Fees, Coverage, and Entry Procedures

ENTRY FEES AND GUIDELINES

ENTRY FEES

School Fee $75.00

Per Student Fee- $10.00

Congress- $30 per students

CX/Parli/Public Forum Teams $90.00

Lincoln-Douglas $60.00

Individual Events Slots $15.00 each.

Triathlon $15.00 (on top of entry fee)

Uncovered teams $225.00 each team (on top of entry fee)

Uncovered IEs $45.00 each slot (on top of entry fee)

Uncovered L/D $150.00 each entry (on top of entry fee)

FEE WAIVERS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON A CASE BY CASE BASIS

FEE ASSESSMENT

For transparency, some changes to add hospitality and care for students, judges, and coaches meant that our fees increased. Those hospitality include a lounge with coffee and snacks in the morning, lunch for students on Friday & Saturday, hired judges to provide relief from over-assignment, and hopefully another catered lunch for parents and coaches on Saturday. We understand that sometimes fees can be cumbersome but we hope your students and parents appreciate the hospitality adds. If the fees are too cumbersome, please contact us and we can discuss how to make the tournament accessible for you and your team.

Although we do not charge for adds or drops after the entry date. Fees will be assessed as of Wednesday, October 23^rd at Noon. This means that we will take drops and adds, but as of Wednesday at Noon, drops will not decrease your fees in order to best prepare for hiring judges. Adds will increase your fees. This is done so that we can properly hire and allocate judging for the weekend.

Drops for COVID-19 and requisite fees will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

ELIGIBILITY & DIVISIONS

As a high school invitational, student-competitors of high school programs shall be allowed to compete for their school/program with an appropriate chaperone. Students should compete for the school/program they attend. We will allow independent student entries as part of a school or program that is not already attending. However, independent student entries shall not be allowed if their school/program is already attending.

A competitor in Novice division is a competitor in their first two years of competition combined at either the middle-school or high-school level. However, any student who reached elimination rounds at either the CHSSA middle-school or high-school tournaments must enter senior division. Any competitor may enter Open division. A competitor who is a Junior or Senior with competitive experience prior to the current academic year must enter Open division. A Novice division competitor competing with a Open division partner must be entered in Open division. A Parliamentary debater must enter in Open division if they would normally be required to enter the Open division of CX, Extemp, or Impromptu under these guidelines.

JUDGES

Each school must provide adequate judging for their entries or entries may be randomly dropped. One (1) judge shall cover the following number of entries:

· 5 Congress entries (If you have more than 5 entries, you must bring one qualified parliamentarian as part of your judge obligation.

· 2 CX entries

· 2 LD entries

· 2 Parli Debate entries

· 2 PuFo Debate entries

· 5 Speech entries

We will be relying on judges brought by the high schools during a majority of rounds and will do our best to use the judges you have sign-up. A debate judge may cover either LD or Congress AND Parli, Public Forum, or CX. A judge covering two debate teams should be available to judge at least four preliminary rounds of debate. A judge covering six IE entries should be available to judge at least two preliminary rounds of individual events. Schools must provide judges for one full round beyond the elimination of their contestants from competitions—please remind the people you enter as judges.

What does this mean to you? A judge covering two debate teams will be expected to be present for both days of team debate. A judge covering six individual events will be expected to be present for both Saturday and Sunday elimination rounds.

Thus, if your judges are there on Saturday, and your team does not advance, we will STILL expect them to be there on Sunday for the elimination rounds. Concomitantly, if your student does not advance to the semi-final or the final round in individual events, the judge is still committed for Sunday because that is one round past elimination. Should your judge not be available all three days, we will credit your commitment for what time they are there and charge you for the remainder of your commitment.

ENTRY PROCEDURE & GUIDELINES

The tournament will use Speechwire.com for all entries. Entries should be completed by 11:00 PM on Tuesday, October 22, 2024. Drops and name changes (but no adds) can be made until Thursday, October 24, 2024. ALL FEES (judging and entry) will accrue as of Wednesday, October 23, 2024 at 12:00 PM NOON. Competitors may enter in both Debate and Speech events but are responsible for arriving to their rounds on time. Failure to do so could result in forfeiting a round. Competitors may only enter in a single debate event and may enter in NO MORE than three speech events. Competitors entered in Policy Debate may not enter in speech.

JUDGES- ENTRY AND EXPECTATIONS

1) Put full name and indicate what you intend for them to cover.

2) Provide email and phone number for each judge

3) A judge can cover LD Debate and EITHER CX or Parli/PoFo.

4) One judge also can cover up to six individual event or Duo slots per conflict pattern.

5) Also, indicate the events and days they can judge, and be sure to note any conflicts of interest or preferred divisions.

Example judge entries:

1) J. Doe, jdoe@gmail.com, 209-867-5309, Covering Parli and IE's, Available Saturday and Sunday, Prefers Open.

NOTE- The tournament will return to hiring judges for the weekend and may use qualified college students to judge speaking and/or debate events (qualifications pending). However, we would prefer schools cover their judging to minimize the amount of hiring and to keep fees low. We have tried to lower fees to accommodate schools and difficult moments for budget; however, the amount of uncovered fees has been increased to accommodate hired judging.

NOTE- We will be using digital ballots for ALL EVENTS so please make sure that your judges have a laptop, tablet, or cell phone they can use to access their ballot and record their results. We will have a few extra laptops for data entry but the tournament will move faster if we can quickly handle all judging responsibilities.