Earlybird Forensics at Wake Forest
2016 — NC/US
Congress
Event Description:
2016 EARLYBIRD CONGRESS RESULTS - CLICK HERE
Note: This packet is now FINAL and includes legislation for semifinals and potential scenario topic areas for finals. Minor chamber reassignments were made over the weekend for balance, so students should carefully check for chamber assignments.
ENTRY AND LOGISTICAL SPECIFICS:
Entries & Legislation
Each school may enter up to ten (10) legislators in Student Congress. There is no double-entry between Congress and any other event. Legislation and names of all students entered must be received no later than Thursday, September 1st.
Each school may also submit up to three (3) pieces of legislation, but no student may be the author of more than one (1) piece of legislation. Bills and resolutions may be written on any topic that is current and appropriate for debate.
The author's name and school must be included at the end of the legislation. Legislation that does not conform to these requirements will not appear on the agenda.
Method of Entry
Step 1: Enter all contestants and judges on tabroom.com
Step 2: Send an email to Congress Director Keith Pittman (keith.pittman@acsgmail.net), with the following information:
- 1. School name, coach's name, and coach's email address.
- 2. The name of one (1) judge per six entries who is or can be trained to evaluate Congress. A minumum of one judge is required per school.
- 3. The full text of any legislation for the agenda. Submit this information by attaching a Microsoft Word file to the entry email. Make sure that the author's name is listed on each piece of legislation. PLEASE NOTE: Legislation MUST use the official NSDA Microsoft Word template available at this link. Legislation produced with any other template or using any other format will not be accepted.
All schools that follow this procedure correctly will receive an email containing chamber assignments, procedural rules, and the full text of all preliminary legislation by Monday morning, September 5th.
Semifinal legislation will be released by Wednesday, September 7th. Finals legislation will be given to finalists at a mandatory meeting Saturday night after semifinals.
Because legislation will be available prior to the tournament, each student is responsible for bringing his/her own legislation packet. No additional copies will be available at the tournament.
Tournament Format Overview
This tournament will use NSDA rules with adult scorers determining the advancing students and the winners.
PRELIMINARY SESSIONS: There will be two preliminary sessions of debate, one on Friday and one on Saturday. Sessions will be four hours in length. Each session will have two presiding officers, but precedence will not reset until the end of the full session. Judges will also stay in a chamber the entire session. Judges may be assigned a different chamber for the second session. Legislation will be submitted by students and authors will have the right to give authorship speeches.
SEMIFINAL SESSION: If entry numbers permit, we plan to break to a semifinal session on Saturday afternoon. In the unlikely event that numbers don'r warrant a semifinal session, a third preliminary session will be held using semifinals legislation. Five pieces of semifinal legislation will be provided by the tournament. Since these pieces of legislation will be authored by tournament staff, no authorship speeches are guaranteed in semifinals.
FINAL SESSION: Finals will be held Sunday morning and will feature legislation centered around a scenario that will be revealed during the tournament. The scenario will come from one or more of five broad topic areas that are preannounced.
JUDGING INFORMATION
One qualified judge must accompany every 6 entry slots (or fraction thereof). Hired judges are available for $120.00 per obligated judge slot (one judge slot per 6 entry slots). Congress judges may be used entirely for Congress, or may be placed in the IE pool at the tournament staff's discretion.
Any scheduling issues with your judges (leaving early, arriving late, etc.) should be communicated to the tab room well in advance of the tournament. All Congress judges are obligated through Finals.
CONGRESS SCHEDULE
FRIDAY, September 9, 2016 - at Wake Forest (location TBA)
4:00 - 4:30 Opening Congress Assembly for contestants and judges.
4:30 – 5:00 Agenda setting and Presiding Officer elections in chambers
5:00 - 6:00 Dinner break
6:00 - 10:00 Preliminary Session One
SATURDAY, September 10, 2015 - at Wake Forest (location TBA)
8:00 - 12:00 Preliminary Session Two
12:00 - 1:30 Lunch Break
1:45 Posting of Semifinalists
2:00 - 6:00 Semifinals
6:45 Posting of Finalists
7:00 - 7:30 Mandatory Meeting of all Finalists
SUNDAY, September 11, 2015 – at Wake Forest (building TBA):
7:45 - 8:00 Preliminary Business in Chamber
8:00 - 11:30 Finals
1:00: Awards Assembly, Wait Chapel
NOTE: Awards may be moved ahead of schedule and begin as early as 12:30. Please check postings and announcements for updates.)