International Quidditch Association

International Quidditch Association

World map of quidditch. Dark blue indicates member league, lighter blue indicates developing member and the lightest blue indicates emerging areas.
Abbreviation IQA
Predecessor Intercollegiate Quidditch Association – November 11, 2007
Formation 1 January 2010 (2010-01-01)
Type Federation of national associations
Legal status Nonprofit organization
Region served
Worldwide
Membership
18 national governing bodies (NGBs)
Official language
English, French
Executive Director
 Nicole Hammer
President of the Congress
 Brian Gallaway [1]
Main organ
 Board of Trustees
Website www.iqaquidditch.org

The International Quidditch Association (IQA) is the governing body for the sport of quidditch. It was founded as the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association in 2009 following the very first intercollegiate quidditch match.[2][3] In 2010, the IQA took its current name, and 2016 saw its induction as an international sports federation with its creation of the Congress. It now comprises more than ten national associations governing Quidditch in their respective nations.[4]

The IQA was founded on the campus of Middlebury College, in Vermont; the International Quidditch Association, then Intercollegiate Quidditch Association, being the outgrowth of wildly popular on-campus tournaments. The Association is responsible for the organization of the world’s major quidditch tournaments and events, most notably the IQA Global Games, as well as international rule setting and worldwide expansion.

Governance

The IQA has three levels of governance, the most powerful being the Congress, in which each member league has its own voice.[4]

Board of Trustees

As of yet, the Board of Trustees has not been set. The IQA is working on finding board members. The Board will be a group of three to seven individuals responsible for overseeing the long-term direction of the IQA. The Board appoints the Executive Director, who is responsible for overseeing and managing the day-to-day operations of the organization.[4]

Executive staff

Explanation of the structure of the IQA.

As of September 2016, the Executive staff consists of an appointed Interim Executive Director Nicole Hammer and an elected President of the Congress, Brian Gallaway.[4]

Executive Director

Akin to a CEO, the Executive Director is the leader of the organization and is in charge of many hiring decisions and overseeing of the general day-to-day operation of the organization. Nicole Hammer was selected as the Interim Executive Director after Harrison Homel.

Finance Director

The Financial Director, akin to a CFO, is in charge of the organization's finances, namely membership fees from member leagues and eventual staff wages.[4]

President

The President of the Congress is a nominated delegate from within the Congress (who must immediately resign from their delegacy position within the Congress) whose job it is to chair congressional meetings, set the agenda ,and facilitate discussions within the Congress. The Congressional saw the election of Brian Gallaway as the inaugural President.

Congress

The Congress is composed of delegates from qualifying member leagues. Each delegate is offered a vote, but voting delegates must vote in the same way from the same member league. The number of delegates a member league receives is based on the Metric, an algorithm comparing member leagues' population to team ratio.[4]

Meetings are held twice a year, but additional meetings may be held at the Executive Team's or Congress's request. The Congress also has the ability to create committees that are essentially the backbone of all IQA developments.

Metric

The Metric is an algorithm using the Quidditch Development Index (or QDI). QDI is calculated using two figures: teams and TPR (total population ratio), being the total number of teams in a region and the ratio of teams to population, respectively. The QDI is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 is no teams and 1 is the maximum current development of a league in terms of team density.[4]

QDI = 0.2*TEAMS% + 0.8*TPR%

where:

The classification of a given league as a member league, developing league, or emerging area is as follows:

Committees

Committees are created from the Congress to take care of certain tasks within the IQA. A standing committee can be developed for any long-term developments. Delegates themselves can be, and often are, implicated to certain committees.

Administrative staff

The administrative staff are those hired by the executive staff to support the executive team.

Membership

Members

A member, being a national governing body (NGB) of that region/territory, is the representation of a region's quidditch activity at the IQA level. Each NGB will receive between one and three delegates, all of whom receive one vote apiece, but all the delegates from a specific NGB must vote as a bloc. The number of delegates afforded an NGB are proportional to its QDI. NGBs are also required to offer an annual culminating championship tournament.[4]

Currently, the NGBs are:

Developing leagues

Developing leagues have two teams or more and a QDI below the threshold set by the IQA and are entitled to an independent voice in the IQA Congress but cannot vote. Developing leagues are required to have evidence of regular competitive play.

