THE NEW YORK CITY URBAN DEBATE LEAGUE

TOURNAMENT #2

November 10th, 2012

@ The Institute for Collaborative Education

Welcome to our monthly New York City Urban Debate League Tournament!!!  Our monthly debate tournaments are free and open to all schools, all students and all grade levels in New York City.  The day features 3 rounds of debate competition, breakfast, lunch and an amazing awards ceremony.  Top teams receive bids to the City Championship, State Championship and national invitationals.

We thank our UDL member schools for generously hosting this tournament each month!  We thank all our incredible volunteers of judges, parents, teachers, and coaches for supporting debate.  We thank our incredible Tabroom staff of James (Benjamin Banneker) and Andrew (Brooklyn Tech).  Finally, we thank our incredible Great Debaters who come out on a Saturday for the city’s most rigorous academic program.  Thank you all for your support!

Sincerely,

Erik Fogel, Director

The New York City Urban Debate League

www.nycdebate.org

nycudl@gmail.com

917-455-1079

EVENTS AND DIVISIONS  
Our monthly NYCUDL tournaments features the nation’s two most popular debate formats of policy debate and public forum debate.  

Policy Debate
There will be six divisions (Middle School Beginners, Middle School Advanced, High School Beginners (Starter Packet Schools), High School Novice (no case limitations), High School Junior Varsity, High School Varsity) of policy debate using the 2012-2013 NFL resolution.  High School teams will give 8-minute constructive speeches, 3-minute cross-examinations, and 5-minute rebuttals, and will have eight minutes of prep time.  Middle School teams will give 6 minute constructives, 2 minute cross examinations, 4 minute rebuttals and prep time is also 8 minutes.  The Resolution for the 2012-2013 school year is Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its transportation infrastructure investment in the United States.

Public Forum Debate
There will be two divisions of public forum debate (middle school and high school). Public Forum will follow all NFL rules.  Teams will give 4 minute constructive speeches, 3-minute crossfires, and 2 minute summary and final focus speeches, and will have two minutes of prep time.  The tournament will be using the NFL topic for November - “Resolved: Current U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East undermines our national security.”

REGISTRATION
All tournament registration and changes are online.  Please create an account and register onwww.tabroom.com by the Wednesday of the tournament day. NO NEW ENTRIES will be permitted after that Wednesday.  

LOCATION
Institute for Collaborative Education, 345 East 15th Street, NY.  See Directions below.

TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE

Wednesday Before the Tournament
5:00pm - Deadline for registering teams.

Day of the Tournament (Saturday)
9:00am - Tournament Arrival & Breakfast
9:30am - Registration Deadline.  If you do not arrive by 9:30am, your teams will have to forfeit Round #1.  They may still compete in the rest of the rounds.
10:00am - Round 1
12:00pm - Round 2
2:00pm - Lunch
3:00pm - Middle School Awards Ceremony
3:00pm - Round 3 (High School only)
5:00pm- High School Awards Ceremony
5:30pm - Exit

TABROOM
Tabroom (www.tabroom.com) is our online registration and tabulation system for tournament management.  You will also find it extremely useful for registering for most tournaments in New York, New Jersey and the East Coast.  Once you create a team account it will save all the names of your students, judges and coaches - so you do not have to re-enter data for every tournament but simply point and click for registering for tournaments throughout the year.  Additionally, Tabroom is now managed by the International Debate and Education Association and so your students and schools will have access to all their resources as well as a global honors system for debaters where each student can earn points, badges and honors as they participate in debate tournaments throughout the year.

COST
Our local NYCUDL tournaments are free for all schools.  The only requirement of schools is to bring judges.  For small teams the judge can be the adult chaperone/teacher.

JUDGES
In order to provide free debate tournaments, we need volunteer judges.  Teams need to bring their own judges to cover their entries.  For every two debate teams you register, you should bring a volunteer judge.  This is standard for any debate tournament.  Any high school student with debate experience can judge middle school divisions.  Any 11th or 12th grader varsity high school debater can judge Novice high school divisions.  Adults can judge any division.  It is crucially important that schools bring their required judge allotment, especially if you are bringing many teams.  That being said, we are flexible for new schools and small teams that are having difficulties with finding volunteer judges.  If that is the case please contact us, nycudl@gmail.com.  

TEACHERS
Debate teams do need an adult chaperone at the tournament.  When you register your team onwww.tabroom.com it will ask for the name and contact information of the adult chaperone.  At the tournament please feel free to observe your debaters or observe any debaters!  You are free to walk into any debate round and observe, just please make sure the round has not started or if it has, to walk in during a break when the debaters are using prep time.

MEALS
Breakfast and lunch is provided free.  Our breakfast includes bagels, doughnuts, and juices.  Our lunch includes pizza and beverages.  Hosting schools may also offer their own concessions, bake sales, vending and please support our hosting schools!   

THE AWARDS CEREMONY


There are dozens of debate leagues and hundreds of debate tournaments.  What makes the NYCUDL the most unique league is that our primary mission is to make debate accessible to everyone.  And so we have the largest awards ceremony than any league!  We offer divisions for every level of experience from a new schools division to a varsity high school division.  In each division we offer large trophies for the top ten teams (set of three three trophies for each team, one for each debater and one for the school), smaller trophies for teams with winning records, medals for the top 20 speakers, certificates for beginners, and school sweepstakes awards.

BALLOTS
Pick up your ballots after the awards ceremony!  During each round of debate, judges complete ballots with results, scores, and the reason for decision.  These are available for pick up after the awards ceremony.

TOURNAMENT HOSTING
Again, we thank our member schools for hosting our monthly tournaments.  Without such school support we could not offer our tournaments free for all.   Thank you so much for the facilities, security, classrooms and everything!  We just bring the trophies and meals!   And if your school would like to host a tournament, please let us know!  Hosting a tournament is an excellent opportunity to expand your own debate team, fundraise for your debate team through concessions, and of course home court advantage for your debaters!



DIRECTIONS TO THE INSTITUTE FOR COLLABORATIVE EDUCATION


By Subway:
- Take the A, B, C, D, E, F, 1, 9, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, N, R, to 14th Street.
- Transfer to the L going towards Brooklyn to 1st Avenue

By Bus:
- Take the M1, M2, M3, M4, M23 to 14th Street and 1st Avenue

The school is located in the east village at 15th Street between 1st and 2nd
Avenues (closer to 1st Ave.)  Institute for Collaborative Education, 345 East 15th Street, NY, New York

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS!
Please do not hesitate to contact me or any NYCUDL coach!  

Sincerely,
Erik Fogel, Director
The New York City Urban Debate League
www.nycdebate.org
nycudl@gmail.com
917-455-1079