New York DeMolay Ritual Tournament 2021
One of our great DeMolay Traditions is our ritual! Each year DeMolays across the country compete in the presentation and performance of our ritual. We are proud to bring back the New York DeMolay Ritual Tournament.
How will this work?
DeMolays will sign up via for the NY DeMolay webpage for a virtual evaluation of their ritual between February 1 to February 28, 2021 in a number of contests.
Those who perform the part the best and meet the contest minimum will win prizes!
To sign up please visit: https://forms.gle/5M23h2GQU4RvPtGL8
Have questions? Email "Dad" Riha! bertiferous [AT] optonline.net
So what is a Ritual Contest? A ritual contest evaluates how well you memorize and perform in the presentation of the scripted ceremonies of DeMolay. You are evaluated in three areas:
Words (Ritual): How well do you recall the words as written for the ceremony from memory.
This part frequently trips people up the most. Word accuracy counts.
Performance: How well do you present the piece. This includes your inflection, the speed of the words, the volume of words, emotion, and hand gestures. Think about how a Flower Talk is improved with the right sense of emotion. Also, think about how distracting someone moving
their hands like conduct the NY Philharmonic.
Direction: Do you know the mechanics of the ceremony? For example, do you know to extinguish the lights at the end of the Ceremony of Light. Since this is via Zoom we will not be judging direction.
Who judges? Judging DeMolay ritual is a skill. We have registered advisors who have taken training to evaluate the presentation.
What contests are there? Given COVID we are offering the following contests and the prizes
Flower Talk, with a prize of $60
Ceremony of Light, with a prize of $50
Individual Nine O’clock Interpolation (Contestant does MC & Chaplain) , with a prize of $25
Chaplain (Opening, Closing and Nine O’clock) , with a prize of $25
Shield Talk, with a prize of $35
Historical Talk, with a prize of $35
Fathers' Talk, with a prize of $35
Individual Preceptors, with a prize of $25 a piece
Preceptor Trio, with a prize of $40
Magnificent Seven, with a prize of $60
Obligations:
We are offering three different subset of contests:
- Both Obligations for DeMolays with an obligations card ($35)
- Both Obligations for DeMolays without an obligations card ($35)
- Initiatory Degree Obligation, for DeMolays who have not had the DeMolay DeMolay degree ($35)
Who may compete? Any person who is an active DeMolay from February 1 to February 28, 2021 and belongs to New York DeMolay. If a DeMolay turns majority in that time frame they may still compete, if they join in that time frame they may compete.
I belong to another jurisdiction, but want to compete and I love the Bills/Yankees/Knicks, can I compete? Please discuss it with your Executive Officer/Personal Rep.
How does the contest work? We will do this via zoom. Based on a mutually agreeable time between contestant and judging panel. We will make sure that the video and audio is good and proceed to the contest. Each contest will have the same judging panel so we will need to have some flexibility.
It's on Zoom, are we required to use video? are the video requirements? You must have the camera on and we need to see the speaker at all times with the presenter looking at the camera.
I don’t have Zoom can I use…..? There are a number of video conferencing services. If you have a specific request we can discuss.
How do I register? Fill out the form on the New York DeMolay website and we’ll schedule you a contest time. Website is here.
Can I just do a dramatic reading? No, the ritual must be done from memory.
What if I don’t have it 100% memorized? Give it a try! We say in DeMolay ancora imparo, give it a try and see what happens.
What if I need help with the next set of words? In ritual contests we have what we call “prompt.” If you freeze you can have someone with you that can give you five words. You are assessed a penalty for that.
How will you prevent cheating, couldn’t someone have a teleprompter? It is pretty easy to tell when someone is reading. You also have to really wonder about someone’s moral compass if they are going to cheat at a DeMolay ritual contest. This is on your honor system.
What if no one competes against me? Like many things in life, we are often competing against ourselves. There are contest minimums as established by MATOC (which you can see here: http://david.meccahosting.com/~a00060dd/sheets/specifics.pdf )
Is the prize money scholarship money? The prize money will be issued as a check to the winner to be spent however the winner wants to.
What is “Open” and “Champion” Mean? Champion is a designation used to denote a person who has won a contest at the jurisdictional level, or at MATOC or equivalent contests. Open is a person who has not yet won at that level. For the purposes of this contest all competitors are “open”
Can people watch? If you, the contestant, would like to you can invite family, friends, advisors and brothers to watch. For some people that makes them nervous. The choice is up to you. The only people who should be unmuted are the presenter and the chair of the panel.
If I don’t like my score, can I try again? So in a typical year, the answer would be no. You would get one bite of the apple. HOWEVER, since this is a learning experience and time permitting, we will allow you a second attempt. However, all contests need to be completed by February 28, 2021.
Why aren’t there team contests? New York DeMolay is test piloting this. We are the first jurisdiction to do an online contest and we wanted to start off small first.