The MNUDL would like to invite you to participate at the 2020 UMBrooks hosted by the University of Minnesota (but done online)!  

Tournament Overview
We will offer Varsity, JV, Open Novice, Closed Novice, and Rookie divisions in Policy Debate.  Rookies may only use evidence in the Rookie evidence packet. Closed Novice debaters may use evidence in the Rookie and Novice packets. 

Every entry will have a judge obligation of .5 (so, for example, if you register 4 partnerships you would have a judge obligation of 2, which means you would need two judges to judge all 3 debates. Half obligations will be rounded up.) As part of an initiative to provide Novices and Rookies with high quality feedback there will be no judge pool distinction between JV/V and Nov/Rookie and all available judges will be eligible to judge Novice and Rookie. Varsity and Junior Varsity will continue to be judged exclusively by experienced/qualified judges as determined by the tab staff. Currently Varsity and Junior Varsity students are eligible to cover Novice and Rookie judge obligations.

Schedule

9:00-10:00 am Registration 
10:15 am Round 1
12:00-1:00 pm Lunch
1:00-2:30 Round 2

3:00-4:30 Round 3
Awards will be sent out asynchronously 

Registration

Estimated competitor registration is due by Thursday, November 19th so that we can have an accurate estimation of food and rooms required. 

Tentative judge registration must be entered by Thursday, November 19th. Judge registration must be finalized by the evening of Friday, November the 22nd.

There will be a VERY LIMITED supply of hired judges available for hire at a rate of $95 per judge. There is no guarantee of receiving a hired judge, but we will accommodate every possible request in the order of receipt.

Expectations of your team's onsite coach:

You, the onsite coach, will have your contact information listed as the primary contact on the signup page. 

You will have current and correct contact information for you judges, co-coaches, and students. We also advise that you have information for contacting students' parents and any relevant student health information in case any of your students have a medical emergency.

You will communicate the judge expectations to your judges.

You will communicate the schedule to your students and transportation provider.

All eligible judges and students must have linked tabroom accounts to facilitate online balloting.

 
Fees and Judges

There will be a VERY LIMITED supply of hired judges available for hire at a rate of $95 per judge. There is no guarantee of receiving a hired judge, but we will accommodate every possible request in the order of receipt.

Tabulation Procedures:

All divisions will be lag paired in order to help assure the tournament runs as close to on time as possible while still providing quality competition. 

As a general rule partnerships more than 15 minutes late to their debate will be marked as forfeited. Extenuating circumstances may override this rule but it is up to the discretion of the tab staff. Judges must check with tab before assigning a legitimate forfeit. Efforts will be made by tab to locate missing teams before marking them forfeited, but ultimately it is up to those students and their coaches to arrive to the debate in a timely manner.

If there are not enough entries in JV for 3 unique debates it will be collapsed into Varsity to form an 'open' division before the tournament starts. If there are not enough entries in any other division then the tab staff will be in contact with the teams with entries in those divisions to figure out a workable solution. 

If a school does not fulfill their judge obligation then the tab staff reserves the right to drop as many partnerships from that school as would cause them to meet their judge obligation. This includes a scenario where a judge leaves mid-day without fulfilling their obligation. The tab staff will attempt what they can to prevent dropping partnerships, but ultimately if there aren't enough total judges to cover the pool of competitors then some entries will need to sit out. Tab will attempt to contact a coach on the team that is having entries dropped starting with the primary contact listed, but if it cannot be done in a time frame that would keep the tournament running on time then the tab will make the unilateral decision about what teams to bench.