Dear colleagues,

The Lubbock High School Speech and Debate team is pleased to invite your team to our 2023 TFA Qualifying Tournament. Because we are unsure of our judge pool, our goal is to offer a small but competitive tournament. If we get closer to the tournament and find that we are doing well with judges, we’ll be happy to accommodate more entries. I’m optimistic that will happen as our parent volunteer base has been expanding.

As you begin to make plans to attend, please keep the following in mind:

Food: We plan to provide a concession stand for students with reasonably priced snacks and drinks. We are also offering meal cards for breakfast and lunch. You should be able to click on the "Concessions" tab and add them to your invoice. We'd appreciate your consideration of these options:

BREAKFAST CARD - $5 That card can be used at the Snack Bar in the dining hall for either (1) a 4 count Chick-n-Minis from Chick-Fil-A and a drink; (2) two donuts and a drink; or (3) a muffin and a drink.

LUNCH CARD - $10 The lunch card can be used at the Now We Taco'N food truck for one of the following meal choices: 3 tacos with chips and salsa and a drink 1 Burrito with chips and salsa and a drink Loaded Nachos and a drink Quesadilla with chips and salsa and a drink Protein Choices are beef, chicken, or pork. The nachos can be vegetarian upon request.

For coaches/judges, we’ll be offering a complimentary hospitality lounge that will provide some basic concession items plus a home-cooked meal option for lunch.

Judges: We are running this tournament as primarily a service to our regional forensics community; thus, we will not be charging judging fees. But here's the deal...every team must have an adult sponsor with them at all times and those adult sponsors have to be in the judging pool.

Please enter in whatever judging pool that seems to make the most sense based upon your team's entry numbers; however, keep in mind that we will be using coaches in a variety of different ways--especially in debate events. I realize that some may not feel qualified to judge this or that--or that they just don't like certain events as much as others; but in many cases, the choice in judge comes down to either a professional forensics educator or a parent judge who has never even heard of "CX" or "LD." We need you to help facilitate the tournament and provide the best educational experience possible for these students.

That said, EVERY school entered must provide--at a minimum--one judge who is available for any/every round of the tournament. If you do not have a judge entered into any of the judging pools, your entries may be excluded from the tournament. If we need you and cannot find you, you run the risk of having your team disqualified from the tournament. Also, if you can enter multiple judges, we’ll prioritize your school’s entries for admitting folks off the waitlist.

Having said all that, here is some tournament specific information.

Event patterns:

Debate: CX, LD, and congress (may not cross enter within this pattern and may not enter other patterns)

Pattern A: DI, Inf, POE, IX, DX, Duet (may enter 2 events within pattern, may only enter 1 extemp, may enter pattern B)

Pattern B: HI, OO, POI, Pro, Duo (may enter 2 events within this pattern, may enter Pattern A)

Please note: cross enter at your own risk; we'll instruct judges to be reasonable about waiting, but we will not let cross entries be a reason for running way behind schedule.

Debate: We’ll be using current TFA/NSDA resolutions.

CX Topic: The United States federal government should substantially increase fiscal redistribution in the United States by adopting a federal jobs guarantee, expanding Social Security, and/or providing a basic income.

LD Topic: The United States ought to prohibit the extraction of fossil fuels from federal public lands and waters.

We will break brackets in out-rounds of debate events.

LD will be flighted

Congress:

We will use the TFA Fall Docket.

Prelims: bills 1-5; Finals bills: 6-10

The pre-set order for prelims is: 4, 5, 2, 1, 3

We will use direct questioning.

Awards:

Team sweepstakes awards will be calculated as follows:

12 points- 1st place

10 points- 2nd place

8 points- 3rd place

6 points- 4th place

4 points- 5th place- 8th place

Sweepstakes will be awarded to the top three teams.

The top 6 entries in each speech events and congress will receive awards.

All semi-finalists and finalists in debate will receive awards

LHS Entry Notice: Pursuant to recent rules changes, Lubbock High will enter students in this tournament. We will limit entries to anyone on our team who has not already qualified for TFA state in any event and will be mindful to not crowd out anybody else from the tournament entry limits.

Internet Access: We will do our best to provide guest WiFI. It has worked well for many people, most of the time; but not for everybody all of the time. Come prepared with hotspots, the ability to work offline, etc. We will not feel a panic if for some reason WiFi is not available.

Tentative Schedule: We'll try to push things forward but reserve the right to fall behind

Registration 7:00-7:45

8:00: Extemp Draw

8:30:Round 1 Debate/ Pattern A RD1

9:00: Congress Prelims

10:30: Debate Round 2/ Pattern B RD1

12:00: Extemp Draw

12:30: Debate Round 3/ Pattern A RD2/semis

1:00: Congress Finals

2:30: LD and CX Outround 1/Pattern B RD 2/semis

4:30 or ASAP: LD and CX Outround 2/ Pattern A Finals

6:30 or ASAP: Remaining debate outrounds/Pattern B Finals

Pattern A: DI, Inf, POE, IX, DX, Duet

Pattern B: HI, OO, POI, Pro, Duo