To: IBECC Team Contacts
From: Thomas White, IBECC Founder and Executive Director
Re: Odds and ends
We’re a little more than six weeks from the competition, so this is the point at which we start tending to critical specifics.
Hotel.
Every year with IBECC something that has always gone smoothly gets complicated for no apparent reason. This year it was lining up the hotel. We are currently finalizing terms of the contract and expect to have a link you can use to make reservations early in the week. Thanks very much for your patience.
One of the most important terms of the contract has to do with our estimating how many rooms are likely to be reserved. If your estimated numbers have changed since you filled out the hotel form, please update it. If you’re having trouble editing your initial response, please simply fill out the form again and we’ll delete the original. If you never filled it out in the first place, please do so now. Also, we had a couple of inquiries about the possibility of getting a reduced rate for Saturday. We can look into that, and we’ve added a question to the hotel form about Saturday. If your team is interested in that, please indicate that on the form. Once we sign the contract, any changes are difficult and work against us, so it’s important that we have firm numbers by the end of business on MONDAY, FEB 24.
Just a reminder. We’ll be starting with a general orientation on Wednesday, April 9 at 6:30 PM, presentations will run from Thursday AM to Friday afternoon. The reception/awards ceremony will be on Friday at 6:30 PM. Our aim is to keep the awards ceremony brief so that you can have the opportunity to have dinner in or just explore San Francisco.
Presentation schedule.
We’re going to begin developing the schedule shortly. Please let us know if you have a preference for when your team is scheduled on Thursday and/or Friday. We’ll do our best to honor that. Full presentations run throughout the day on Thursday; 10-minute Friday morning; 90-second Friday afternoon. Teams are welcome to watch any other presentations.
Topics.
Please send us your team’s topic by March 10. Judges strongly prefer being able to choose sessions according to the topics available.
Executive summary.
A one-page executive summary will be due by Monday, March 31. See instructions here.
Additional helpful videos.
We’ve just added to our “Essential Videos” page a series of four videos made by Stacy Ferratti, a communications consultant. These were originally made for when we were online, but they still contain excellent advice. You’ll find them here.
The World’s Most Intellectually Daunting Biathlon.
We will once again be holding our optional academic/athletic “World’s Most Intellectually Daunting Biathlon.” Scoring is based on a combination of the team’s performance in the 25-minute presentation and the number of steps resulting from members of the team walking/jogging/running for 30 minutes. The complex scoring formula we use means that virtually any team has a chance to win. We hope that the biathlon encourages students to develop healthy habits early in life and appreciate the mind/body connection. Members of the top team will receive a prize, but, more importantly, the winning team will be able to designate a charity for a $500 donation from IBECC. As far as we know, IBECC is unique among ethics events in making a gift to a worthy charity. The 2024 winner from Stetson University named as the beneficiary The Neighborhood Center of West Volusia in DeLand, FL, whose mission is to alleviate hunger and homelessness. Click here for details about the biathlon.
Registration fee.
We’d appreciate it if teams could pay the registration fee by the end of March. We understand university bureaucracies, so we understand delays.
Posting on website.
We will be posting this and subsequent team memos on the IBECC website so that everything’s in one place for you.
Questions?
If you have any questions, please drop us at line at info@ibecc.net.