PBA Begins
We're sitting in the church, and listening as Elder Dodge organizes this mammoth event. The numbers this year are staggering: it looks like 45 teams made it to the finals this year! This doesn't reach the proportions I had hoped for: see the opening paragraph at PBAWiki.org. But it is very easily the largest group in the four years that the Triadalphia Sparks have been here.
About half of the pews in the church have been allocated to the 45 teams. Each team comprises six (typically) Pathfinders, and is assigned an adult local judge and scorekeeper. Each team also has a runner, usually an Adventurer or similarly-aged youngster, and the runners were assigned this year by calling all eligible kids to the front, and then directing them to each go find one of the local judges, who were standing until they connected with a runner.
This is the first year that the local judges have been asked to check the uniforms for completeness. According to the rules any participants who are lacking parts of the official uniform are to be disqualified, but this is the first year that the inspection has occurred during the orientation.
A little more rigor this year with respect to who may walk around and take pictures during the event. Official photos are to be posted on the PathfinderBibleAchievement.org website within three weeks.
As always, the scoring is based on the highest-achieving team. Any team that reaches 90% of that score is considered to have a first-place finish, 80% second place, and the remainder third place. My personal prayer as we go into this event is for 45 first-place finishes. God is able to grant this if it brings glory to His name.
Because of the way these events are conducted, we will not have an accurate picture of how the kids are doing until the end, when the scores are announced. At the half-way point, we'll get a few minutes to chat with the players, and we can get a feel then for how they think they are doing.
Opening prayer . . . and they're off. :-)
If you've been following along, it will be 45 questions (I expect) before I have much more to report. Take the time to shoot me an e-mail, please, so I can tell the kids at half-time about all the people who are praying for them.
Note to the organizers for next year: take steps to ensure that the cameras and cranes are removed from the sanctuary before the event next year, so that all the teams have a good view of the screens.
This year our team wound up on the opposite side of the sanctuary from where we chose to sit. We could have tried to move closer, but it didn't seem worthwhile at the time. But I'm finding it even more difficult than usual to get a sense of how our team is doing or feeling.
The yellow sign in the center is for our team.
45 questions, time for the half-way point stretch.
Well, the news is not the unburnished enthusiasm we have been praying for. Because the team is short by one player, there are five chapters that have had less polish than the others, and one eight-point question came from those chapters.
One of the astonishing features of this year's event is that the judges (we assume) have selected questions to remove preemptively. So far five of the questions, now six questions, now seven, now eight, have been removed from the event. This significantly reduced the potential score and the opportunity for teams from behind to make up their scores. Now nine. We are told this is for the sake of time.
We're waiting for the teams to finish writing the 90th (last) question, which was the list of generations between the captivity and Jesus.
According to our record keeping, there should be a total of either 191 points or 198 points.
Uncle Dan from Your Story Hour is here to say a few words.
I gave an announcement about PBAWiki.org.
There's announcement that Battle Creek will be hosting a Pathfinder museum.
I haven't forgotten about you. The score tallying is taking a very long team, and our emcee is continuing to discourse on many topics as we wait for the score to be returned.
The scores have been returned. We should be hearing something momentarily.
We have the scores now. This is not official, but my count as they were handed out was that 40 of the 45 teams scored a first-place finish, and the remaining five were all second place. This is a very close finish, and an amazing number of very high scores. The Triadelphia Sparks suffered from the missing member, and wound up with one of those 2nd-place finishes.
Closing song and benediction, and we hurry for supper and the train.
About half of the pews in the church have been allocated to the 45 teams. Each team comprises six (typically) Pathfinders, and is assigned an adult local judge and scorekeeper. Each team also has a runner, usually an Adventurer or similarly-aged youngster, and the runners were assigned this year by calling all eligible kids to the front, and then directing them to each go find one of the local judges, who were standing until they connected with a runner.
This is the first year that the local judges have been asked to check the uniforms for completeness. According to the rules any participants who are lacking parts of the official uniform are to be disqualified, but this is the first year that the inspection has occurred during the orientation.
A little more rigor this year with respect to who may walk around and take pictures during the event. Official photos are to be posted on the PathfinderBibleAchievement.org website within three weeks.
As always, the scoring is based on the highest-achieving team. Any team that reaches 90% of that score is considered to have a first-place finish, 80% second place, and the remainder third place. My personal prayer as we go into this event is for 45 first-place finishes. God is able to grant this if it brings glory to His name.
Because of the way these events are conducted, we will not have an accurate picture of how the kids are doing until the end, when the scores are announced. At the half-way point, we'll get a few minutes to chat with the players, and we can get a feel then for how they think they are doing.
Opening prayer . . . and they're off. :-)
If you've been following along, it will be 45 questions (I expect) before I have much more to report. Take the time to shoot me an e-mail, please, so I can tell the kids at half-time about all the people who are praying for them.
Note to the organizers for next year: take steps to ensure that the cameras and cranes are removed from the sanctuary before the event next year, so that all the teams have a good view of the screens.
This year our team wound up on the opposite side of the sanctuary from where we chose to sit. We could have tried to move closer, but it didn't seem worthwhile at the time. But I'm finding it even more difficult than usual to get a sense of how our team is doing or feeling.
The yellow sign in the center is for our team.
45 questions, time for the half-way point stretch.
Well, the news is not the unburnished enthusiasm we have been praying for. Because the team is short by one player, there are five chapters that have had less polish than the others, and one eight-point question came from those chapters.
One of the astonishing features of this year's event is that the judges (we assume) have selected questions to remove preemptively. So far five of the questions, now six questions, now seven, now eight, have been removed from the event. This significantly reduced the potential score and the opportunity for teams from behind to make up their scores. Now nine. We are told this is for the sake of time.
We're waiting for the teams to finish writing the 90th (last) question, which was the list of generations between the captivity and Jesus.
According to our record keeping, there should be a total of either 191 points or 198 points.
Uncle Dan from Your Story Hour is here to say a few words.
I gave an announcement about PBAWiki.org.
There's announcement that Battle Creek will be hosting a Pathfinder museum.
I haven't forgotten about you. The score tallying is taking a very long team, and our emcee is continuing to discourse on many topics as we wait for the score to be returned.
The scores have been returned. We should be hearing something momentarily.
We have the scores now. This is not official, but my count as they were handed out was that 40 of the 45 teams scored a first-place finish, and the remaining five were all second place. This is a very close finish, and an amazing number of very high scores. The Triadelphia Sparks suffered from the missing member, and wound up with one of those 2nd-place finishes.
Closing song and benediction, and we hurry for supper and the train.
posted by Daniel | 2:35 PM
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