Welcome to the Henry Clay "WARM UP FOR NATIONALS" VIRTUAL Senior & Junior Speech & Debate Tournament!

Speech events will be completely asynchronous (pre-recorded) and run throughout the week with two guaranteed rounds of prelims plus finals while Debate events will be synchronous (held live via NSDA Campus on Saturday, May 1st) with 3 guaranteed rounds of debate prelims plus semis (if warranted) and finals in all divisions!

EVENTS OFFERED:

We plan to hold ALL Kentucky High School Speech League SENIOR HIGH & JUNIOR MIDDLE speech events 

*Senior Division Events: Broadcasting, Declamation, DI, Duo, Extemp, HI, Impromptu, Improv Duo, Informative, Oratory, Poetry, POI, Prose, & Storytelling *These events are ONLY for high school students (grades 9-12)

*Junior Division Events: Broadcasting, Declamation, DI, Duo, Extemp, HI, Impromptu, Improv Duo, Oratory, Poetry, Prose, & Storytelling. *These events are ONLY for middle school students (grades 3-8)

along with the following debate events:

*Debate Events: Congress, Varsity Lincoln-Douglas, Novice Lincoln-Douglas, Policy, Varsity Public Forum, & Novice Public Forum

Also - all events are initially capped at 50 entries so if you have kids you for sure know will be attending, please get them registered ASAP!  All entries past 50 will be waitlisted so to guarantee their entry into their respective events, please register them early!

ENTRIES:

IE competitors can compete in as many events as they choose (Junior competitors up to 12, Senior competitors up to 14) PLUS students may also enter in live debate (as speech events are totally asynchronous and debate is synchronous competitors can opt to do both categories of speech & debate).  Debaters are limited to only 1 debate event as the schedule will not allow for synchronous doubling.

Each IE speech entry will be $6, with Duo Acting, Duo Interp, & Improv Duo charging $12. Congress & Lincoln-Douglas entries will be $10 while Public Forum & Policy Debate entries will be $20. 

DEADLINE:

Deadline for entries including video uploads is 9:00 PM EST on Monday, April 26 - Registration will close at that time so please do not ask for an extension on this so we can prep to get the tournament immediately underway the following day.

*Drops/adds after the deadline will be charged $10 fee per single entry & $20 per Duo Interp, Improv Duo, Public Forum or Policy entry in addition to the original entry fees*

JUDGES:

You must supply one judge for every 6 IE or Congress entries (6 slots = 1 judge; 12 slots = 2 judges; 13 slots = 3 judges; etc.) For debate you must supply one judge for every two debaters (1 slot = 1 judge; 3 slots = 2 judges, etc.) A fee of $40 per missing judge will be assessed. Please make sure that all your judges are familiar with all KHSSL rules in the 2020-2021 KHSSL Handbook (located on the tabroom.com tournament homepage) so they can properly assess the students.

*NOTE – Speech Judges will be asked to judge BOTH Senior & Junior Division KHSSL Events – so please prep your judges of this beforehand as all judges will be expected to adhere to this obligation if you wish them to be counted for your team quota.

TOPICS FOR DEBATE:

Congressional debate will use the April NSDA packet of legislation (since it is May 1 it is too close to the release date for the May packet so we will use April's packet instead). No other legislation will be published or used for our tournament.  Note:  If the NSDA does not post an April packet for us to use we will instead use a previously published NSDA packet or a combination of their old packets (taken from this season) and it will be posted within 10 days of the start of our competition.

Lincoln-Douglas (Varsity & Novice) will debate the following topic for MARCH/APRIL 2021:

Resolved: The United State ought to guarantee universal child care.

Public Forum (Varsity & Novice) will debate the following topic for APRIL 2021:

Resolved: The benefits of the International Monetary Fund outweigh the harms.

Policy will debate the following topic for 2020-2021:

Resolved: The United States federal government should enact substantial criminal justice reform in the United States in one or more of the following: forensic science, policing, sentencing.

SCHEDULE:

Monday - April 26

Registration Deadline @ 9:00 PM EST

Tuesday - April 27

Prelim Speech Rounds of Judging released @ 12:00 PM EST

Thursday - April 29

Prelim Speech rounds of Judging Due @ 12:00 PM EST

Finals Speech Rounds of Judging released @ 6:00 PM EST

Friday - April 30

Finals Speech Rounds of Judging Due @ 6:00 PM EST

Saturday - May 1

Debate Teams Check in to Virtual Squad Rooms @ 10:00 AM EST

Debate Round 1 @ 10:30 AM EST + Congress Session 1

Debate Round 2 @ 12:00 PM EST

Debate Round 3 @ 1:30 PM EST + Congress Session 2

Debate Round 4 @ 3:00 PM EST (Semi-Finals)

Debate Round 5 @ 4:30 PM EST (Finals) + Congress Supers

Awards (All Speech & Debate Events) @ 8:00 PM EST or sooner

AWARDS:

Awards will be given out to the top 6 performers in each speech event and Congress, top 4 performers in each debate event, and team sweepstakes awards will be given out to the top 3 teams in Junior Speech, top 3 teams in Senior Speech, & top 3 teams in Debate.

Also - and this is really cool - we will be awarding an OVERALL Sweepstakes GRAND CHAMPION AWARD for the highest ranking team in ANY division combined...meaning, the highest point scoring school in total overall points will be up for the GRAND CHAMPION award for our tournament (whichever team scores the most points combined regardless of division will WIN the OVERALL GRAND CHAMPION AWARD)!

Note: There will be a $10 awards mailing fee for all United States based schools in attendance (fee is automatically added to the tabroom invoice once you register).  For any schools located outside of the US the fee will be larger than $10 but the actual cost will depend on where you are located (feel free to contact me in advance if you have any questions about this - I will update your invoice and send it to you once the tournament has concluded).  Any team who does not receive awards will have this fee credited toward a future tournament (but we cannot issue refunds for this after the tournament concludes - please make note of this).

PAYMENT:

Please make payment to HENRY CLAY DEBATE.  We can accept checks or money orders (please do not attempt to mail cash).  Mailing address information will be added to the tabroom.com generated invoice.  Please note that we cannot mail any awards until payment has been received so please take care of your payment for the tournament ASAP once you know what your fee totals are (and note that some nuisance fines could occur during the tournament so please do your best to avoid those and not have to mail multiple checks).

CONTACT INFO:

If you have any questions that are not answered above please feel free to email me at:

ryan.ray@fayette.kyschools.us

if you have ANY questions about our tournament!

We hope to see you with us virtually for our WARM UP FOR NATIONALS Senior Speech, Junior Speech, & Open Debate tournaments!  Thank you for your time and consideration!