The other thing that happened last Saturday (MHLW being the original other) was the meeting of the NYCFL. We held this at Scientific Bronx School of High Dudgeon as well, because so many of us needed to be at both.
NYCFL is a straightforward organization that is run extremely well by Catholic Charlie, who is one of those people who is good at running things. A lot of forensics is run by people who are not of that persuasion, but with the City Cats, this is not the case. Catholic Charlie has an agenda, keeps us focused, runs pleasant tournaments and is generally amiable. What more could you ask?
A couple of things of note were discussed at the meeting. For our purposes, the agreement was reached to continue four-round tournaments, but notably with lunch breaks, so that the Policians wouldn’t be passing out from starvation in the middle of the afternoon. We did allow that some other problem on the ground might throw us off (e.g., some sort of unforeseen delay kicking us in the butt in the middle of an event), and we will use our noggins to decide as we progress in a given contest if there are any issues. Makes sense to me. Also, we’re waiting to hear where the 10/31 contest will be. Kaz will be up at Manchester Under the Sea and Sabrina will be in a mosh pit somewhere, so we won’t have policy after all. But we will have everything else with a debate flavor to it.
We also discussed ModNov, of course, officially instituting it for the league. It will also be used in the Manhattan Debate League. The train has left the station, ladies and gentlemen. This is sooooo good.
We had invited the coaches at the MHLW to visit the NYCFL meeting. Some of them were there for the first time, and I hope they will officially join us at our events. You can’t have too many debate tournaments, and with MHL, CFL and general invitationals spanning all the levels of competition, the northeast at the moment is jam-packed with contests in the best way possible. Something for everybody! Yes!
It’s nice when things are working well. It really is. What is best about all of this is the open communication. When I started doing this activity, it was hard to find things out. The internet was young, and so was I. (Well, all right, the internet was young. I was already older than God.) Now, not only do we have online registrations and email and Twitter and listservers and whatnot, but we actually use them! I feel that there has never been a stronger sense of community among the coaches than there is now. Not that we all love each other and want to have each other’s babies, but we talk together and plan together and disagree with civility, which is the way it should be. Maybe we are finally learning to practice what we so obviously preach.
I have a feeling this is going to be a most fun season!
(And I’m sorry for this outburst of joy and rapture, and promise to return to biliousness and general disagreeability tomorrow.)
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