This article is from the College Bowl FAQ, by George Atendido aten0001@tc.umn.edu with numerous contributions by others.
(Most of this section from Pat Matthews)
As stated before, for CB-participating schools the campus tournament
should be the cornerstone of your recruitment effort, and as such it
should be run well and promoted to your entire student body.
The first thing you should do is to plan out on which date(s) you will
have your event. There is no strict rule as to how your event must be
structured: it is entirely up to your program. Some of the many things to
keep in mind in planning the campus tourney:
a. How many teams do you expect will play
b. How many rooms you will want to run at the same time
c. How many game officials will be available, and at what times
d. Will any participants also serve as officials
e. What format will you want (round-robin, single elimination, double
elimination, swiss pairs, modified or hybrid forms of the above)
f. Are there any campus events that you want to avoid conflicts with
g. What kind of publicity will you generate, and will campus and/or local
TV/Radio/newspapers cover you
Most of these issues are discussed in the _College Bowl Campus Program
Information Guide_, available free from CBI. Sample scoresheets,
tournament charts, promotional materials, a rules quiz for game officials,
and other useful info are in the guide.
The second thing you must do is figure out how you are going to pay for
the campus tourney. If you do it by the book, every question you use
should be bought from CBI, and these packets cost $43-$62 each. Plus, you
will have to pay for photocopying scoresheets and rules, posters, possibly
an ad in your campus newspaper, possibly food/soda for your game officials,
possibly prizes, etc. Many schools have some sort of funding mechanism for
student activities, and that should be your first stop. In addition, a few
programs have succeeded in getting local businesses to sponsor or
co-sponsor the campus tourney.
Once you have these figured out, order the questions from CBI. It is
imperative that you complete steps one and two *very* much in advance of
the actual campus tourney. A good time to hold it is in October or
November, so you should finish the planning stage preferably by September
1, and ideally before everyone goes home for the summer. This is for two
reasons: first, advance planning makes the event easier to run; second,
you will qualify for the early order discount on questions.
There are many other tasks which you must complete for your campus tourney
to be a success, and they may be performed either while or after the
aforementioned tasks are completed.
An extremely important task is the recruitment of game officials. They
must be impartial, have a thorough knowledge of the game and its rules,
and be firm in their decisions, but they must not be afraid to admit
mistakes or be so rigid that they will not uphold a valid protest. If you
have no experienced game officials at your disposal, there are three
things that you can do. The first is to train officials yourself. Have
them read the materials from game officials that CBI sends in its annual
mailings to the schools, and take them through simulated matches. Make
sure they know the rules *COMPLETELY*. Another option is to call
neighboring schools' CB programs and see if they can send you some game
officials. A third option is to call your ACUI region coordinator. They
have lists of volunteers in your region who help out for the RCT, and you
may be able to persuade some of these people to help you out for your
campus tourney (but don't count on it). To find out who your regional
coordinator is and his/her phone number, call CBI at 1-800-234-BOWL.
Another key task is to get the necessary equipment (see question 10). You
will need as many buzzer systems as rooms, and any clocks that you use
should be countdown timers that are visible to the players and game
officials. If your program does not already have a buzzer system, it
should buy one (and depending on the size of your program, you may need a
second system). Borrowing a system is possible, but very difficult, as
they are not cheap (a buzzer system ordered through CBI costs ca. $500).
However, you may be able to borrow the equipment of a neighboring school,
and your regional coordinator may be able to loan you a system as well.
For help and advice for any aspect of intramural tournament planning, do not
hesitate to ask the editor of this list (Pat Matthews,
patrickm@pobox.upenn.edu).
 
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