I like those tournaments that give “participant” trophies to all kids in the K-1 section – it seems like a really good idea. Some also do this for the K-3 section. After that, players have lost interest in awards that they haven’t earned and the trophies no longer work as an incentive. When you do give “participant” awards you might consder these:
When buying “participant” trophies, look at making a volume purchase from a large dealer. You’ll probably get such a good price that you can give somewhat bigger trophies. I can get 8" trophies (much better than the typical figure-on-a-base participant trophy) for around $3 each in quantity.
You’ll have a trophy his parents (and the player, after he grows older) will take more pride in if it says “Honorable Mention” rather than “Participant”. It shouldn’t cost any more. I’m not sure when “Participant” started replacing “Honorable Mention” for this type of award, but I think it was a bad idea. Maybe somebody thought it “cheapened” the Honorable Mention awards to give them to everybody???
Better still – I’ve noticed that most of the players win at least one game. Consider giving “Game Winner” trophies to them and “Honorable Mention” only to the others. The huge majority of the trophies will be the “Game Winner” trophies, so you should still get a really good price on these. The relative few “Honorable Mentions” won’t add much to the overall price by not getting as big a discount (depending on who makes the trophies, they may be lumped together for a quantity discount). The whole point is to give them a trophy that they’ll continue to take pride in (not just now when they can’t read what it says).
Some other ideas:
Work with a trophy maker that will let you pick and choose trophy components. You can get a lot more “bang for your buck” by being selective. For example, I’ve noticed that putting a plastic cup between the chess figure and the top of the trophy’s column adds an impressive amount of height at a lower price than extending the height of the column itself. Also, certain styles and colors are cheaper than others (even better, it’s usually the more popular styles & colors). Of course YMMV, depending on your trophy maker. My point here is that you need to just look at your options, rather than taking a dealer’s suggestions without question.
Buy extra trophies – more than you think you’ll need. If you have a heavier than expected turn-out, then award the extras. If you don’t give out all of the trophies, the extras should be usable later (of course you may be stuck with a single color/style for a while). Most dealers will put a new engraved plate on a trophy for a very nominal fee. Of course, you’ll have to have some extra funds that you can afford to “invest” this way, so not everyone will be able to do this.
For larger trophies, it’s usually cheaper to add a standard figure like “2006” to the trophy than a second chess-specific figure. It won’t look any less impressive if you go the cheaper route as long as one chess figure is on the trophy.
Are there any small organizers that would be interested in making a pooled purchase to get some bigger discounts?
Some of my suggestions may be based on information that has become dated, so correct me if I’m wrong (I just got the pricing in #1 though, so I’m pretty sure of it).
These are great suggestions regarding trophies. I also deal with directing and organizing scholastic chess tournaments. I agree, the young ones (K-3’s and below do enjoy receiving any form of award whether we adults thinks they deserve it or not. IMO, they deserve the award just by being able to participate. The parents do appreciate them too.
I also agree that having “Participant” engrave in the trophies is not very appealing. Well at least it beat having 50th place engrave on it.
Yes, my kids once attended an scholastic tournament in Memphis (October 2004) where they award trophies to every participants, and they do mention what place the receiver was. Can you imagine receiving 50th place. If it was a National tournament where they have over 500 in a section, then it’s okay, but that tournament only had 50 or so participants in a section. After the tournament, I talked with the organizer and told her that it may be a better idea to award only up to certain place, then place “Honorable Mention” in the rest of the trophies (They are the $3-$5 kind of trophy BTW). October 2005 they did it again. Trophies to every participants, saying what place they are.
My daugter had the 18th place, and she “throw” it in her closet. She also had a trophy from a tournament in another place that say “Honorable Mention” (She was 28th of 50+), that Honorable Mention trophy is prominently displayed in her trophy case.
I agree that after a point the place isn’t very meaningful.
My daughter played in a K-1 tourney section that awarded overall prizes (15 places, I think) and then 1st grade prizes (1st to 10th place, only for those that didn’t place overall) and kindergarden prizes (also 1st to 10th place) and then prizes for lower rated players (Under 300, I think). So in all there were 4 or 5 different players that had some kind of “1st Place” trophy from that section. This was MUCH better than numbering the trophies out to 38th place or whatever. More than half the K-1 players got a decent trophy (the rest got participant).
Organizers are spending too much on team trophies. Other than at the National level, will schools really care about winning 7th place in a local tournament? I can’t see the school placing a 7th place trophy (for one of several local events the school goes to every year) next to a Basketball Regional Championship trophy (where the school only gets to the regional championship once every few years). Save the money and buy better individual trophies.
I don’t like giving tropies to people for just showing up.
I’ve thought about giving out small tropies engraved ‘1 win’, ‘2 wins’ to those who don’t get a place prize. That way they still have to DO SOMETHING to earn a trophy, win at least one game.
However, these days my events have gold/silver/bronze medals and I try to set my brackets so that there are 6-8 people in each bracket competing for the three medals.
The challenge is that this is part of a much larger event, see cornhuskerstategames.com , and I had to set my brackets a few weeks ago for an event that doesn’t take place until mid-July, so it’s always a guessing game as to what the turnout will be and how they will be distributed by rating.
It’s nice when the youngest players get something just for showing up. A trophy isn’t necessary (though I like the idea), but a medal or ribbon or even a chess piece keychain will work. After the first few tournaments, this isn’t needed – but the youngest players in their first few tournaments should get something.
I’d prefer to give trophies based on number of wins rather than place except (maybe) for the first few places. I haven’t been able to think of a nice way of putting a score of 3.5 out of 5 on a trophy, though. I need something that makes it sound good. I’d like to come up with something better than multiple tie-breaks to decide which of the players tied for 8th through 17th get the 8th, 9th, and 10th place trophies. If I could, I’d have extra trophies and plates on hand so that they could all get an 8th place trophy, but that may not be too practical.
For the one game winners, I like simply “GAME WINNER” on the trophy. But I haven’t come up with anything good for 1.5 pts, 2 pts, 2.5 pts, etc.
You might be able to get your trophy maker to run off a bunch of plates with 1/2 point, 1 point, 1 1/2 points, etc, and put them on just before handing them out.
If you really want to give the first-time players something, even if they don’t score even a draw, run off a few plates saying ‘first rated tournament’.
One of the local organizers had a bunch of ribbons printed up at one point, they went all the way to 10th place plus ‘participant’. (I tend to agree that ‘honorable mention’ sounds better than ‘participant’, though.)
True, but 1st, 2nd and 3rd place team trophies ARE meaningful to a team, especially when it has players less likely to win individual trophies.
I’d trade fewer individual trophies for a lower entry fee, especially in the higher grades.
And how come no one ever gives prizes like books? What if everyone who played all five and won two or more got a booklet of chess puzzles? Or a cheap magnetic pocket set? Especially the little kids.
No objection to 1st to 3rd team trophies. I just went to a tournament that gave a 7th place team trophy in the K-1 section. This wasn’t the National Championship or even the State – just a local tourney (nice tourney overall, BTW).
Books and equipment are too much a matter of taste to give as prizes unless you let the recipient have a choice. Even then, I’d rather buy my daughter anything she needs (and get EXACTLY what we want) and have the tournament prizes just be something to encourage her (something she can show off!). Maybe gift certificates would be better?