Judge Hiring Exchange

The Judge Hiring Exchange is a Tabroom feature that allows judges to advertise their willingness to judge at a tournament. Our preference is that schools use the Hiring Exchange rather than ask to pay the tournament for judge coverage.

There is no standard or recommended rate of pay. This is determined by the programs and judges and arrangements should be made between the two. The Hiring Exchange is made available through Tabroom, not Truman High School.

There are five speech rounds scheduled and up to eleven rounds of debate; please note that we are not determining judge coverage based on a round commitment, however. We are using a time commitment, so remember to share or ask about this information.

Instructions for Judges using the Hiring Exchange:

1.    Make sure you have a Tabroom.com account. If you are already attending the tournament and are obligated for rounds for your school, make sure your account is also linked to your school's judge record for the tournament so you do not double book yourself.

2.    Go to your home page (where you land when you first log in; click your email at top right if you're not there already). Click "Offer Hired Judging Rounds" under Judging at right.

3.    Find the Independence Winter Classic and click "Offer" at right. Then enter the number of rounds you have on offer to hire at right. There are roughly 11 rounds of debate and 7 rounds of speech, but this is not strictly relevant. Please communicate with your hiring coaches, because your availability for rounds is of more importance- you cover an amount of time at this tournament, not an amount of rounds. The tournament must approve rounds before they appear on the hired judge list.

4.    Coaches should contact you and arrange details and payment rates. Once they have, they may accept your hired rounds requests. You will get emails when a coach accepts your hired rounds. If someone doesn't read instructions and just tries to take your rounds without making arrangements to pay you, this email will give you directions to disavow the hire and re-offer the rounds. Feel free to contact the coach in question and ask them for it.

Instructions for coaches wishing to hire using the Hiring Exchange:

1.    Go into your registration for the tournament. Click the Judges tab. Select a judge group.

2.    If there are hired judges on offer, a link will appear under "Hired Judge Exchange" on the bottom of the page. Click Add Hires.

3.     Email the judges who have rounds on offer to work out payment; their contact information will be on the page. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO CONTACT AND WORK ARRANGEMENTS WITH JUDGES. THERE IS NO STANDARD RATE AND THIS TOURNAMENT DOESN'T MANAGE YOUR PAYMENTS. Please get their availability and enter that into Tabroom at the appropriate time. Your school may be fined for missed rounds, so please work this out ahead of time.

4.     If you claim a judge's hired rounds without working it out with them first, they should reject the hired rounds and you will not have judge coverage.

5.    Once you've reached agreement with a judge, go back to this screen and put how many rounds you're claiming from the judge. It will notify the judge by email when you've done so, and those rounds will now count towards your judging obligation.