The current list of developing leagues are:

Emerging areas

Emerging areas have more than zero teams but might not have a governing body or evidence of regular competitive activity. Emerging areas are represented in the IQA Congress through IQA expansion staff; they do not have representatives of their own.

The current list of emerging areas are:

Continental committees

Under the IQA, there can exist groups of NGBs that work together to form a committee devoted to promoting the sport within the region. The only current committee in existence is the European Committee for Quidditch (or Quidditch Europe). It is composed of two representatives from all NGBs within Europe, even those that do not have full representation at the IQA-level. Quidditch Europe is in charge of the yearly tournament, the European Quidditch Cup, which contests the best teams across the continent, as well as the European Games, where national teams from Europe come together to compete every other year.

History

Quidditch, then known as "muggle quidditch," began in 2005 as an intramural league at Middlebury College in Vermont. The rules were adapted from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels by Alex Benepe and Alexander Manshel. Manshel served as the first Quidditch Commissioner.

In 2006, Alex Benepe took over as the Middlebury Commissioner and in 2007, founded the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association following the first intercollegiate quidditch match between Middlebury College and Vassar College on November 11, 2007.

Since then, the IQA has helped students from more than 400 colleges and 300 high schools form teams, and over half of them are active already. The vast majority are based in the US, where quidditch is represented in 45 states. US teams are split into eight regions: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest, Southwest, West, Northwest, and the Great Lakes. Other countries with teams or leagues that play by IQA rules include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.

In 2010, the IQA changed its name to the International Quidditch Association and became a registered non-profit organization. Today, the IQA is composed of the Commissioner/CEO, other executive staff (the COO and CTO), a Board of Directors, seven departmental directors (Development, Gameplay, Human Resources, IT, Marketing, Membership, and Teams), and an extensive volunteer staff that includes regional directors and state representatives. There is also an extensive volunteer staff for major events such as QuidCon, a convention for players and other interested parties, and the World Cup.[5]

The IQA serves to promote quidditch as a new sport and lead outreach programs to increase athletic participation among children and young adults and bring magic to communities. The Marketing, Development, and Teams departments are particularly dedicated to this aspect of the sport. One promotional tool is the magazine Quidditch Quarterly, which is the official magazine of the IQA and the only publication dedicated to the sport of quidditch.[6]

On March 19, 2014, the IQA announced that the structure would change dramatically. The IQA will transition to become the USQ (United States Quidditch), taking much of its staff, and the new IQA will be composed of an international body titled the IQA Congress, whose job it is to facilitate and oversee quidditch development around the world, including within the United States and Canada. The Congress will be made up of delegates from each country where quidditch has a presence, as well as a smaller standing staff. It took effect July 1, 2014, before Global Games in Burnaby, B.C., Canada.[7]

Rules of the sport

The IQA publishes through its own rules department a set of updated rules each year that teams registered with a national association must adhere to during any and all international play. For the 2014-2015, the IQA will use USQ's published Rulebook 8 in every and all tournaments except for the 2014 Global Games. It is up to the member league itself to determine whether or not they wish to adhere to every IQA rule, but member leagues must follow the IQA rules in international play or unless another set of rules is agreed upon.

In brief, quidditch is a co-ed contact sport with a unique mix of elements from rugby, dodgeball, and tag. A team is made up of seven athletes who play with brooms between their legs at all times.

Three chasers score goals worth 10 points each with the quaffle. They advance the ball down the field by running with it, passing it to teammates, or kicking it. Each team has a keeper who defends the goal hoops. Two beaters use bludgers to disrupt the flow of the game by “knocking out” other players. Any player hit by a bludger is out of play until they touch their own goals. Each team also has a seeker who tries to catch the snitch. The snitch is a ball attached to the waistband of the snitch runner, a neutral athlete and referee in a yellow uniform who uses any means to avoid capture. The snitch is worth 30 points, and its capture ends the game. If the score is tied after the snitch catch, the game proceeds into overtime.

