We invite you to enter the annual Shawnee Mission West Novice Invitational Debate Tournament to be held Friday and Saturday, November 11 and 12.  We will host three novice divisions.  Limited Experience Novice is ONLY for debaters with 1 or 0 tournaments under their belt and will be Saturday only; they may not stray from the Novice Packet with arguments or research.  Open Novice is for any novice debaters and will be five rounds, Saturday only.  This division is not bound by the Novice Packet on either side.   Champ Novice is for your best novice debaters and will have an experienced judge pool; it will be Friday and Saturday, and it will not adhere to any packet of arguments or evidence.  Champ will break into Semifinals and Finals.

 You are guaranteed entry for four teams; you may request extras, and they will be awarded as follows:  schools that give us extras, SMSD schools, EKNSDA schools, all others.    We can host 120 teams, so when that number is reached with initial entries, entry to the tournament will close.  If you required us to bring judges to your tournament beyond the traditional "we will cover your first four teams," then expect to bring judges to SMW.  

We will award medals to the top eight teams in each division.  The first two rounds will be pre-set, and the rest will be power-matched.  Sweepstakes awards will go to first, second, and third place schools and will be based on preliminary records of the top four teams per school with at least one entry in Champ (and that one entry will be included).  Limited Experience teams will not count toward sweeps. 

 We will have a concession stand both days and will offer a $5 meal deal on Saturday.    I have included the pizza meal deal in case you want to make it part of your invoice, but you may order the day of the tournament as well.  

You may enter at http://shawneemissionwest.tabroom.com/ 

We look forward to seeing you on November 11 and 12!

Sincerely,

Rose Lawler                                                        
Director of Debate and Forensics                           

Schedule:
Friday November 11

Champ
Registration 3:00
Rd 1:  3:30
Rd 2:  5:00

Saturday November 12
C Rd 3               8:00
O/LE Rd 1

C Rd 4               9:30
O/LE Rd 2

C Rd 5               11:15
O/LE Rd 3

Lunch 12:45-1:15
Announcements 1:15/ASAP

C Semifinals                    1:30
O/LE Rd 4

C Finals                          3:00
O/LE Rd 5

 O/LE Awards ASAP 

Rules and Regulations

1. Prep time will be 8 minutes per team for all divisions.
2. Entry fees will be $6.00 per team (or whatever you charge). Invoices will be sent during tournament week.
3. The registration deadline is November 4 at 5:00pm.
4. Your bill will reflect the number of entries you have on file at the deadline, or the number who actually compete, whichever is greater. Please keep your numbers up to date!
5. All coaches/sponsors are on standby to judge.  While we try to fill judging positions with adults, we sometimes use trustworthy advanced debaters to judge.  You will not be asked to provide any judges beyond your sponsor being on standby unless you are granted more than four teams.  We pride ourselves in covering our judge burden when we host, so we will only do this if your entries impact our judging abilities or if you required us to bring judges beyond the traditional "first four rounds are covered by us" tradition. 
6. Any team more than 10 minutes late to a round through no fault of the tournament will forfeit the round.
7. Extras will be distributed fairly the week of the tournament.
8. Judges may re-judge teams in elimination rounds without respect to sides or opponents.
9. Students and judges may utilize the building’s wireless network during rounds to exchange speech docs using an email chain or similar or conduct research.  Anyone using the network to communicate with someone outside the round will lose the round and be disqualified from medaling. While we will provide a password for our guest wifi, we do NOT guarantee connection, so debaters should be prepared to flash evidence.   
10. Limited Experience is limited to debaters with 0 or 1 tournament of experience. We reserve the right to disqualify any students found in violation of this rule.  LE is also limited to the Novice Packet as used by the Washburn Rural tournament.
11. Tabroom.com will be utilized for all tournament functions. Balloting will be on paper ballots. 
12. To the extent possible, the judging in the Champ division will consist of our most experienced judges, ideally those who have competed in high school debate.
13.  Any grievances will be resolved by a committee of my choosing.