Have you always wanted to travel, or be one of those kids who bragged about friends living in cool places? Jealous of those kids in elementary school who regularly exchanged letters with children from other parts of the country? It’s not too late for you to be one of those cool kids.

IQA Membership Services is pleased to bring its member teams the new Penpal Program! This new initiative, inspired by the efforts of Chellaston Quidditch (Chellaston, England) and Emerson College Quidditch (Boston, Mass., USA), is open to IQA Official Member teams. These teams must prove that they have one year’s worth of quidditch experience; they can be new IQA Official Members, but they must have one year’s worth of gameplay and organizing experience. The goal of this program is to facilitate experienced discussion about quidditch customs, gameplay strategy, and cultural exchange, but not to help new teams get off the ground (so to speak).

Applicants will be paired with appropriate partner teams located at a significant geographical distance. An effort will be made to create international partnerships, but depending on the number and type of applications received, it is possible that national pairings will be made (West Coast United States with an East Coast US team, for example). Teams may state a desired country or region for their penpal partner, but it will not be possible to realize all wishes.

It is suggested that each team select a representative contact person to take charge of maintaining the relationship, a relationship of which should consist biweekly or monthly update meetings. During these teams will discuss their recent local efforts in the world of quidditch, including but not limited to discussions on gameplay strategies, event hosting, fundraising, and recruitment.  Each team will be able to post on the IQA penpal blog, and teams are encouraged to create a vlog (a video log), directed to their penpal partner, which they will update once a month. The vlog can highlight quidditch experiences or tours of local sites and customs. If finances allow, an exchange of local goods and unique commodities might occur, and the year could culminate in a visit and tournament play between the two groups. The latter two suggestions are completely voluntary.

Please register for the program through this form.

Updates on the pair’s efforts should be sent to membership@internationalquidditch.org.