Greetings all!

We’re VERY excited to host this event and to provide a great day for everyone!

LOTS of details below. Please actually read them and pass this info on to ALL of your people attending. Hopefully this answers many potential questions and maybe generates a few more that I missed. There may be a quiz later.

(I tried to put this all in a semi-logical order)

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

Registration and Judge Check-in: 7:00-7:45 AM
BC/DC/EX Prep: 8:00 (Prep rooms as listed)

Judge Meeting and Contestant Meeting: 8:00 AM (location TBD, will be announced)

Round 1:8:30
Round 2:10:00
Round 3:11:30

Semis:2:30 (ASAP)
Finals:4:30 (ASAP)
Awards: 6:30

School/Contestant Codes – CURRENT School and contestant codes are going to be changed/re-done because tabroom.com hates logic. PLEASE do not give your students their current codes. All entries will be re-coded after registration closes and you will be notified when they are finalized.

*PLEASE DOUBLE-CHECK YOUR ENTRY AND MAKE SURE YOUR STUDENTS IN INFORMATIVE and DUO are in the correct divisions – 11^th/12^th graders should be in the OPEN category. All others should be in the 9/10 Division for these events.

Drops/Adds/Changes – While any ADDS need to be processed manually by me, you can still make DROPS and JUDGE changes yourself until 8PM Wednesday night. Any/all change requests after that should be Emailed as soon as they occur. In addition please TEXT notice of the change to me directly and immediately as I don’t check my 4n6 email often when I’m at work during the day and ANY changes can have unforeseeably *significant* ripple effects.

WEATHER – We will NOT plan to cancel the event under any weather or other circumstances. Travel concerns may require school entry drops but ALL fees *and* JUDGE COMMITMENTS are frozen Wednesday night at 8PM. Please contact me ASAP if you foresee issues for your own program..

Auburn Elementary School – We will likely be using the neighboring 2^nd building for some event PRELIMS only this year. It is a 30 second walk from the high school.

Food – We will NOT be providing concessions for lunch for students/spectators. We have built in an extra 30 minutes into the lunch break for teams to make arrangements. Teams will have full use of the cafeteria seating area to provide dining for their people. A list of the many local restaurants and fast-food options will be provided to facilitate this.

Local restaurant list: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oX8JQQ2JAQraHqmFMrJ1zxzHnFbIzjk3JzeMGSMZ82k/edit?usp=sharing

Water Filling Stations – All participants/judges/etc are recommended to bring their own water bottle to the event to take advantage of the filling stations all around the school. Bottled water will not likely be provided for judges.

Performance masking – No overall mask requirements are being enforced for this tournament. Judges will be instructed to provide appropriate consideration for any students who have health concerns and do choose to perform masked without any penalty.

Postings – We will post printed copies for semis/finals outside the Tab room for judges and near the cafeteria for students as well as ‘blasted’ Tabroom.com alerts. If the tech works.

Spectators – While we are NOT restricting outside spectators from attending the tournament we do have some restrictions in place for Semis and Finals. In order to provide controlled crowd numbers for these rounds EACH student qualifier for Elim rounds may select up to 3 designated spectators for their round. This should ensure a balanced audience and prevent over-crowding in our small classrooms. If you want to watch an elim, you’ll have to make a friend! Additional seating may be available in some events that we can schedule in our handful of larger available rooms

WiFi – There will be a Ninjatational-specific SSID available at both buildings for internet access. I should have that information before Friday and will distribute it appropriately.

Limited Prep prompts – overall theme of Eastern Philosophy/Religion/Culture/Sociology
Extemp: – Each round will have a set of questions from one of these general areas: Domestic issues, International issues, Michigan Matters, Politics, and a round of Potpourri (mix of Science/Health/Sports/Culture/etc) – questions are being written by a group of former MIFA Extemp Finalists/Champions from numerous different programs.
Impromptu: Prompts will include 3 Quotes, 1 Editorial Cartoon, 1 Debate Resolution following the overall tournament theme.
Duo Commentary: Prompts follow the overall theme and will be similar in format to above
Broadcasting: Provided Editorial stories will be ~200 words or less and cover a variety of topic areas.

As always your best source for any LP sample material is the page at http://themifa.org/ie-resources under LIMITED PREP PRACTICE MATERIALS. Past Ninjatational prompts from previous years are on there and serve as a good reference point (last couple years may be missing, you’ll have to go back to 2018/prior but it may help your kids to see them.

Awards – Having examined the numbers and the facilities we have decided that we will have a full Awards Ceremony in the Theater for all participants and coaches/judges/etc. that want to attend. We have awards for top-6 in each event as well as Team Sweepstakes trophies in 3 divisions.

(TO come later: Maps, Schematics, Judging Assignments … other stuff… Tbd)

JUDGE SPECIFIC:

IF YOU ARE STILL IN NEED OF A HIRED JUDGE FOR YOUR ENTRY CONTACT ME ASAP

Any/all Judge preferences or requests are welcome and should be submitted before 8PM on Wednesday night. PLEASE enter Judge preferences in their “Registration notes” on their profile on Tabroom.com *or* email them to me.

PRECLUSIONS: IF your judge has worked with students or has strong connections to other participating schools/students PLEASE communicate that ASAP. Saturday morning is WAY TOO LATE.

Ballots/Critiques – although the tournament IS being run/scored on Tabroom.com, Judges will use printed paper ballots to score the rounds and will have the OPTION of using provided paper critiques OR using digital commenting on tabroom.com, whatever works best for them. Judges are responsible for their own technology, timing devices, and timecards always for all events.

Rules/Resources - All judges should be familiar with current Speech Activities rules and the details contained on the ballots specific to their event(s). All info available at http://www.themifa.org/speech-activities-rules.html and http://www.themifa.org/ie-resources.html should be familiar to a Judge who wants to be considered “qualified” to adjudicate the Ninjatational (or any other IE tournament tbh)

Judge Lounge - There will be numerous tables set up In the large hallway outside of the Tab room on Saturday to serve as the “Judge Lounge” to provide an open environment throughout the day. Lunch will be provided for all judges and Tab staff and served in an adjacent area.

Judge Meeting – Judges and Coaches will be provided with their assignments and schematic Friday evening. Please make sure they review these for issues/concerns and are familiar with their assigned events PRIOR to arriving Saturday morning to help streamline the onsite meetings.

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SO… what did I miss? What did I get wrong? Thoughts? Opinions? Concerns? Issues? Let me know and maybe Win a prize!