Invitation – Johnson High School Joust Oct. 21-22, 2016

Dear Colleagues and Speech and Debate Community:

We are delighted to extend to you an invitation to the Johnson High School Joust Speech and Debate Tournament to be held Friday, October 21 and Saturday, October 22, 2016. We will offer the following events: Two-person novice, JV, and Varsity policy debate, novice and varsity Lincoln-Douglas debate,  novice and varsity public forum debate, extemporaneous speaking, impromptu speaking, dramatic interpretation, humorous interpretation, duo interpretation, and original oratory. We will offer both prose poetry (PP) and program of interpretation (POI) in light of the change in GFCA qualifying events but also recognizing that CFL participating schools still have PP as an option. We will also be offering middle school level impromptu speaking and original oratory. Congressional debate will be offered on Friday, October 21 from 5:30 - 9:00 pm as an open chamber as well as during the day on Saturday.

We are very pleased this year to be able to offer Big Questions debate as a supplemental debate event on Friday evening.  Round 1 will begin at 5:15.  Big Questions debate asks debaters to grapple “with complex worldview questions as they debate both sides of the 2016-2017 topic:

Resolved: Science leaves no room for free will.”  Students may find further details at https://www.speechanddebate.org/wp-content/uploads/Big-Questions-Format-Manual-1.pdf

We request that you follow the GFCA resolution stating that "a novice debater should be a student who is debating his/her first national high school resolution in high school tournaments."

Registration is available on the Tabroom.com website: http://jhsjoust.tabroom.com.   You may register entries until 5:00 pm on October 18, 2016.  Interested entrants beyond that deadline should contact the tournament director, Charity Wang, at charity.wang@hallco.org.

Please take the time to look at the tentative schedule available Tabroom.com.

There are many hotels in the Oakwood and Gainesville area.  Should you be in need of lodging recommendations, please contact tournament director Charity Wang, charity.wang@hallco.org.

Judging Requirements

Schools must provide one judge for every two congressional debaters, one judge for every two Lincoln-Douglas debaters, one judge for every two policy teams or public forum teams, and one judge for every 4 individual events entries or any fractions thereof.

You will need to specifically request hired judges. We will fill as many hire requests as we can in the order they were received, but we are very limited on the number of judges for hire available.  Please be aware that if you request judges near the tournament date, we may not be able to meet your needs, so you should plan on filling as many judges as you possibly can provide for yourselves.

Fees for hiring a judge are $30 per Big Questions Debate judge; $30 per Congressional Debate judge (6 entries per CD judge); $75.00 per judge for IEs, $100 per judge for PF, and $150 per judge for CX & LD debate. Please note: We’d much rather have your guest judge for the tournament than judging fees.  Judges available for hire are very limited; if you fail to request a hired judge but one is needed, then you will be assessed the judge’s fee of $75/$150 or any part thereof as appropriate.

Tournament Fees

School Fee                                $25.00

Individual Events                      $15.00 per entry (1 Duo = $30)

Lincoln-Douglas                       $15.00 per debater

Policy Debate                           $30.00 per team

Public Forum                            $30.00 per team

Congressional Debate               $5.00 per entry

Big Questions Debate               $5.00 per entry

Middle School events                $10.00 per entry

Registration Limitations

Debaters (policy, novice policy, novice Lincoln-Douglas, Lincoln-Douglas, novice public forum, and Public Forum) may NOT double enter.  Should these students be attending with a team that is coming to Friday evening’s congressional debate or Big Questions debate, those students may take part in those congressional debate or Big Questions debate sessions ONLY.

Individual Events competitors may double enter in individual events ONLY.  They may NOT double enter in debate events. IE competitors are welcome to register for congress and/or Big Questions debate on Friday evening.

Registration fees will need to be paid on a per school basis, so if your students are paying their own way, please collect those fees into one form of payment for the tournament. Registration (coaches only please) will take place in the front lobby of the school.  Judges will need to register/sign-in in the hospitality room.

Drop fees and/or nuisance fees will be applied for drops and changes made beyond deadlines.

Please be aware that Wi-Fi may or may not be available. It is far safer to plan to bring all cards, and evidence with you, or to access via Iphone, laptop, etc.  Printing of documents for entrants will not be possible as print resources will be required by the tab room in order to run the tournament as smoothly as possible.

Our team and parents are working very diligently to provide a quality tournament. A coaches/judges hospitality room and a concession stand will be available. As always, we expect this year's tournament to run in a smooth and timely manner. We hope to see you at the Joust!

Sincerely,

Charity Wang

JHS Speech and Debate Coach