Any site that tells J G to shut up can't be all bad. (Sorry. Private joke. Damned good one, though.)

Interesting meeting last night. Some Sailors I had thought long gone were short back. We lost General Will to the Mormons, but added a likely replacement. And we worked out of a different room, for no apparent reason.

Nothing is as comfortably predictable as change.

As usual at the beginning of the year, I break the meetings down into newbies first then everybody second including the newbies. I don’t like to separate the newbies completely because then they miss the sense of community that comes from being part of the whole group however dysfunctional it might be, but nonetheless, the most elementary discussion of natural rights in the first half of the evening is a far cry from my novice coordinators telling me that my weighing theorem is faulty during the second half of the evening. When the varsity arrived we went over some things I learned from the RR (the inherent weakness of the affirmative, the need to weigh arguments that are actually related to the weighing mechanism, the need to bring your own Babycakes), and some general business, like why it probably pays to sign up for a tournament a little sooner than two months after the signup has closed. If any of the novices come back, it will be a miracle.

I pestered CP a bit about the Pups yesterday, but he assures me that everything is keachy peen and stop annoying him. I can’t help it. Tournament in two weeks? First one in ages? One’s mind does turn to it on occasion.

I requested coaching materials from folks for the NYSFL website, and gotten some good stuff. If you have any good stuff, send it along and I’ll add it. We’re creating a “care package” of stuff for new coaches. The more we have, the better.

I made my first foray over to LDDebate.org yesterday. Things are pretty lively over there, let me tell you, some heavy duty discussions of what coaches can and should do. I guess O’C was wise to revive this old site. I still find it ungainly, not being a forum kind of person, but I guess I’ll get into it. But I won’t be arguing about what coaches can and should do. I’ve always felt that coaches should concentrate on Babycakes and let the students figure out the rest of it for themselves. I’m way too busy sorting crappy prizes to get drawn into actually educating anybody. I know my place in this activity.