During play, players are forbidden from taking certain actions. Players who commit fouls face different consequences depending on the severity of the offense. A back to hoops foul indicates that a player must stop and return to their hoops, as though knocked out. A yellow card indicates that a player must spend one minute in the penalty box. A red card indicates that a player is barred from the rest of the game.[8]

Snitching and Seeking

One unique aspect to the sport of quidditch is the usage of a snitch, a neutral athlete as well as a referee, to end the game. The snitching game is one of wrestling and running where seekers combat each other as well as the snitch. The snitch is able to defend themself in any way possible except for climbing buildings and trees. Certain tournaments stipulate actions that are off limit to snitches depending on the circumstances, but generally snitches have a full range of motions.

In 2014, then-IQA now-USQ officials polled the quidditch community on the notion of abolishing off-pitch seeking, where the snitch and seekers are allowed to travel outside of the pitch during game time. As participants needed to be official tournament members as per the 2013-2014 rules, many European, Australian and Canadian players where barred from participating which resulted in backlash from the European quidditch community. Ultimately, it was published in Rulebook 8 under rule 8.3.3 to disallow off-pitch seeking, forcing the snitch to stay within the pitch after the initial 17 minute seeker floor.[9] The IQA has yet to officially adopt Rulebook 8 and all of its nuances, so it is unknown if the entire quidditch community is restricted by this ruling or just US Quidditch.

Title 9 ¾

Since its inception, the IQA has sought equality on the pitch in terms of gender. One of the most strict requirements is that "each team [is] to have at least two players on the field who identify with a different gender than at least two other players. The gender that a player identifies with is considered to be that player’s gender, which may or may not be the same as that person’s sex."[10] Because of this wording, quidditch is becoming a leader of sports for equal basing for both women and the LGBTQ* community. As of 2013, the IQA has created Title 9 ¾, a branch of the IQA that actively promotes advocacy and awareness as well as gender equality and inclusivity.[11]

However, this policy has drawn sharp criticism from single sex institutions for whom it is difficult or impossible to attract players of the opposite gender. Women's teams from Smith College and Wellesley College were prohibited from tournament play because of this rule.[12]

IQA membership

To compete in the World Cup, teams must be registered IQA members. However, due to the IQA's gender rule which encourages gender equality, some teams (any single-sex schools) are excluded from playing, like Smith College and Wellesley College.[13] For the 2013-2014 season, the IQA has changed its membership policy to reflect its movement towards a more established sport. The policy includes two forms of membership: regular and tournament as well as individual membership.[14] Teams in North America must subscribe to be tournament-level teams to be allowed to go to their regional tournament and thus qualify for the World Cup, whereas non-North American teams can qualify through their regionals on just a basic membership.

For the 2014-2015 season, membership will change once more, where there will be a minimal, per-team IQA fee (to be decided) and fees decided by each member country.[7] US Quidditch has released their fee structure as of 20 March 2014.[15][16]

Tournaments

The only tournament the IQA is in charge of are the Global Games. It is a biennial tournament, the latest happening in July 2014.

IQA World Cup

Main article: IQA Global Games

The World Cup is the IQA's tournament for national teams. Any quidditch-playing nation is offered the chance at competing on the world level at this tournament. The latest iteration was held in Burnaby, BC, Canada in July 2014 where it saw the US taking first with Australia coming in with a close second. The Cup, hosted by US Quidditch, attracted limited media presence and saw a small gathering of spectators. The results were, in order: United States, Australia, Canada, UK, Mexico, France, Belgium.

The original World Cup was titled both "Summer Games" to match the Olympics being held in London, UK and "Global Games." July 2012 saw 5 national teams from around the world compete in this first international tournament run by the IQA, taking place in University Parks, Oxford, England. The five teams were from the USA, Canada, France, UK, and Australia.[17]

Asian Quidditch Cup

The Asian Quidditch Cup is a regional tournament to be held every off-year alongside the European Games and the World Cup. The inaugural Cup was held in Subang, Malaysia in July 2016 and the second iteration is scheduled for summer 2017. The 2016 games had three club teams show up: Australia Nation University Owls (1st), Damansara Dementors (2nd) and Subang Chimaeras (3rd).

