Hello, and welcome to our annual in person UIL speech and debate tournament at Melissa High School! On behalf of our Speech & Debate Director, Brenden Dimmig, and UIL Academic Coordinator and Fine Arts Dean, Kyle Brenner, we'd like to welcome you to the 11th annual Melissa Fall UIL Cardinal Classic!

Judges:

-ALL judges should be entered into the tournament on the judge deadline. Please make sure that your judges are trained and know the events. While we will accept judge swaps the day of the tournament, this does NOT include entering in judges at last minute.

-The tournament spends a lot of money on hiring high quality judges. As such, please make sure that you have entered in someone by the judging deadline.

-Judges (hired or school judges) are expected at the tournament ALL day. This has been the norm in the activity for decades. Thus, please make sure that your judges know to be at the tournament all day unless released by one of the contest directors (Kyle or Brenden).

-Judges with no experience should be communicated with Brenden or Kyle. Please remember, this is an educational activity. As such, we want to provide students with the most robust feedback possible.

Linking Judges and Competitors: ALL students and judges must be linked to their tabroom amount so that they can access their ballots post-tournament, receive text messages and emails during the tournament regarding where to go, and so that their coaches can look at ballots during and after the rounds are complete. As such, please make sure that your students are linked to their tabroom accounts.

Here is a video to help you link your students to their accounts:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YNrHUweRPA&feature=youtu.be

Congress Docket: We will be using the TFA docket. We will be debating items 20-25 in prelims (round 1) and 25-30 in finals.

LD: We will be hosting both NSDA LD, and UIL LD. Please make sure that you have clicked on the correct LD tab whenever you are registering your students.

NSDA I.E Events: We will also be hosting all NSDA I.E. Events.

Contacts: You can contact myself (lawrencedimmig@melissaisd.org) or Kyle Brenner (kbrenner@melissaisd.org).

Hospitality: Hospitality will be set up in Brenden's classroom, located in lecture hall A130.

Rooms: All rooms will be located in the academic tower. Depending on the size of the tournament, we may expand to the portables. There will be someone with an elevator badge near every elevator to help those get on them.

Judging Form: PLEASE be advised, that even if you fill out the judge form online, this does NOT guarantee hire. Brenden, Kyle, and/or Julian will reach out about this at some point to you. If you have any questions and haven't heard back, please send Brenden an email inquiring about judging (lawrencedimmig@melissaisd.org).