The Team History

The Collective was formed April 2001.  The founders of The Collective desired to form a trivia team like no other.  With one single goal in mind, The Collective is making plans on how to improve it's standings each year.

2009 Notes

Great year for us as a team. We've emerged stronger than ever and there are signs of a sleeping dragon starting to awaken from its slumber. We had a lot of fun this year and expanded our remote nodes. We've got nodes in California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois and a couple around Wiscosin. Our team is getting along really well and we've filled some big gaps this year with newly assimilated members, especially in the music area which was always a weakness for us. I'm looking forward to our upcoming 10th year as a team.

2008 Notes

Interesting year for us.  Circle of Jerks de-assimilated from our team and we were left about 1/3 smaller.  Overall though we had a great time.  It was a really well written contest as usual, and we were very prepared.  We added a bunch of new players who have injected a lot of badly needed fresh blood and new ideas as well. We have a lot of work to do, and a heck, why not some fun along the way.  After all, we love this contest and hanging out with friends, new and old.  Besides, kicking butt is fun too!  So back to work, watch out 2009!

2007 Notes

The contest was well written as usual and we enjoyed it immensely.  We're always trying to adapt to the the contest and figure out better ways to answer questions.  I think we made good progress this year and are really starting to set the groundwork for some exciting things.

2006 Notes

Well, we finished 45th place this year, which was a little disappointing considering our stellar finish last year, but it was still a good year overall.  We learned a ton this past contest, and found some new sources of information that will vastly help us out in the coming years.  To all the teams that stay in the top 20 year after year, we salute you.  It truly is hard to stay there, we realize that now.

Not much else to say here except that its back to the grindstone as we continue to collect random bits of trivia and prepare for next year!

2005 Notes

One word can be used to describe this year's contest.  Wow!  What an amazing time...  We had the best year ever thanks to all the new people who were assimilated into the Collective this year.  Everyone from Circle of Jerks was awesome, and they turned out to be everything we were hoping for.  Another team that went by the name of the Flaming Oompa Loompa Confusion also was assimilated this year as well.  Take those two teams, some other key new players and our existing team members and mix them up up and its a recipe for success.

We nailed questions left and right, adding nearly 2500 points to our previous high and finishing in 17th place.  For large parts of the contest we even hovered in the 11th-13th range.  It was absolutely amazing, and certainly a feeling that many of us will carry with us forever.

Next step for us is to look at what we did right and wrong this year and to come up with a plan for next year's contest.  We're fast approaching the coveted "top ten" positions, but we know that all of those teams will not easily give up their own position.  We're in awe of everyone who is, or ever has been, a top ten team.  Thank you, you are an inspiration for us.

On a final note, thanks to everyone who organizes this contest both in the spotlight and behind the scenes!  To paraphrase the Higglytown Heros TV show...you are heros!

Hasta luego and we'll be seeing you next year!

2004 Notes

Woo hoo!  82nd place.  That's our best placement yet.  Still a long way to go until 1st, but any progress is good news.  We tripled in size this year, which really helped to keep things fully staffed.  A lot of work was done during the year and it has finally started to pay off.  We still need more note takers, but everything in good time.

This year's contest was a blast, although we were sorely disappointed that our parade float didn't place.  We put a couple hundred man hours into it...  Oh well!  We had fun, and that's all that matters!  Not sure if we'll do a float again this year, seems a pity really, but it was just too darn expensive to build a float...

As far as the contest goes though, as always we can't wait until next year!!!

2003 Notes

Well, contrary to our score, we made a lot of progress this year.  We've been working all year long on various projects, and we should start seeing the benefit soon hopefully.  We had less people overall this year, we definitely still need more people.  We made a couple big mistakes that contributed to our lower score, but I guess we'll chalk them up as lessons learned and move on.

Overall, it was still fun, and that's the most important part.  Trivia is in our blood and we're not going anywhere...  See you next year!

2002 Notes

First of all, another fun year.  Trivia rocks!  Things really started to take shape this year.  Only our second year in the game and we're really starting to take shape.  We did a lot of work since last year's contest preparing for this years contest and it's just beginning to pay off.  We reached our goal of more full time members and had lots of great part-time help this year.  You better watch our, here we come! 

We also made a cool float for this years parade.  It was a 4 foot by 4 foot cube made out of plywood and lots of computer circuit boards spray painted with chrome paint.  We had t-shirts made up for the parade/contest and two of us even made some Borg suits for the parade.  What can I say, life is good in The Collective!

As for next year, we're already hard at work analyzing what we did well, and what we can do better for next year.  See ya later!

2001 Notes

Last years contest was an interesting start for us.  We learned a lot about what to do and what not to do.  During the first year there were only 5 main members that played the entire weekend.  We had a couple other people who came to fill certain shifts, but we still desperately needed more bodies.

For the first couple hours of the 2001 contest, we were doing quite well.  There were actually 3 hours in a row where we were in the top 5.  However, that wouldn't last and we dove down in the standings when everyone was trying to be tough and not sleep.  Basically everyone crashed sometime between 6am and 7am Saturday morning.  We won't make that mistake again in 2002.  The problem is we had some people who were new to the contest and didn't want to sleep if other people weren't sleeping.  For anyone out there listening, don't do that.  It doesn't work very well...  ;-)

Overall 2001 was a blast even though our body count was rather low, we're all looking forward to this contest.

We shall see what this Oz brings us in 2002.

"Resistance is futile.  Your biological distinctiveness and trivia knowledge will be added to our own."

Copyright ©2008 Jason Bilbrey.