multiple-choice bonuses should be used
sparingly, if at
all, and should provide at least four choices.

In order that we can keep to a reasonable schedule,
questions must not
be too long:
* No tossup question, and no part of a bonus question,
should exceed
6 lines if using a fixed-width font with 79 characters
per line.
* No bonus question should ever require more than four
separate team
conferrals.

To promote fun and variety, teams are encouraged to
bring multimedia
questions (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory,
gustatory). These
tend to work better as bonuses than as tossups. Let us
know if you
plan to have any audio questions, so that we can
arrange enough of the
proper equipment to play them.
Every packet must contain at least one multimedia
question: It can be
as simple as presenting a printout of a picture you
found through
http://images.google.com and asking a few questions
about the picture.

For our further amusement, we encourage rounds with
hidden themes.
Last year, for example, in one round, every tossup
answer was also the
name of a school that had participated in the SmartAsk
TV game show;
in another round, every answer contained the name of
an animal.

Aim for a difficulty level approximating that of NAQT
sectionals.

=== PRIZES ===

The leading individual scorer at VETO in Vancouver
will take over the
title of West Coast Dominatrix of Relevant Knowledge
(WC-DORK).
The leading individual scorer at VETO in Toronto will
take over the
title of Nerd Of The East (NOTE).

Anyone may sponsor a prize and select a winner
according to any
criteria. Last year, there were at least seven prizes
awarded to
individuals and teams in Vancouver.

=== CONTACT ===

If you are interested in participating, please contact
the appropriate
site coordinator by June 16, 2007.
Vancouver: Peter at pmcc@... (pmcc at alumni.sfu.ca)
Toronto: Jason at j_dickson5@... (j_dickson5 at
yahoo.ca)
Toronto16, 2007, at

Updates will be posted on the web page
http://caql.org/events/veto07.html
Also check the weblog
http://veto.caql.org









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