Today was my first ever JTP event as a TD! It was also the first time the local school ever had a chess tournament, so that was really neat!
I had way, way to much fun! Especially with the youngest students, it was great to watch them chase eachother around the boards!
14 students, 2 sections (by age, split at 10), and 3 round swiss. I wish we could have done four rounds, so we could get them started with provisional ratings, but that was all the time the teachers could alot me for the event.
Hopefully I can someday do some bigger scholastic events like you folks, with 14+ kids in each section, but I think this first one will always be a special memory for me!
How about you folks, any special first (or early) tournament memories? (Technically this was my third, but first JTP tournament.)
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Glad to hear you had fun at US Chess MSA - Cross Table for CYBERLYNX SCHOOL CHESS TOURNAMENT (Event 202405105822) . You have two quick or blitz events that add up to 26 players (a substitution for a Local TD credit). If you can add two G/25;d5 events of three rounds (category D plus affecting the regular ratings) with 12 players each then that will give you 50 players and if you also get an established regular rating (19 more games) then you can take the test for Local TD.
It looks like your two biggest problems are the length of time the kids can play in a session (maybe a multi-day event with one or two rounds per day) and getting in enough games as a player to get an established rating.
Senior TD would be more difficult because of the requirement for tournaments of 50+ players each but Local TD readily allows you to do tournaments of up to 100 players (120 with a pairing program and assistant TD) and it may be a while before you need to worry about staying within those limits. If you do have to worry about staying within those limits the you will also be getting the 10 category C tournaments that will allow you to test for Senior (where the limits are 300 and 360 instead of 100 and 120).
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Very true. I am running small quads at our local library to get my games in and establish my rating. It will take about a year at this rate, but as there are only 100 USCF members in Alaska, I don’t think there is too big of a rush. 
Not to be sour but out of good practice it’s better to keep things hidden about kids when you talk about them just like committee. Have people selected on whose to be in the forum.
