Lava Legislature
2023 — Toquerville, UT/US
Due to the small number of participants, the schedule is significantly altered. Please contact Mary directly.
Lava Heights Academy
Invites you to
Lava Legislature 2023
Congressional Debate Tournament
Saturday, January 28, 2023
730 N. Springs Dr (100 E.)
Toquerville, UT 84774
(435)635-0300
INFORMATION
Tournament Director: Mary Thayer, mary.thayer@rop.com
OVERVIEW
This tournament will be on Tabroom. Students who normally compete in Policy, LD, PF, and IE’s are encouraged to join their Congressional colleagues in this tourney. Students who will not exceed their 10 tournament limit (8 for 1A schools) may enjoy this extra chance to sharpen debate skills while helping Congressional teammates prepare for region. (Note that the 10 tournament limit does NOT apply to Nat Quals, Region, nor State.) This is a good chance to practice authorship speeches as the docket is specifically targeted to reward UDCA docket contributors. This is also a great opportunity to improve Presiding Officer (PO) skills, as we will need 16 different students to serve for 30 minutes each.
We ask all our visitors to sign a confidentiality agreement upon arrival.
We ask our visitors to remain in the building in which we are holding debate events; please do not wander around the campus as it is the private living quarters of our students.
EVENTS AND AWARDS.
Congressional Debate:
Preliminary ½ hour in each house to read Orders of the Day and select 8 PO’s for each house.
Two 2-hour preliminary sessions and a 1 ½ hour Lava Bath final session.
Dragon House: This is an open house.(8-20 participants)
Bird House:Novice house for debaters who have never competed in ANY type of event prior to the 2022-23 school year. (8-20 participants)
T-Rex House: We will add a 3rd house ONLY if we have more than 40 participants. This will be an open house.
Raptor House: We will add a 4th house ONLY if we have more than 60 participants. This will be an open house.
Lava Bath:15 debaters will break to the final round: The top 10 participants from the Dragon House and the top 5 participants from the Bird House. The top 2 PO’s from the Dragon House and top 1 PO from the Bird House are guaranteed spots in the final ranking and will again serve as PO’s.
In the event that we add the T-Rex House, we will take the top 8 from each of the Dragon and T-Rex Houses along with the top 5 from the Bird House (21 debaters). The top PO from each house will serve as the 3 PO’s.
In the event that we add the Raptor House, we will take the top 5 from each house (20 debaters). The top PO from each house = 4 PO’s will each serve 20 minutes.
SPAR: All debaters who do not make it to the Lava Bath will automatically be registered for the SPAR event. Competition will be simultaneous with the Lava Bath session.
Docket: We will use the UDCA legislation authored by participating schools.
http://www.utahdebatecoaches.org/Students/congress-legislation.
Congress participants shall bring their own copies of all legislation to the tournament.
Partial docket: (Additional legislation depends on participating schools gaining UDCA approval.)
Lava: Fertilizer from Food Waste, Med Marijuana, Free Day-care
Canyon View: Neonicotinoid pesticides, Gender Wage Gap, Lethal Force, Estate Tax, Recycled Plastic
Cedar: Public Domain
Debate should be approximately 30 minutes (or more) on each item.
Lava Bath will start with fresh priority/recency and docket (same legislation as above).
SPAR topics will be the same as the congress docket:
Awards:
Congress: Trophies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place.
Best PO: Trophy to Best Presiding Officer.
SPAR: Trophy for 1st Place.
Sweepstakes: 1st Place Trophy. Points are as follows: 5 points for each student in Lava Bath session. 1point per student every timeof advancing to next level of break rounds of SPAR.
Tie breaker will be PO rankings.
DEADLINES
Deadline to register students: 1/23 @ 5PM
Deadline to register judges: 1/23 @ 5PM
Deadline to Drop: 1 hour before the tournament (1/28 @ 8AM). Any drops later than this, contact Mary ASAP.
Deadline to order food: 1-12 @ 5PM COST IS FREE, but I need an estimated headcount
Judge and fee requirements are based off a count on 1/23 @ 5PM.
FEESMake checks payable to Lava Heights Academy
School Fee $25
Student Fee $4.00 per student
Lunchis free for ALLstudents, coaches, and judges. Lunch will be a sandwich, soup, and salad buffet.
Payable at check-in Saturday, based on registration numbers at Monday deadline.
We will not have concessions for sale. Please bring whatever snacks you need.
JUDGES
We will use online ballots.Judges must register in Tabroom.
Instructions on how to link judge/student entries to Tabroom: drive.google.com/file/d/1zLVCyHF2YLZkZr9E12jDeccJWrJTIvx5/view?usp=sharing
Judge requirementswill be calculated based off Debate numbers. 1 judge per school, an additional judge for every 5students or portion thereof. We need 3 judges in each house, 1 of whom must be parley. Talk with Mary about your judges, so we can prepare in advance. The deadline for judge entry is 5PM on 1/23. The traditional penalty of $15 per judge-forfeiture round will only apply if needed.
Judges training will be at 8:30a.m. on Saturday.
JUDGES for SPAR: Schools do NOT need to bring additional judges for SPAR.
Tabroom
I will have a physical tabroom location on campus with which I ask all coaches to assist.
All the ballots and tabulation for Congressional Debate will occur on the NSDA Tabroom website. However, PO, SPAR, and Sweeps will be tabulated on paper. Postings, also, will be on paper.
SCHEDULE
Saturday
8:30 AM Judge training
8:30 to 9:10 Check in
9:10 Opening Meeting
9:30 to 10:00 Read Orders of the Day and Select 8 different Presiding Officers.
10:00 to 12:00 Session 1
12:00 to 12:30 Lunch!Lava is providing EVERYONE (yes, including students)a lunch, no charge
12:30 to 2:30 Session 2
2:45 to 4:15 Lava Bath AND SPAR event
5:15 Awards
Tabroom
We have a single use bathroom beside our guy and gal bathrooms for anyone who prefers such.
PARKING
Our parking lot is extremely small, so please arrange a bus (consider sharing with other squads). If you cannot charter a bus or students insist on driving themselves, please advise them to use the church parking lot at 95 N Toquer Blvd and carpool up to our school. We apologize for this inconvenience.
ETHICS
Students should follow the NSDA Code of Honor and the new UDCA Code of Ethics. Encourage classiness and cleanliness from your kids and make sure they respect property by keeping areas clean, not touching classroom items, and staying out of rooms with no adults. Students in classrooms without adult will forfeit events for student and sweepstakes for team.
PROBLEMS
This is my first time hosting a tournament using Tabroom, so please be patient with me. For tournament related questions or concerns, please contact me atmary.thayer@rop.comor 435-319-4980 (I might not be able to answer the phone, so please text).
THANK YOU!
I hope to make this an annual event, so I ask that all student and adult participants fill out a feedback form including suggestions for improvement.