BEST GREETINGS FROM NUEVA DEBATE!

We hope your school will attend the second Nueva Parli Invitational, to be held at the Nueva Upper School in San Mateo (Bay Meadows) on Sunday, January 13.  We’ll run junior and open divisions of parliamentary debate, with at least four preliminary rounds and finals. 

ELIGIBILITY – We will accept middle school teams and/or high school teams.  A high school debater may debate with a middle school debater from her/his affiliated middle school, and vice versa.  We will accept hybrid teams if we receive written authorization from both school administrators by Monday, January 7.  Otherwise, students must attend the same school and must compete as authorized representatives of the school they attend.  Coaches may place teams in either the junior or open division using their reasonable discretion.  All teams must be accompanied by verifiably official adult chaperones.  We do not accept club teams or teams from for-profit organizations.

REGISTRATION is through tabroom.com.  All entries will be waitlisted pending tournament approval.  We are setting an initial limit of five teams per school per division.  Our school is not large; register early! 

JUDGES – Schools owe one judge per two entries.  We will have separate junior and open pools.  Very experienced high school parli debaters may judge in the junior division, with prior approval.  All judges must have tabroom.com accounts (all balloting will be electronic), and we hope that open division judges will have posted paradigms.  We must have the names of your judges by January 8.  A limited number of hired judges may be procured (through our Procurement Office) for $120 for the day.  We expect to have some excellent guest judges.  If you know of people we should hire, please let us know.

FEES - $40 per team; $120 per hired judge; fees are frozen on January 8.  Fees are absolutely due by Sunday morning's registration.  We will accept cash or any kind of check (one per school please).

SCHEDULE --  We will open in-person registration at 7:30 am on Sunday, January 13.  The tournament should be done by 6:30 pm.

AMENITIES – We will provide coffee and other morning refreshments for adult judges and chaperones, and a nice free lunch for everyone.

ETC. --  The topic committee will be Sam Timinsky, Julie Herman, and Artem Raskin. We will announce a topic area for two of our rounds on January 2.  Internet prep and team prep fine; no coach prep.  Judges’ decisions are not subject to appeal or protest.

Feel free to contact me with questions.  We very much look forward to hosting you!

Les Phillips

Director of Debate