European Games

The IQA European Games is the regional tournament held every off-year alongside the World Cup with the next Games being held in summer 2017. The inaugural Games were held in Sarteano, Italy in July 2015 which saw 12 nations compete with France being the winner over the UK.[18]

Former tournaments

Until 2014, the IQA hosted what was called the IQA World Cup.[19] To compete, registered teams were required to participate in their regional tournaments,[20] of which 2014 had nine regions (seven in North America, one for Europe and one for Oceania). Each region received a certain number of bids at the beginning of the season, and teams who placed within that number of bids were offered a spot at the World Cup.

Being in the United States each year drew criticism from the rest of the quidditch world, where Australia fostered a solid quidditch community, and Europe was consistently growing. 2014, the last year the World Cup in this function was held, saw all European teams refuse their bids due to costs and desire to support a more international IQA with their attendance at the Global Games.

In the first years of its existence, Middlebury College was the uncontested champion. It was in 2013 that a new champion of three years in a row appeared: University of Texas, Austin. In fact, during the 2014 World Cup, three of the four remaining teams were from Texas, the outlier being EQC, with the final two being Texas State and The University of Texas, and the finals of 2015 two teams from Austin, TX, Lonestar Quidditch Club and The University of Texas.

World Cup Champions

Note: there were no 2012 games because the quidditch season changed

2007: Middlebury College
2008: Middlebury College
2009: Middlebury College[21]
2010: Middlebury College
2011: Middlebury College
2013: University of Texas, Austin[22]
2014: University of Texas, Austin
2015: University of Texas, Austin

See also

References

  1. ↑ "The IQA Congress Minutes of 10 Dec 2015". Google docs. IQA Minutes. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
  2. ↑ Wilson, Craig (2007-11-26). "Collegiate Quidditch takes off figuratively, at least". USA Today.
  3. ↑ "About the IQA". IQA. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "New IQA Congress Structure Announced". IQA & USQ. June 28, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  5. ↑ "IQA Volunteers". IQA.
  6. ↑ "Quidditch Quarterly". IQA.
  7. 1 2 "IQA Announcement: The Future of Quidditch Development; International Quidditch Association". iqaquidditch.com. Retrieved 2014-03-07.
  8. ↑ "Quidditch Rules". Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  9. ↑ "Rulebook 8" (PDF). USQ. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  10. ↑ "Two Minimum Rule; International Quidditch Association". iqaquidditch.com. Retrieved 2013-11-28.
  11. ↑ "Title 9 ¾; International Quidditch Association". iqaquidditch.com. Retrieved 2013-11-28.
  12. ↑ "Smith Quidditch Team Prevented from Playing; Mount Holyoke News". mountholyokenews.org. Retrieved 2014-08-31.
  13. ↑ "IQA's new gender rule to take effect fall 2012". IQA.
  14. ↑ "Membership". IQA.
  15. ↑ "USQ 2014-2015 Membership Program: What's New?; International Quidditch Association". iqaquidditch.com. Retrieved 2014-03-20.
  16. ↑ "US membership program announced for 2014-2015 season; International Quidditch Association". iqaquidditch.com. Retrieved 2014-03-20.
  17. ↑ IQA Website: "IQA Global Games Announced". IQA.
  18. ↑ "Sarteano 2015". IQA. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
  19. ↑ "IQA World Cup". IQA.
  20. ↑ Keck, Nina (2009-10-26). "Middlebury College Hosts Quidditch World Cup". Vermont Public Radio.
  21. ↑ Dritschilo, Gordon (2009-10-26). "Quidditch grows up". Rutland Herald. Host Middlebury College claimed the cup for the third year running, beating Emerson College in the final round.
  22. ↑ WCVI Finals | International Quidditch Association
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