To the Bible Quizzing Family,

I'm very sorry to be so late in getting this out to you all, and we didn't expect that it would be this way. Due to a mix-up between Stan and myself, and to Stan being out of town for several days, we won't have the standings available until sometime next week. In the meantime there are some new developments regarding the upcoming tournaments so I wanted to get that information to you right away. But before that, please take a moment to step back a couple weeks to the October quiz meet.

What a fantastic start to the new quiz season! It was an incredibly uplifting day. Martha and I are especially thankful for the help we received from the leadership team. It seems that the changes we introduced to this year's program were very well received. It is hard to be objective about this, but we both came home thinking this was the best "opening day" of quizzing that our program has ever seen. We cannot help but think that the Olympic Memory Challenge had something to do with making many quizzers just a bit sharper than they would have been otherwise. It was impressive.

Also very impressive was the number of new quizzers, and the fact that so many of them "got it". It was great to see new quizzers jumping and getting correct answers. To all of you newcomers - we're very glad to have you in the program and we hope the October quiz was a very worthwhile experience for you. Regardless of how you all did, you're winners for spending time in God's Word, and you now probably have a much better idea of what happens at a quiz and how to prepare for it.

A special word of thanks to Randy Grabau for leading us in the devotional, and for Jeremy Marquez and David Nichols for leading us in worship. Starting quiz meets this way to focus on and honor the One for whom we quiz, can only be a good thing, well worth the few minutes we spent. It really seemed to set the tone for the whole day.

Personally, I'd like to thank all of you for helping out as I hobble around on the crutches. It was very odd for me to not be able to get around and take care of the things I normally do, and I greatly appreciate all of you who stepped in to make things easier on me.

We are very excited about the number of quizzers who participated in the Olympic Memory Challenge. There were 24 in all, including an impressive number of Gold level winners. Let me encourage you all to keep pursuing this. I think it will make a difference in your lives personally, and in your approach to, and confidence in quizzing. You can see the winners of the various levels in the standings. We're awarding 1, 3, and 5 points for bronze, silver, or gold level memory work which will accumulate through the year in addition to the monthly certificates. At the year there will be awards given based on total accumulated OMC points.

It was a perfect night for a campfire, and there were right around 50 of you who came. Martha and I certainly enjoyed having you all here. It is good to be able to hang around together after the quizzing is over. I know that for some of you who drive a long ways, it was a big deal to take the time to do this, so thanks so much for coming and making the evening special.

We still need volunteers to help out in future months. We have open positions starting in December for people to set up and tear down rooms, and for people to lead in worship and in devotions. Please seriously consider whether you can help, and contact me to sign up. Thanks!

Heartland Tournament

If you have not yet signed your team up for the Heartland Tournament (it takes the place of our normal November quiz), please do so as soon as possible. There is no registration fee for the tournament. This tournament will be Friday evening and most of the day on Saturday, November 16-17, at Grace Evangelical Free Church in Stewartville. We will be quizzing on Galatians 1-6 and Ephesians 1-3 in the A/B League, and Ephesians 1-4 in the Little League. This is all of the material for October and November. There will be no "old" questions.

At the tournament there will be a place for coaches to turn in the November OMC worksheets, so please come prepared to do that. We will not award the November certificates until our December quiz, but please understand that the worksheets need to be turned in at the tournament.

There have been a couple changes that you may or may not have heard about by now:

• At the October quiz, I mentioned that our Blue Sheet questions and answers for November would not be particularly meaningful for the tournament. However, there has been a recent change there affecting the Little League. For the Little League only, the tournament questions will be Rochester questions. This means that there will be some Blue Sheet questions in every quiz (from the combined October and November Blue Sheets), and that all of the finish/quote questions will come from those Blue Sheet lists (equivalent to the bronze OMC level). For the A/B League, the best advice for finish/quote questions would be to be prepared with the silver OMC list.
• For the tournament, the A/B League will be split into Varsity and JV divisions. These divisions will be based on team ability/strength, not based on quizzer age or grade. In most cases we think you will know what division is appropriate for your team (think of half of our teams being in each league as a starting point). Coaches, assuming you have already registered your team, please contact John Raygor (raygo014@umn.edu) and tell him which division you would like your team to be registered in; if you are not certain, please work with John to figure it out.

Those of you from out of town are encouraged to stay either at the church, or in housing provided by local quizzing families. Note that if for some reason your team is unable to quiz Friday night, we will do our best to accommodate you, and schedule your quizzes only for Saturday. Obviously that can only be done for a very few teams, so please let John Raygor know right away if you need to be accommodated that way.

If you live in the Rochester area, please consider opening your home to out-of-town quizzers, coaches, and other adults. If you have extra beds, that's fine, but it is also fine if you've just got floor-space for sleeping. If you are willing to house people for the tournament, and have not already signed up to do so, please contact John Raygor about it.

Crown College Tournament (A/B League only)

There are changes to the tournament this year which will affect us. The first is that the tournament will cost more. There is no team registration fee, but the individual registration fee for coaches and quizzers alike is $60 each. (For families with more than two quizzers registered, the cost for the third and subsequent quizzers is $40 each). This cost will include your stay at the college (the usual accommodations on the floor) and three meals on Saturday (Friday night supper is not included). The cost for spectators who stay overnight at the college is $25 (including meals on Saturday), or those who find their own accommodations can purchase meals directly in the lunch line (and $20 should cover Saturday's meals).

Second, there is a possibility that the tournament may "fill up" and so we are being encouraged to register early. There will be Crown registration forms in your packets at the Heartland Tournament, so those of you who are going as a team can simply fill that out then. For individuals or partial teams, I would encourage you to start making arrangements with other quizzes/coaches and try to get that finalized by the Heartland Tournament so you can fill out a team form there. We will register whatever teams we know of right after the Heartland Tournament. If you need to wait until our December quiz to register, you may do so, but you run the risk that the tournament may be full by then, so the sooner you can register, the better. Regardless of when you register, we will collect all the registration fees and deal with the necessary waivers at our December quiz.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions. And, thank you for your support of Bible Quizzing.

Karl Kirkman