7.1. Eligibility Requirements

[jttower]

Under 7.1 it states that in order to quiz for IBQ for a district, their (the quizzer's) home church must be from the district in which they quiz.

Does this mean that all churches quizzing in a district must be C&MA churches?
Does this mean that a quizzer must attend a church that falls within the physical boundaries of the district in which they quiz (even if not C&MA)?

We have quizzers from several churches quizzing with our church. We also have a new team from a non-C&MA church that joined us this year. My understanding was that anyone could join quizzing (and be eligible for IBQ) as long as they are willing to follow our rules.

[gryphonshafer]

I've interpreted that to mean the home church is in the same geographical region as the CMA district.

In PNW, a majority of our churches are non-CMA, and it seems likely the CMA % of our district will shrink over time due to growth in non-CMA churches group and non-growth in the CMA churches group. As far as PNW is concerned, we see consider there no difference between CMA and non-CMA churches.

[jswingle]

On that note: why even have this rule? I'm sure the circumstances are very rare where it would ever be a problem, but in the rare instance where a church is right on the border between two districts, why prohibit the church from quizzing with the program that's nearby? It would be a different story if quizzing was literally everywhere, but there are wide geographical swaths in both USA and Canada with no active CMA quizzing.

[ARMediting]

I've never seen opposition to a quizzer who lives in a neighboring state joining the closer district. The intent is to give the quizzer opportunities to quiz, not stack a team. It's been done at IBQ at least once. If there's a suspicion of wrong motives, it can always be addressed ad hoc.

[jttower]

There was an instance last year that I heard about where one district was trying to get a team together for IBQ but didn't have enough quizzers, and then asked another district if one of their quizzers would possibly like to join their team. This didn't come to fruition, but in my reading of this rule it would have been against the rules, correct?

[scottpeterson]

I think in general there are two principles: (1) we want to make it easy for people to participate, in churches, districts, GWI, Winternationals, Internationals. We don't want eligibility rules that make that more difficult.

(2) We don't want to "allow" say, PNW to recruit the best from Canadian Pacific, Rocky Mountain, Western Canada, etc, to form a super team for Internationals.

Perhaps all we need is a single rule for Internationals: If a quizzer resides within a district that is sending a team to Internationals, they are only allowed to compete for that district.

[ARMediting]

You still might have a scenario of a quizzer in, say, West Virginia having a much shorter drive to WPA meets/practices than to NE Ohio. I guess I feel there's enough integrity/accountability that a district wouldn't seek a quizzer for the wrong reasons.

[kclimenhaga]

If we need a rule, could we word it as "Quizzers must attend Internationals with the district in which they quiz"? That would solve both the hypothetical problem of making a super-team and the problem of quizzers living closer to another district.

[ZacharyTinker]

We have discussed this rule a lot at the CQLT level.

Quizzers must compete with the C&MA geographical district in which their home church (C&MA or Non-C&MA) is located. This can be overridden in two ways. A CQLT one-time allowance with an extraordinary situation or if the geographical district does not have an active quizzing district.

One example of a CQLT allowance in recent years is this. A district did not have enough quizzers to form a team. The CQLT made an allowance to allow quizzers from a larger district to quiz with the smaller district so that a team could still be formed.

[josiah-leinbach]

I would propose we amend 7.1 as follows, borrowing some of Kristen's wording:

Original In order to quiz at Internationals for a specific district:

• The quizzer must reside in that district or in a bordering community.
• Their home church must be from the district in which they quiz.

Any exceptions to this must be brought to the CQLT.

Proposed

District teams at Internationals must be comprised of quizzers who compete in the district.

Any exceptions to this must be brought to the CQLT.

EXPLANATION

I believe that replacing the dependent clause and two bullet-points with this one sentence offers some strong benefits. First, the ambiguity of the current wording comes from the fact that locus of attention is the quizzer. This shifts that to the district, which is considerably less ambiguous. Second, it avoids the "home church" or "neighboring community" questions entirely. If a quizzer lives and attends a church outside the district but quizzes in the district, that's what really matters. I helped set up a quiz program in Tennessee last year that quizzes for OVD. They are pretty well outside OVD's district boundaries, but it made the most sense for them to quiz with OVD, meaning they are OVD. Third, by keeping the exceptions clause, we leave things flexible as circumstances arise. Fourth, it is more to the point.

In summary, this new wording (1) makes districts the focus, (2) makes participation the determining factor, (3) maintains room for exceptions, and (4) is more concise.

[jswingle]

I like Josiah's proposal, but I think what makes the most sense is to get @ZacharyTinker 's input on this as much as possible, as he's had experience handling these issues. What say ye, Zach?

[jswingle]

I would like to amend @josiah-leinbach 's proposal for clarity:

"District teams at Internationals must be comprised only of quizzers who compete in the district.

Any exceptions to this must be approved by the CQLT."

@ZacharyTinker what do you think about this wording?

[ZacharyTinker]

My one concern with this wording is that there are quizzers/churches that compete in more than one district on a regular basis.

With this wording, the quizzer could go to IBQ for either district or doubling their chance of making an IBQ team.

In the past, the CQLT has decided that if a quizzer can quiz in the district in which they attend church, they need to go to IBQ with that district.

If the district in which they attend church either: 1) Cannot form an IBQ team or 2) Does not plan on attending IBQ, the quizzer can attend IBQ through another district with 1) Approval from the district and 2) Approval from the CQLT.

Again, this was just the latest decision of the CQLT on this particular topic.

[jswingle]

@ZacharyTinker

Thanks for the explanation. From my perspective, I'm not seeing why it would be an issue for a quizzer who quizzes in two districts to have the ability to quiz with either team if they're invited to. I'd like to leave the team-building decisions to the districts as much as possible, with the exception being that I want to exclude the possibility of districts "poaching" quizzers from across the nation or something like that. In the rare instance that a quizzer lives close to two programs, and really wants to dedicate time to qualifying in two of them, I'm not sure that's something we need to stop.

The Rules Committee technically has jurisdiction to decide this, but since this is a CQLT-intersecting issue I think it's important for us to communicate ahead of our vote and make a decision that everyone's happy with.

[jswingle]

It's worth pointing out that if we happened to have quizzing in every district and more or less every major area of the US/Canada, I would want to be strict on the district stuff. But that's not our situation. I think decentralizing and removing red tape to team construction is probably a good thing in our situation, not a bad one. The future of quizzing is probably not going to be tied as strictly to district borders, since most district offices do not have any association with quizzing anyways.

[JoshJetto]

The greater danger with this rule not being in place is that quizzers who are geographically located in the district for which they are trying to make the IBQ team may get bumped from the team by quizzers who reside in a different geographic district yet who prefer, for whatever reason, to quiz for a district not their own. This has been extensively discussed over multiple years at the CQLT level (because of an actual case and request that the CQLT denied), and I believe for the sake of fairness is a rule that ought to remain in place with the only exceptions being in cases where a quizzer's home district is not sending an IBQ team or where that district's team is short-handed and would be aided by having additional quizzers from another district joining them (and in both of these exceptional cases, only with the approval of the District Coordinator of the district they would be joining and the CQLT).

[ARMediting]

The Rules Committee voted 5-0 on Jan. 7, 2023, to table this issue until the CQLT has discussed it.

[josiah-leinbach]

I think @jswingle's emendation to my proposal makes sense, so it would read:

District teams at Internationals must be comprised only of quizzers who compete in the district.

Any exceptions to this must be brought to the CQLT.