Information for Organizers

ABOUT TOURNAMENTS

WESPA’s Scrabble Calendar is a truly global one – the WESPA Tournament &
Rating Committee coordinates the tournament schedule and sets the rating
criteria for tournaments on the World circuit.
Tournaments are Open to all players without discrimination. (Invitational events
will be screened by the committee on a case-by-case basis, provided that
qualification and/or selection method is conducted in a transparent manner and
based either on WESPA or domestic ratings, i.e. Masters event, etc.)
As of March 2022, the WESPA Committee voted to remove restrictions on the
number of tournaments that a WESPA member may hold in a calendar year. The
criteria for the sanctioning of tournaments is as follows:

1. The national association in whose jurisdiction the tournament will be played
must have WESPA membership, and must support the application for the
tournament to be WESPA rated;

2. Tournaments must be played under the current version of WESPA Rules
(including the word source specified therein; these are currently version 5.2
and CSW24), or under national rules if this has been agreed in advance with
WESPA;

3. Payment of the applicable tournament levy (US$1 per participant, subject to
a minimum of US$10);

4. Organisers must make available to WESPA all relevant documentation and
publicity material
Tournaments meeting the following criteria will also be eligible for WESPA rating:

1. The World Championships (and WESPACs),

2. Team tournaments between countries.

3. Tournaments ancillary to, and organised in conjunction with, those eligible
under points 1 to 3 above
There may be some instances in which the events may be approved by the TRC
on an individual basis even if the above criteria are not strictly met. Please contact
your regional TRC representative or the TRC chair if you have any questions.

GUIDELINES FOR ORGANIZERS

Before the Event

If you would like to stage an internationally rated tournament, first check the Criteria for WESPA Rated Tournaments to determine if it is likely to be eligible. If you believe it to be exempt from application, forward details direct to the tournament & ratings committee chair for inclusion on the calendar.

Applications for rating a specific event which is not exempt are to be forwarded to your region representative or the Tournament and Rating Committee chair using this form. Consult the “Apply for Rating” Tab for more information.

Once approval is obtained, check that your tournament appears on the International Calendar. If it does not appear within one week, contact the webmaster. WESPA can provide promotional assistance where tournaments are submitted with enough lead time to the event taking place. Dedicated webpages greatly assist with this. In addition, it is advisable, though not a requirement, to make a list of registered players available when known.

After the Event

Results of the event in the form of a tournament file (*.tou) should be emailed the WESPA Ratings Officer Jason Broersma as soon as possible after completion of the tournament.

For players who have competed internationally before, their names in the file must match those on the current ratings file to avoid them being treated as new players. If you are using the TSH software developed by John Chew, you should follow the Instructions for TSH Users in order to ensure the correct process, including name checking, is followed when exporting to the requisite *.tou file.

Both TSH users who do not run the name check and Aupair users should run a ‘TouFile Check’ to check the *.tou file against the existing ratings file and produce a list of exceptions. These should all be new players to the system.

The WESPA Ratings Ratings Officer must be provided with the nationalities of players new to the Ratings system at the time the *.tou file is sent.

Changes of nationalities or spellings of existing players should also be provided.

A levy must be forwarded to WESPA immediately after the tournament. The WESPA ratings levy is $US1 per player for member Associations of WESPA, and $US2 per player for non-member Associations. The minimum total levy is $US20. You must have a Paypal account and submit your levies via Paypal to the WESPA treasurer, Jason Broersma

Contact Jason if you have any queries regarding the payment of the ratings

Applications for rating a specific event must include the following information:
– Name of Tournament
– Date and location
– Region
– Number of games
– Format and eligibility criteria
– Tournament Rules
– Name of organiser
– Membership of which WESPA-affiliated organisation
– Tournament Website (recommended)
– Contact E-mail (required):
Information should be forwarded to your region representative (or chair) on the
Tournament and Rating Committee (TRC):

Please ensure your application is sent in with sufficient notice to be promoted to
the wider Tournament Scrabble Community. Your application should have as much
of the information as possible included in your submission – the more information
provided, the more likely players visiting this site will click for information.
Once the application has had WESPA rating confirmed, the information is provided
to the WESPA webmaster for inclusion on the WESPA website, as part of the
Tournament Calendar. As the event approaches, it will also feature on the
homepage, under the lower category WESPA TOURNAMENTS.
For all general tournament rating enquiries, you can contact the tournament & ratings committee chair   or webmaster