***For Registration, please go to https://forensicstournament.net/orcup/20.***

Welcome to the First Annual Elementary/Middle/High School Division Hilda Velásquez Open, named in honor of my Mom, whose open heart really made all things possible in my life. As I was a public school student without access to competitive coaching, it is fitting that proceeds from this contest will enable students at impacted urban schools to receive access to elite coaching and registration to speech and debate contests throughout the year. You help us fund this important step towards forensics diversity & inclusivity by registering to compete against the formidable cadre of elementary through high school students on the Velasquez-Liangyi forensics team (winner of the 2020 Online Junior Forensics Championship and four low-cume champions at the 2020 NSDA Middle School Challenge/Championship) . Among the students competing at this contest will be five national middle school champions (2019 Congress, 2020 Congress, 2020 Humorous, 2020 Declamation, 2020 Extemporaneous), dozens of 2020 National Finalists, four 2020 California State Champions (Impromptu, Declamation, SpAr, Speech to Entertain). At the high school division, we will be featuring six 9th Graders who have already secured a bid to the 2021 Tournament of Champions and at least four Elementary County Champions and two Elementary National Champions, so it should be quite a stacked and illustrious contest, even before any other schools register. We hope you will be able to join us, even if need be in events which require no preparation, such as SpAr Debate or Impromptu. As usual for our contests, we welcome any student or program.

All IEs except for SpAr, Congress and Impromptu will be "asynchronous" and judged via unlisted recordings uploaded to YouTube and submitted to us, details forthcoming as when to submit your video links. We will be offering in IEs: Informative, Declamation, Drama, Humorous, Prose, Storytelling, Original Oratory, and Original Comic Comment (also know as STE or ADS on the college circuit). There are no entry limits. Pile up your NSDA points!

The price will be $15 per entry and $10 more to enter the #1 Overall Speaker for the ES or MS or HS Division (we take your best score in Written Events, Spontaneous Events and Acting Events to come up with the Top Speaker in each division, with bonus points for competing outside in a division with 25 or more entries and/or if you are competing in a division higher than your natural division)

Keep in mind that video and audio recording is PERMITTED for (educational and non-commercial uses only, we reserve the right to require that an upload of a recording be taken down) for all rounds, so your team's entry by your designee constitutes group acceptance and acknowledgement of your permission to be recorded (do NOT register a student if filming is opposed by that student's parents). We will close events (and reimburse fees if already paid) if entries are below three or four, so please register early if you have interest in keeping afloat an event which might not survive the "three entry minimum." We will need one judge to cover every four entries or a $15 penalty will be triggered for every uncovered entry. We reserve the right to close events with entry thresholds too low or to move events to other patterns as dictated by entry numbers, and number of judges and rooms available.

Rules: High School events will generally follow NSDA rules (with the exception of Congress, which cannot be allowed to run three hours per prelim), unless they only exist in CA, at which point we turn to CHSSA rules. Middle School events will follow NSDA rules (with the exception of Congress length again). Elementary School events rules will follow the invite rules. We will generally allow a 5-10 minute time limit, except for certain events: ES Storytelling will be 5 minutes maximum, with a grace period of 30 seconds. ES & MS Impromptu will use a running time of 7 minutes (student may choose to start speaking at any time during the 7 minutes) with a single, blank index card allowed and no referencing to pre-written materials during the prep period. HS Impromptu is the same but loses access to the index card when speaking. SpAr will be 1 min prep, 1 min 1st Aff, 1 min 1st Neg, 3 min mutual Q&A, 1 min Neg Summary, 1 min Aff Summary. Congress will have four resolutions, one for each prelim and a Final, if necessary. The event Original Comic Commentary is analogous to the college event Speech To Entertain or After Dinner Speaking, albeit with a shorter time limit and no props. Interp with Binder (5 min) combines allows those with Prose, Poetry or POI pieces to compete despite their event not being offered in name at this contest.

Impromptu will use a running time bank of 7 minutes but it will NOT require students to wait outside while a student speaks. We will not be using speaker points on the ballots and will scan the ballots for upload and review after the tournament.

Schedule -- our three live events on Saturday, Sept. 12th will take place in two patterns, with SpAr in Pattern A and Congress and Impromptu in Pattern B, approximately as follows:Tentative Schedule (we will move times up when possible)

8:30-9AM PST - Judge Check in Pattern A (SpAr is the only Pattern A event)

9am-10-am - Round 1A of SpAr Debate

10am-11am - Round 2A of SpAr Debate

11am-12pm - Round 3A of SpAr Debate

12-12:30 Tabbing Time

12:30pm-1:30 - Final Round of SpAr Debate

1:30pm-2pm Judge Check in Pattern B (Impromptu & Congress are the only two events in Pattern B)

2pm-3pm -  Round 1B of Congress/Impromptu

3:15-4:15  - Round 2B of Congress/Impromptu

4:30-5:30 -  Round 3B of Congress/Impromptu

5:30-6pm Tabbing Time

6pm-7:30 -  Final Round of Congress/Impromptu

The Congress legislation will be three resolutions and one bill for the Final Round.

Round 1:  Room Clears are not an acceptable practice in education. [Room clears are practiced in Oregon and Arizona, for example]

Round 2:  Clearview AI should not be allowed to be made available to the general public. [Clearview is a facial recognition app using public social media pics]

Round 3: Every police department should be defunded to the extent that a scaled version of Eugene, Oregon's CAHOOTS program is funded.

Finals Bill: Baby Bonds to Reduce Income Inequality

In Jan 2022, the US federal gov't will begin investing bonds for every newborn citizen. The bonds will mature when each citizen turns 18, and become eligible for disbursement, provided the former child has completed high school or the equivalent in America and not committed any felonies.

HHS (Health and Human Services) will oversee the program, applying means testing both at birth and maturation to determine financial need of participants. Qualified adults will start to receive a lump sum payment in Jan 2040. Disbursements will range from a low of $1,000 for those with no demonstrable need to $100,000 to those with the highest need. Funds will be disbursed via a secure debit card and may only be applied towards essential purchases such as food, education, housing, vocational transportation and new business seeding.

The GAO (General Accounting Office) will determine how much money is needed for the initial investment, to range between 75 billion and 125 billion annually. The program will end when the Top 1% of households possess less than 10% of the total wealth of the United States.

#1 Overall Speaker Award: each division will feature one winner of the Hilda Prize. In order to vie for the award, one must enter at least one event in each of the three patterns plus enter "#1 Overall Speaker" in "Pattern D": the three patterns are Pattern A (events requiring original writing), Pattern B (Impromptu or SpAr) and Pattern C (acting events). We will calculate the points from your top event in each of the three patterns. Top Speakers will follow this formula (in the best event per pattern for each candidate): 1st Place: 5 points, 2nd Place: 4 points, 3rd Place: 3 points, 4th Place: 2 points, 5th or 6th Place: 1 point. Students will earn 50% more points if their event had a Final Round (e.g. 7.5 points for 1st Place, 6 points for 2nd, 4.5 points for 3rd etc...). The 50% bonus will additionally be earned from students from a younger division placing against students from an older division. For example, an MS or ES student placing in a mixed event with older students which also was large enough to require a Finals Round could conceivably earn 10 points for 1st Place, 8 points for 2nd and 6 points for 3rd etc...