Dear Colleagues,

We would like to invite you and your team to the 2021 Winston Churchill Classic hosted on January 7-9, 2021. 

We are proud to have been awarded TOC bids from the University of Kentucky in LD (finals), Gold PF (finals), Silver PF (semifinals), Congress (top 6) and all relevant Speech events. We are also pleased to announce that we are also a NIETOC qualifying tournament in the relevant speech events as well as a TFA qualifying tournament.

In debate events we will feature 6 preliminary debate rounds for VLD and VPF, and 5 preliminary rounds for VCX, and WSD. All Novice events will have 5 rounds and clear to an appropriate number of elims. If numbers are large enough, we will expand VCX to 6 preliminary rounds as well. Debates will begin Thursday afternoon with elimination debates on Saturday. Congressional debate will feature one prelim with semifinal and final rounds to follow. Speech events will be asynchronous and feature two preliminary rounds, and quarters, semis, and finals based on entry numbers. Rounds will be scheduled with respect to both checks on screen-time and time allotted for meals/breaks.

While we anticipate a larger field in all events, we still are determined to provide a quality tournament experience for all competitors and to maintain a fair break in all speech and debate events while also keeping the schedule as humane as possible. In order to accomplish this, it is necessary for us to implement event caps in our events. 

For all Varsity Debate events, we will place an initial entry cap at 90 entries with an overall event cap of 120 entries. We will give priority for the 30 waitlisted spots to schools from Central/South Texas before opening the waitlist up to all schools. If the initial cap is reached, we will admit entries off of the waitlist until December 7, after that date, all waitlist restrictions will be lifted. 

In all Speech events, we will have an initial entry cap of 100 entries and an overall event cap of 144 entries. Waitlist priority will be given to schools from Central/South Texas until December 7 at which point all waitlist restrictions will be lifted until our overall cap is reached. 

We look forward to hosting you in January. The full invitation and tournament information can be found on the right, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. 

Sincerely,

Preston Stolte, Brandon Forinash, and Kandi King

***UPDATES***

11/16: 

--Schedule Posted (any changes will be communicated via email)

--Media Release Forms Posted: Release forms only need to be signed by out-of-state schools and/or Texas schools who have not had their students fill out the TFA vIQT waiver.

--World Schools Prepared Motions posted

 12/6:

--Asynchronous IE videos should be upload to the website no later than 5PM on January 5th. We will be checking to make sure all the links work so please don't fret if it says the average watch time is really short. 

--We will be following all TFA and TFA vIQT rules for all events. Some notable rules relevant to speech events is that DUO and DUET entries must be asynchronous and competitors record from separate rooms; we understand this may be a change from other tournaments, but it is essential to maintaining competitive equity for competitors who are currently unable to meet in person.

--We will be using NSDA Campus as our video platform. Please read the tournament invitation packet for more information.