Community Spelling Bee Rules 2024
- All spellers are asked to arrive no later than 6:45pm. The bee will begin promptly at 7:00pm.
- Please be nearby and ready to take the stage when the swarm before yours is competing. (Check the list posted at the hallway check in table to find out what swarm you’re in.)
- All teams must have a designated speller who will write the team response on the white board. Please write in large, legible print. If the judges can’t read your response, it will be considered misspelled.
- There will be two bees on your table. These are a tracking mechanism for each team, the judges, and the audience.
- The pronouncer will pronounce the word, define it, use it in a sentence, and then repeat it. You will then have 15 seconds to confer with your teammates and write the word on your white board. (The group of teams participating in a “swarm” may ask the pronouncer to repeat the word one more time, but no more.)
- When the timekeeper calls time, all markers must be put down, and the white boards must be held up and shown to the audience and judges. Any team continuing to write after time is called or attempting to change the word as written on the board will score a miss for that word. If the judges decide that a word as written is illegible or the letters are ambiguous, the word will be treated as misspelled.
- Do not erase your board until you have been told whether your spelling is correct. If a team erases its word too soon, it may be asked to remove a bee. If a team attempts to rewrite the word on the board, the team will be asked to remove a bee.
- If you have spelled the word correctly, please prepare for the next word.
- For the preliminary swarms: If you have spelled the word incorrectly, please place one bee face down on your table. If it is your first misspelling, prepare for the next word. If it is your second misspelling, please place your second bee face down and resign yourself to the fact that your team has been eliminated from the competition. If your team is eliminated, please wait until the end of the round before leaving the stage.
- If and when your team has been eliminated, you may write/draw humorous or otherwise entertaining messages/illustrations on your board to share with the audience. Please hold up your boards when the still-competing teams hold up their boards – not before. You might go home with the “Most Humorous” prize.
- In the event that a round continues without seeming to produce a winner, the judges can rule to move an extra team into the semifinals or finals.
These procedures and rules will govern at the bee. The judges shall resolve any disputes.
There will be no appeals. In other words, what the judges say goes.
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/ is the official dictionary and source. Merriam-
Webster Unabridged is the largest, most comprehensive American dictionary currently
available in print or online, built on the foundation of Webster’s Third New International
Dictionary, Unabridged.