Tournament announcements doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/165HV_9uwKcpU6HQ2UXeEObfInzBd0LWzgQ-5_HjD8F8/edit?usp=sharing

Updated Schedule: 

Saturday, October 26

8:00 AM—8:30 AM              Registration (Dante Hall)

8:30 AM                               Topic Announcement, Round 1

10:15 AM                             Topic Announcement, Round 2

11:45 AM—1:30 PM             Lunch

1:30 PM                                Topic Announcement, Round 3

3:30 PM                                Topic Announcement, Round 4

5:30 PM                                Topic Announcement, Round 5

7:30 PM                                Topic Announcement, Round 6

Sunday, October 27

8:30 AM                                Elimination Debate 1

10:30 AM                              Elimination Debate 2

1:00 PM                                Awards

1:30 PM                                Elimination Debate 3

3:30 PM                                Elimination Debate 4

5:30 PM                                  Elimination Debate 5 (if necessary)    

Hey all, attaching a note from Matt with some campus-specific info about Saint Mary's! Just a couple independent things to keep in mind: 

The tournament address is 1928 St Mary's Rd, Moraga, CA 94556

I'm updating entries and judges online as people let me know about drops or changed plans. I'm going to drop the teams I haven't heard from around 8PM for the sake of getting rounds paired tonight, but I can also definitely add teams back into the pool before rounds start tomorrow if anyone decides to enter who hasn't confirmed. As far as I can tell, the only school I'm still waiting to hear from is SRJC, if anyone's been in touch with them. 

The schedule will probably change a bit before tomorrow. I think I'll send out an email once prefs are closed for tonight with the new schedule, but it'll also be updated online by that point. Beyond that, I'm a little scattered right now just from managing things today, so please let me know if you think I'm forgetting anything that I need to inform everyone on! I'm hoping this is it, but I'll include any other info in the email later tonight if necessary. 

Thank you again to everyone, and to Saint Mary's for making this happen!

Thank you to Parli Debate at Berkeley and Trevor Greenan for allowing us to assist with hosting their tournament.  I have been debating for almost 20 years and never thought that an impact to climate change would be rescheduling tournaments, but here we are.  Thank you to all of you who chose to attend the tournament, even if things did not go as we all had hoped, and for continuing to support PDB by coming to our campus to participate in the GGI. 

The following is some information I would like to pass on to you.

Parking: There is a visitor lot on the left as soon as you enter the campus.  The machines take cards, not cash, so please be prepared.  It is $5 a day, each day.  They will ticket you.  Due to new parking costs for students/staff they are enforcing parking quite aggressively and I cannot do anything to help you if you receive a ticket.  Apparently there is a Men's Soccer game this weekend which may make parking more challenging than normal.  Check in with the security booth as you enter campus to inquire about any parking information you may need to know.

Food: Saint Mary's College is basically in the wilderness.  You can forage for food, have food delivered, or use our school caf, akak Oliver Hall.  The cost for lunch in the Oliver Hall is $9.65, it is all you can eat and the food quality is better than it has been in over a decade.  

If you decide to risk going off campus there are some local places in Moraga by the safeway and down in Rheem but they are very limited options on a short schedule.

Tournament Rooms: We have been given Dante Hall for the tournament so everything will be hosted out of there.  The building is 416 on the campus map, on the right side of the circle.  Maps can be downloaded from https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/files/SaintMarysCampusMap9.13.pdf.

When I am given the room list I will forward it to Trevor to determine topic announce and prep rooms.

Potential Power Shutdown: We may have the power shut off at 10pm on Saturday night.  The campus will still be open.  A generator will be set up in Dryden Hall/Oliver Hall (adjoining rooms) where wifi and power will be available.  This also means we will have lunch options from Oliver Hall on Sunday, too.  The classrooms are bright and airy so you should still be able to compete in those spaces until the sun goes down, at which point the tournament should be over/almost over.

Bathrooms: There are limited bathrooms in the Dante building that indicate Male or Female outside the facility.  There should be a gender inclusive bathroom on the 3rd floor and I am currently working with facilities to ensure this space is open or that we have an additional option.  Otherwise the next closest non-gendered bathrooms are a 1-2 minute walk from the building in the library.

Dear Friends,

Please join us for this year’s installment of the Golden Gate Invitational, held at UC Berkeley’s campus this October 26-27, 2019.  We will offer six preliminary rounds of NPDA parliamentary debate and plan to break all teams with a winning record.

