You are invited to the 16^th Annual

NORTH ALLEGHENY INVITATIONAL

January 9^th, 2021

northallegheny.tabroom.com

SVolpe@NorthAllegheny.org

We are now a NIETOC Bid Tournament

TOC Debate Events: Congress & Lincoln Douglas (Finals)

TOC Speech Events: All Categories

TOURNAMENT INFORMATION

Registration

Sign up for the tournament at northallegheny.tabroom.com (click on the Register tab). The cutoff for new entries is January 5^th at 12pm EST.

Event Details

Eight  Speech events will be conducted asynchronously with pre-recorded videos that must be submitted in advance of the tournament. The deadline for the submission of all async speech tapes is 12pm EST on January 6^th. It is highly recommended that all videos are uploaded to YouTube as unlisted. If judges are unable to access videos at any point in the tournament, the entry will be dropped.

All Debate events, three Speech events, and Congress will occur synchronously through live video chat via Tabroom.com and NSDA Campus (no additional software required).

Public Forum & Lincoln Douglas will offer JV and Varsity divisions but will be combined if there are fewer than 36 entries between the two divisions. There are no requirements for either division, but as a general guideline, JV is for students in the 1^st or  2^nd years of the event who have not shown exceptional performance.

All events will follow PHSSL & NSDA rules (if there is a discrepancy between the rule sets, PHSSL rules will take precedence).

Entry Fees

Any entries that are dropped will be charged $25 per competitor. Otherwise, there are no fees for entry into the tournament. To clarify, if all of the students and judges who are signed up for a given school are present at the tournament, there is $0 in registration fees.

Schedule

If there are fewer than 48 entries in Public Forum & Lincoln Douglas, the tournament will be shortened from 2 days to 1 day (all events will then happen on Saturday). A tentative full schedule will be available on the tournament website and updated in real time.

For a 2-day tournament, Online Registration will begin at 3pm and the Opening Ceremony will begin at 4pm on Friday, January 8^th and competition is expected to end by 7:30pm on Friday. The competition will then resume at 8am on Saturday.

For a 1-day tournament, Online Registration will begin at 6:30am and the Opening Ceremony will begin at 7:30am on Saturday, January 9^th.

Awards are expected to take place at 4:30pm on Saturday and end by 5pm.

Judges

We will be single flighting all events, so the judging requirements reflect that goal. Debate will require 1 judge for every 2 entries PLUS 1 additional judge. For example (pattern continues for every 1-2 entries added):

Speech & Congress will require 1 judge for every 5 entries PLUS 1 additional judge. For example (pattern continues for every 1-5 entries added):

Judging quotas are determined by the number of students originally signed up for the tournament and are not reduced by drops.

A judge is required to show up within 5 minutes of a round being blasted. Notifications are sent via text and email, so please make sure your judges are linked in Tabroom and have an up-to-date email and contact phone number.

Fines

To keep the tournament running on time, if a judge does not show within 5 minutes, the tournament staff will replace the judge and the school will be fined $50 per round missed (yes, this will likely total more than the fee to hire a judge, so please make sure you are bringing reliable and responsible judges).

Sweeps

Sweepstakes award based on each school’s top two individuals / teams in each event that has 4 or more school teams represented. You do not need to submit sweepstakes entries. We will offer a small school award as well as a large school award. These awards are based on the size of your high school and not the size of your team.

Ethics

We believe that tournaments should be exciting, fun and positive experiences for everyone. Because of this, we expect everyone to act appropriately at all times. Students, judges, coaches and parents who do not act in a manner that is appropriate for an educational setting involving high school and middle school students will be asked to leave the tournament and not return. Some examples of behaviors that we view as detrimental to the tournament environment include, but are not limited to:

●       Sexual/Gender Harassment

●       Sexual/Gender Discrimination

●       Bullying

●       Yelling or overly confrontational behavior towards others

●       Religious Harassment or Discrimination

●       Ethnic/Racial Harassment or Discrimination

If you see or experience behavior that you believe to be harassing or discriminatory please contact a member of the tab room.