You said, “yes” and now you’re running the entire show. How do you delegate and what should you delegate to keep yourself from having to stay up every night the week before the tournament?

Tournament chair
Assign the various chairs to perform the following tasks. Do not try to do it all yourself. Communicate regularly with your staff. Use the Taikai punch list to schedule and insure the various tasks are completed on time. Let the president know if you are in trouble.

A. Designate shimpancho, needs to send formal invitation letter. The shimpancho designates shimpanshunin and assign shinpan to courts

B. assign a matchup manager

C. get the trophies

D. send out the invitations (2) months prior to the taikai which should be due back (1) month to (3) weeks prior to the tournament. This allows time for late entries, drops and adds.

E. write the program and get it produced, (this is at the discretion of the chair), make up the schedule of events, plan the awards ceremony.

F. write invitations to any special guests like the Japanese Consul General

G. designate who is sitting at the head table

H. coordinate the activities of the chairs and get the budget for the taikai

Advertising chair

• Get the posters designed, printed and distributed- they should go up about 3 weeks prior to the taikai, don’t put them up too soon.
• Send press releases to all the free ad’s you can get e.g.: newspapers, community bulletin boards, radio TV internet.
• Send the results of the tournament to sports editors of the local papers
• Try to get the TV stations to do a story

Scorekeeping Chair

• Insure trained crews are available
• Provide/prepare all materials required to do the scorekeeping
• Where/when possible assign court responsibility by club/dojo
• A master “official” copy of matches must be kept clearly marked and kept at the court table
• Keep and tabulate an overall official result for the taikai chair to be used at awards ceremony
• Have flags/ribbons, etc. available and distributed
• Responsible for laying out the courts and setting up the head tables, trophy table (number of courts is determined by number of competitors and court loading, normally 4)
• Insure court tape is available
• Hang banners and flags
• Insure brooms available and crew to sweep the floor, extension cords, portable PA system for tables.

Food Chair

Organizes the kitchen crew, gets the coffee, tea etc. setup and coordinates getting the bento (bentos should be about $7.00 so our cost about $6.00) The following are provided lunch by the tournament:

* Shinpan that are not competing
* Court Coordinator (s)
* Head Scorekeeper

Fundraising Chair

Solicits advertising in the tournament program, this needs to start several months in advance of the tournament. If you intend to sell souvenirs (tenugui) you have to order them well in advance of the tournament.

Matchup Manager

Receives the entry forms from the invitees and processes as follows:

Draft individuals to assist in defining matchups for each division. Each person will be assigned some of the divisions to work. After the matchups are drafted send e-copy to other committee members to check and provide input.

Send e-copy to Tournament chair of entire entry forms as well as matchup committee. The tournament chair needs the info for program and who have been submitted as shinpan. Bento chair needs the info also to determine number of gratis bento and non-gratis bento.

Get matchups printed at Costco and then make up folders, folder includes schedule of matches:

• At least 2 sets each per club, includes matchups and schedule.
• 3 sets each per court, need complete ones in case divisions are moved. Team score sheets, court loading sheets (do not include bar chart)
• 1 set for court judge with team lineup blanks,rules/schedule/matchups
• 1 set for head scorekeeper ( includes awards sheet to be handed to taikai chair)
• 1 set for head judge (schedule/rules/matches)
• 1 set for court coordinator (schedule/matches/court load)
• 1 set for tournament chair (schedule/matches/rules)