Schedule

Saturday, October 26

8:00 AM—8:30 AM                 Registration (Dwinelle Hall)

8:30 AM                                  Topic Announcement, Round 1

10:15 AM                                Topic Announcement, Round 2

12:00 PM                                Topic Announcement, Round 3

1:30PM—3:00 PM                  Lunch

3:00 PM                                  Topic Announcement, Round 4

5:00 PM                                  Topic Announcement, Round 5

7:00 PM                                  Topic Announcement, Round 6

Sunday, October 27

8:30 AM                                  Elimination Debate 1

10:30 AM                                Elimination Debate 2

1:00 PM                                  Awards

1:30 PM                                  Elimination Debate 3

3:30 PM                                  Elimination Debate 4

5:30 PM                                  Elimination Debate 5 (if necessary)

 **Please note: We reserve the right to adjust the schedule as necessary. If the schedule is adjusted, we will notify all participants as soon as possible.  We anticipate that all rounds will be held in Dwinelle Hall.

NPDA/NPTE Parliamentary Debate

The Golden Gate Invitational offers 6 rounds of open NPDA/NPTE parliamentary debate. All competitors who meet NPDA eligibility standards are welcome to compete in the open division, regardless of experience level. We will break up to 32 competitors with a 4-2 record. Topics will be announced at a central location and released online, and teams will have 20 minutes to prepare before the round. Rather than a strict forfeit rule, teams arriving at their room after the end of the 20 minutes prep will have the time that they are late to the round subtracted from their first constructive speech (ex: if the affirmative team is 1 minute late, this would result in a 6 minute PMC, or a 7 minute LOC if the negative is 1 minute late). The team will forfeit the round when the entirety of the first constructive speech has run out.

We will be using 2 minute flex time after the PMC and LOC, and 1 minute flex time after the MGC and LOR to be used for preparation or cross-examination (same flex time system as NPTE). We highly encourage judge disclosure (though we ask that you turn in your ballot before doing so) and will post all results online. We will administer the tournament in accordance with NPDA rules and will be sanctioned by the NPDA. Teams will be seeded based on W-L record, adjusted speaker points, opponent wins, total speaker points, double adjusted speaker points, and a random number, in that order. We will break brackets in elimination rounds.

We will use the mutual preference judging system to allow teams to rank their judges.  We plan to offer at least three categories, dependent on the number of entries.  We also plan to offer strikes, as long as there are enough judges. We reserve the right to waive MPJ if teams do not bring an adequate number of judges.

Judging

One judge will cover 2 debate teams. Teams may share half-commitments, but otherwise we expect judges to be available for every round. If you choose to split your commitment between multiple judges, we will do our best to give your judges rounds off, but reserve the right to “draft” your excess judges if we cannot avoid doing so without disregarding strikes. If we do so, we will either (a) try to relieve your judges of their elimination round commitments or, failing that, (b) pay them $20 per extra round judged.

Please bring sufficient judges to cover your entries! We charge a steep uncovered judge fee because it has historically been difficult to hire enough judges to cover all uncovered teams. Judges must have an undergraduate degree or be out of competitive eligibility. Judges are committed for one full elimination round beyond the round in which their school is eliminated. We request that all critics upload a philosophy on tabroom.com.

Each additional uncovered debate entry costs $200. Not a typo.

If you have judges in excess of your commitment, we would like to hire them. We will offer $20 per round, and will pay judges willing to commit to the entire weekend an extra $25 on top of any rounds judged. Experienced judges may be offered a premium rate for the weekend. Please email calparli@gmail.com or tgreenan@berkeley.edu for more details.

Entry Procedure

We will handle entries through tabroom.com, at:

https://www.tabroom.com/index/tourn/index.mhtml?tourn_id=13319

Please submit all entries by Wednesday, October 23, 2019 at 8PM PST. This is a hard deadline. Schools will be responsible for the cost of any drops after this date. 

Parking

If you must bring a car/van, parking is available in several structures near campus for a fee. Please see http://pt.berkeley.edu/parking/visitor for details. On Sunday, street meters are not enforced; so street parking is free and highly recommended. One note on transportation: It is not necessary to rent a car/van to attend the Golden Gate Invitational. Berkeley is highly accessible by public transportation, and there are MANY restaurants around the campus. Please consult the link above for more information on public transportation.

Fees

We will charge the following fees; however, if these are at all financially prohibitive to your team, please email us to discuss potential fee breaks or reductions:

$100/NPDA entry

$50 school fee (waived for NCFA member schools and student-run programs). 

$200/uncovered team (in addition to entry fees).

Fee Breaks:
Due to the increasing costs to reserve space on campus in the last few years, we have been forced to increase the registration fee this year. However, our aim is to make this tournament as accessible as possible, particularly to student-run and other low-budget teams. As such, if this fee is unaffordable, please email us at calparli@gmail.com or tgreenan@berkeley.edu and we will do our best to provide fee breaks or negotiate reciprocity agreements on a case-by-case basis.

We tend to be very generous, but cannot help you if you do not contact us first. We expect that any team receiving a fee break will assist us in covering their entries with qualified judges.