The Plebes arrive at the academy

Recruiting paid off well in our initial turnout last night, although the sense is that most if not all of them came for speech. Whatever. Need I remind the VCA that I believe that all forensic activities are valuable, albeit in different ways? Of course, maybe there were some debaters hidden among the Speecho-Americans. One never knows. I’ve asked the People’s Champion and the Panivore to continue their work, with next week’s debate meeting yet another opportunity for new folks to drop in (as are all meetings, but after the beginning of the year, hardly anyone ever does). I would like to see at least a core of debaters from the class of ’14. Class of ’14? What a concept!

The way I do things, and have for quite a while, is to ask new people to email me so that I can put them onto the listserver. Once upon a time I used to suggest they get on the listserver on their lonesomes, but that proved way too difficult for some reason, sort of like suggesting to my mother that it would be nice if she had an answering machine on her telephone. Don’t even think about her using a cell phone! There’s a blank-brain barrier that suddenly rises out of nowhere that prevents a person from doing a perfectly simple action that requires no brainwork. Go figure. Signing up for our listservers raises such a barrier. So, I sign them up myself. As a rule, the excited new recruits immediately run home from the inaugural meeting, and, as one, do not email me. Which means that I have no idea how many people will survive to week two, but the usual attrition rate is about 50%. The second big attrition moment, at least in debate, is the jump from sophomore to junior. We lose another 50% then, usually because at that level one needs to really amp up one’s LDishness, or resign oneself to a lesser sense of participation. In the light of junior year, a tough one if not the toughest one, with its extra pressure of college breathing down the Sailor neck, I understand the issue. But it means that we need to start with the greatest number possible in order to end with a good number. So the burden remains on the heads of my crack team crackheads crack heads of my team to get out there and recruit like there’s no tomorrow!

On the TVFT front, there is internal discussion over the northeasterly aspect of it. Aside from Bietz, in other words, all of us know that the Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. I don’t see this as a great limitation in our work, given that all of us send kids to tournaments across the country, but maybe I’m wrong. In any case, we actively promote the recruitment of other folks to join us. If you’re interested, let us know, especially if you think the Bronx is down and the Battery’s up. We have invited this sort of foreigner in the past, to great advantage to the podcast. We’ll try to keep doing it this year.

This weekend is the last before season ’10-’11 kicks in. I intend to make the most of it. If I were you, and in the same situation, I would do likewise.