Standard Operating Procedures

The following are standard operating procedures (SOPs) for Western Washington (WWA). (WWA is the successor organization to Pacific Northwest Bible Quizzing, or PNW.)

Meet Registration

All team organizations that ensure complete and accurate meet registration in the online registration system prior to the registration deadline will be announced at the welcome announcements
From a population of each quizzer from each such organization, a quizzer will be selected at random
As the first thing at the awards ceremony, the raffle will be drawn and the quizzers from that time will receive a button stating: “My Coach Registered on Time”
Must be present to win except for teams that have ≥5 hours of drive

Only the following will be accepted as reasons for an excused absence as it pertains to fees and meet roster changes:

Sickness
Unforeseeable family emergency

Fees

The following are the fees associated with quiz meet registration:

There is a fee of $5 per quizzer per meet for every regular regional meet
The cost of Championships is based on direct, no-markup costs to host the meet on a per-person basis

For clarification:

There are no team fees
There are no fees for Scramble/Welcome meets/events

In addition, all fees are waived for team organizations in their first year of CBQ participation.

The meet registration data submitted prior to the registration deadline will be used to calculate fees. Should there be a quizzer's absence that's excused after the registration deadline, the fees associated with that quizzer for that meet will be deducted. Any added quizzers following the registration deadline will incur the standard fees.

Bracket Types

Quiz meets will be comprised of preliminary score sum bracket consisting of all registered teams. Each team should be given the same number of quizzes therein, with as many being 3-team quizzes as possible, and 2-team quizzes only as necessary to ensure an equal total quiz-per-team count.

Following the score sum bracket, there will be 1 or more "top-9" positional brackets and an "auxiliary" positional bracket. The teams sorted by total team score from the score sum bracket will fill the 1 or more "top-9" positional brackets, and the remaining teams will be placed in the "auxiliary" positional bracket.

There will be at least 1 but possibly multiple finals/championships quizzes of the top 3 teams from the "top-9" positional brackets.

Meet Quiz Starts

It is the responsibility of quizzers and their coaches to arrive in quiz rooms prior to the start of their assigned quizzes. Should any quizzers or coaches be actively quizzing in another quiz room or in direct transit to the arrival quiz room from a previous quiz in a different quiz room, the quiz start will be delayed until their prompt arrival. For all other circumstances, the quiz in question will be started immediately.

Individual Averages

Quizzer individual averages for a meet are computed as follows:

Each bracket's quizzes are averaged (with exceptions; see next)
Finals/championships quiz scores do not count toward individual averages
Auxiliary score sum quizzes have their averages reduced by 50%

Quizzer individual averages for a season are computed as follows:

Scramble and any other pre-season meets are ignored
For meets 1, 2, and 3: drop the lowest score of these, then the remaining 2 count 10% each
For meet 4: count at 20%
For meet 5: count at 25%
Championships: count at 35%

Weather Minimums

There may arise situations where the weather forecast predicts conditions unsafe for travel to, from, or about the meet location.

General Principles: We don't want to cancel any meet, but we have an obligation to cancel whenever the safe outcome of travel is ever in doubt. There isn't an easy way to decide this because there isn't a uniform standard weather minimum for safe travel shared across all drivers, vehicles, and locations. A meet shouldn't be canceled if most teams can safely travel to and from the meet; however, if any coach believes safe travel is in doubt due to weather and declines travel to a meet that isn't canceled, their teams should not be statistically penalized.

The following are the weather-related meet policies:

A coach may, by citing what they feel is unsafe forecast weather conditions, decline to commute their teams to any meet. Such a decision must be made prior to the start of the meet. The coach needs to contact the Coordinator as soon as possible following the decision. Given this case, the quizzers and teams from that group will have their averages calculated with the missing meet removed from the sum denominator.
If more than a third of ministries decide to decline participation in a meet due to weather, the Coordinator will cancel the meet.
The Coordinator will cancel the meet if at the meet location or along any common roadway where a majority of ministries will likely commute the following weather minimums are expected to be exceeded:
- Ice on the roadway.
- Snow accumulation of 2".
- Freezing rain.
- Visibility below 1 statue mile except for morning fog.
- Flooding.
- Electrical power loss at the meet location with no backup power capability.
If the Coordinator cancels a meet, all teams will have their averages calculated with the missing meet removed from the sum denominator.

For individuals missing a meet due to weather:

If missing one of the first 3 meets or Championships, the individual will receive a 0 average for that meet
If missing Meet 4, the individual will receive a 0 for 10% of that meet and 10% weight applied to Meet 5
If missing Meet 5, the individual will receive a 0 for 10% of that meet and 15% weight applied to Championships

For teams missing a meet due to weather:

If missing Meet 3, the team will receive Last Place for 15% of that meet and 10% weight applied to Meet 4
If missing Meet 4, the team will receive Last Place for 25% of that meet and 10% weight applied to Meet 5
If missing Meets 1, 2, 5, or Championships, the team will receive Last Place for that meet

Additional Documents

In addition to this SOP, there are sub-SOP documents that should be considered included as part the overall SOPs. These documents are: