Our full tournament invitation is available by clicking here, or you can read on below. The google doc link will be the most up-to-date version, but here is the copy/paste (some info may be missing from the bottom of the copy/paste):

Grizzly Invitational 

Friday-Saturday, December 13-14, 2019

at Ashland High School

Dear Coaches and Students,

Ashland High School cordially invites you to compete at the 7th Annual Grizzly Invitational on December 13-14th at Ashland High School. 

The Grizzly Invitational will offer all NSDA and Oregon debate forms and individual speech events.  Many events will have the option of novice division. Novice in Oregon means a student who is completely new to Speech and Debate this year. If they competed at any tournaments last year, students should be entered in the varsity division. Novice eligible students who want to “play up” to varsity in one of their events do not need to register for varsity in all of their events.

Each division of debate will be guaranteed a minimum of four preliminary  debate rounds, with additional elimination rounds for teams that perform exceptionally well. Speech events will have two preliminary rounds with finals. Depending on judge availability, speech events will have two judges in each prelim round.

Debate Topics and Information

Public Forum Debate will use the November/December NSDA topic (Resolved: The benefits of the United States federal government’s use of offensive cyber operations outweigh the harms) and competitors will flip for sides and/or speaking order each round as per OSAA and NSDA rules. We will use NSDA pilot rules, which includes 3 minutes of prep time and speech times of 4-4-3-4-4-3-3-3-3-2-2.

Lincoln Douglas Debate follows all NSDA rules and will use the November/December NSDA topic (Resolved: The United States ought to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels).

Oregon Style Cross Examination (Policy) Debate follows all NSDA rules and will use the 2018-19 NSDA topic (Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce Direct Commercial Sales and/or Foreign Military Sales or arms from the United States).

OSAA topic areas will be used for the novice Policy division: Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Drone Exports, Small Arms and Light Weapons

Parliamentary Debate (Parli) will follow all OSAA rules. Each round features three topics with the government (aff) striking one and the opposition (neg) then choosing which will be debated, followed by 15 minutes of closed preparation time. Only a dictionary is allowed during prep and you may only prep with your partner. 

Big Questions Debate will follow all NSDA rules and will use the 2019-2020 topic (Resolved: Objective morality exists). 

Note: Big Questions debate will be held during individual events pattern A on Saturday. This means students are unable to enter any other Pattern A IEs if they are entered in Big Questions. However, competitors can enter both Big Questions debate and other debate forms offered. We will follow all NSDA rules for Big Questions, such as allowing one or two person teams, which can be found here along with sample cases and other resources: https://www.speechanddebate.org/big-questions/ 

Spontaneous Argumentation (SPAR) will follow these rules (thanks to Phoenix High School for trying it at their tournament last year; thanks to Stanford University for their SPAR format, which has the amazing totally open crossfire): SPAR is a 1 vs 1 debate of 15 minutes. The Proposition speaker will receive two resolutions, one serious (ex. Charter schools are good for education in America) and one not serious (ex. Ramen noodles are superior to pizza). The Prop speaker selects the resolution and sets the tone for the round. Each room will have up to 3 pairs of debaters, and the judge will rank all debaters 1-6 after the round (as they would in a speech round, allowing them to consider crossfire participation in other rounds). Here is the format:

• Shared prop/opp prep 2 minutes

• Prop Case 2 minutes

• Opp Case 2 minutes

• Totally Open Crossfire 5 minutes (everyone in the room participates!)

• Prop Rebuttal 2 minutes

• Opp Rebuttal 2 minutes

Note: SPAR will be held during individual events pattern B Saturday, meaning students are unable to enter any other Pattern B IEs if they are entered in SPAR. However, competitors can enter both SPAR and pattern A Speech events and other debate forms offered. 

We will powermatch debate when possible. We will follow OSAA tiebreak rules--in Debate, the first tiebreaker will be strength of opposition (total opponents wins), speaker points will be the second tiebreaker.

Congressional Debate will run on Friday evening only, will follow all OSAA/NSDA rules (and prefer OSAA if in conflict), and will feature the December NSDA packet: https://www.speechanddebate.org/topics/ (the December Congress packet will be posted here on December 1.

Teams may submit additional bills by Sunday, December 1st at 6pm to our Congress Director at: <Caroline.Campbell@medford.k12.or.us>. We will publish all submitted bills at least one week before the tournament. 

Individual Events Rules and Information

Each individual speech event will be run in the OSAA state tournament style, with two prelim rounds, two judges in open rounds (if possible), and semifinals for any event with more than 20 entries. All events with at least 8 entries will have a final round with three judges.

Storytelling Rules and Topic: Storytelling is a 5 minute, memorized speech event in which you tell a story (original, traditional, published, or a mix). You may use a chair as a prop. This year’s theme is Stories to Tell Around the Hearthfire. This event is awesome! Try it out.

Students can enter up to two IEs per pattern (events in bold do not allow double entry within their pattern). 

Pattern A -

Original Oratory                 Humorous Interpretation               Prose

Impromptu                         Radio Commentary Big Questions Debate

Pattern B -

Dramatic Interpretation                   Duo Interpretation Extemporaneous

Program Oral Interp           Informative                           After Dinner Speaking

Poetry SPAR Storytelling

Speech events will use a clean slate finals with judges preference as the first tiebreaker.

We will follow OSAA guidelines for all events with the following exceptions:

1. In Debate events, judges may, after submitting their ballot, give feedback to debaters with their consent. The “oral critiques” are optional, should not last longer than 15 minutes and may also disclose results. 

2. Internet use will be allowed in Congress and Extemp prep. The NSDA is exploring allowing internet use for Extemp, Congress, and Debate events at Districts and Nationals. After testing this in extemp last year we will extend it to Congress this year. 

3. We may choose to announce in advance an area of focus for some of our Parli topics.

Fees, Judging, and Other Information 

Tournament Fees

We do our best to offer reasonable entry fees. Last year we reduced fees to make our event more accessible. Please contact us if the fees are prohibitive, as we want to promote inclusion in the activity. We would rather have your students compete than your money. 

School Fee: $40 IE and SPAR Entry: $10                       

LD Entry: $20 Team Debate Entry: $30 

Student Congress: $5 Big Questions: Free thanks to a grant from NSDA 

Judge Coverage

Schools should provide at least one judge for every two debate teams/entries (BQ, CX, LD, PF, Parli),  one judge for every five IE entries (including SPAR) and one judge for every ten Congress entries. We will recruit quality judges from SOU and the community, but we need your help to provide our students the best feedback possible. If we are short on judges, AHS senior team members may join Novice round judging panels. We are open to cutting breaks on entry fees for teams that bring judges over their commitment. If you are interested in this option, please contact us at ashlanddebateteam@gmail.com.

We will again be using online ballots for all  events. Coaches, please remind your judges to make a Tabroom.com account and bring a smart device. Do NOT make a Tabroom account for your judges; this leads to problems the day of the tournament, so please show your judges how to make their own accounts. We will have computer labs open for judges without access to devices.

We would rather have your judges than your money. Uncovered judge fees:

50 dollars per judge you are missing 

Lodging

        There are numerous local hotels, as Ashland is a tourist town. If you are having issue finding lodging please contact us and we can help with options. Please be sure to ask your hotel for school group off-season rates. A hotel that teams have stayed at for our tournament in the past was the Stratford Inn (two blocks from AHS).

Grizz 2019 Schedule

Friday, December 13th

Our school is STILL IN SESSION until 3:40. Please do not enter classrooms. Registration and student hang out will be in the commons. 

 Judges will check in to IVC 3 and should bring smart devices if possible. This is in the English building, and signs will be on campus directing you there. (All ballots will be online. Judges wishing to enter comments on a computer can use the lab in H-29)

Registration for All Teams -- 3:00-3:45 pm 

Debate Judges’ Training IVC -- 3:45-4:15 pm

Student Meeting (Mandatory)- Commons 3:45-4:15

Debate Round 1 -- 4:30-6:00 pm

Dinner: food available for sale between your rounds

Debate Round 2 -- 6:15-7:45 pm

Debate Round 3 -- 8:00-10:00 pm

Congress Session 1 -- 4:30- 6:30 pm

Congress Session 2 -- 7:30-9:30 pm

Saturday, December 14th

IE Only Registration (for teams who did not register on Friday) -- 8-9:00 am

Debate Round 4 -- 8:30-10:00 am

IE Judges’ Training (in IVC) and Student Meeting (Mandatory for students who did not compete Friday)-- 9:15-9:45 am

IE A Round 1 -- 10:00-11:00 am

Extemp Prep -- 10:45am

IE B Round 1 -- 11:00-12:00 pm

Lunch -- 12:00-1:30 pm

IE A Round 2 -- 1:30pm-2:30pm

Extemp Prep -- 2:15

IE B Round 2 -- 2:30-3:30 pm

IE Semifinals (Events with 20 or more competitors) and some finals TBD -- 3:30-5:00 pm

Debate SemiFinals -- 5:00-6:30 pm

IE Finals, all remaining events -- 6:30-7:30 pm

Debate finals 7:30-9:00 pm 

Awards -- 9pm or ASAP

We will run final rounds earlier if we can based on judge availability. 

We may run a student equity forum and/or professional development session for coaches during lunch depending on interest. 

Registration Deadlines:

New entries in by: 12/1/2019 5pm 

Fees locked : 12/6/2019 5pm

Judges in by 12/6/2019 5pm

(Always feel free to bring more judges up to the day of, please set them up and train them on using tabroom if possible.)

Drops can be made online until : 12/12/2019 5pm

Please email with any drops after that:  ashlanddebateteam@gmail.com

Food: 

We will provide snacks and meals for judges each day.

Snacks, drinks, and meals will be on sale for students on Saturday, as well as dinner for sale Friday night. 

Tabroom Team:

We have a great team to make this event the best possible  experience for you:

Micheal Curry- Debate Tab Chair

Kayla Crook - Speech Tab Chair

Nichole Rowan- Judges Coordinator

Caroline Campbell- Congress Chair

Eliza Haas and Mat Marr- Tournament Directors/Hosts

Leah Aaronson - Student Coordinator

Also remember we will be using online ballots for all events. Please tell your judges to sign up for Tabroom.com and bring a smart device. (We can also set judges up on site and have computers available) 

If you are a coach interested in learning more about running tournaments on Tabroom.com please contact Mat or Eliza and we would be happy to have you join our team. 

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