Hello coaches,

This is the invite for the Georgetown Fall Invitational 2025. This will be an ONLINE event hosted on the NSDA Campus.

The Georgetown Fall Tournament is a Gold Bid at the finals level to the Tournament of Champions in Public Forum.

Divisions and Resolutions:

The tournament will offer a wide range of PF divisions along with Novice and JV LD

The September-October topics will be used in all divisions.

Debaters may “debate up.” For instance, a 2^ndyear high school debaters may debate in the varsity division. Debaters may not “debate down.” If you are in your 3^rdyear, you may not debate in the JV or Novice division. Teams of two debaters with different years of experience must debate to the level of the debater with the most experience. For example, a team that is made up of a 4^-yearhigh school student and a 2-year high school student must debate in varsity.

LD

L-D Novice will use the mandatory national service topic

JV LD will use the September-October L-D topic.

Policy

Policy will use the 2025-6 Policy topic (Arctic)

Clubs, Independent Entries, Mavericks, and Chaperone info:

Maverick entries will be accepted in all divisions. Mavericks are not eligible for bids.

Hybrid teams (debaters from 2 different schools) will be allowed.

Club teams will be allowed. They may debate in all divisions. Club teams will be allowed to break and compete in elims. Club teams are ineligible for bids, but they may compete in the semis and finals if they make it to those rounds.

All teams must have an adult who is supervising their teams during the tournament. This adult does not need to be physically with the teams, but they must be contactable by the tournament staff. This adult can’t be a current high school student from any institution. Teams found to not have an adult chaperone may be removed from the tournament.

Debate and tournament times:

PF will use the standard 4-4-3-4-4-3-3-3-3-2-2 time format with 4 MINUTES of in-round prep time.

LD will use the standard 6-3-7-3-4-6-3 time format with 5 MINUTES of in-round prep time.

Debaters and judges are expected to be in their online rooms 15 minutes before the round starts. Rounds are expected to start no more than 15 minutes after the blasted start time. Should a team not show up by the 15 minute mark, they will forfeit the round.

The tournament will allow 10 minutes of emergency tech time should a student’s computer or network/internet connection fail.

Schedule:

Policy Schedule -- High School

Friday

5pmR1
7:30 R2Saturday
10am R3
1PM R4
5PM R5
8PM FINALS

To complete the tournament in 2 days, we will just advance the top two teams in each division to finals, but all students with 3-2 records will receive certificates

Policy Schedule -- Middle School

MS students are also welcome to debate in the high school division, but we are making this option available.

10am R1
1PM R2
5PM R3

Awards will be given to the top 50% of entries.

The fee for this division is $75

Judging:

As Georgetown is an early season tournament, we expect that there will be a lot of new judges. Please read the information here. It is the obligation of every coach to convey this information to their judges.

Middle school students, regardless of their experience, may not judge.

For MS PF, any high school student with at least 1 year of high school debate experience may judge.

For Novice High School PF, any high school student with at least 2 years of debate experience may judge.

For JV and Varsity High School PF, only adults that have left high school may judge.

This tournament does not use the “round” method of obligation. The retirement is 1 judge for every 2 teams or debaters (in the case of LD) or part thereof.

For example:

2 MS PF teams, 3 HS Novice PF teams, 1 JV team, and 1 Varsity team will need 1 MS judge, 2 Novice PF judges, and 1 JV/Varsity judge.

All judges are obligated for Friday and Saturday (full days). Judges of teams that are in the last elim round on Saturday will be obligated for Sunday morning.

The tournament and the tabroom are not responsible for informing judges of their obligations. Questions such as “When am I done?” or “Why do I need to judge on Saturday?” should be handled by the coach in-charge of the program that brought you.

Judges that request rounds off must submit their requests through the coach that brought them. Be aware that these requests may trigger a fee.

It is the obligation of each school to provide a quality and trained PF judge. This includes information on the event, how to use Tabroom’s Online Ballot system, and how to use NSDA Campus.

The tournament will provide a video on how to use Tabroom and how to judge: Links can be found here (Links coming soon).

During the tournament, the tab staff and tournament admins will be busy running the tournament. They will not be able to answer questions about judging or Tabroom/Campus on the day of the tournament or once the tournament has started.

Judges that do not meet the requirements of Tabroom/Campus use or are unfamiliar and untrained in the event that they are judging may be removed and their school charged a hired judge fee, or their teams may be removed from the tournament if there the judge pool drops below the minimum.

Fees:

School Fee: $75 per school

PF Entry fee: $135 per team.

LD Entry fee: $100 per debater.

Policy: $135 per team

Elementary Public Speaking entry: $60

Hired judge fee: $200 per team that needs covered. 3 teams needing judges would need to hire 3 judges at $600.

Missed round fee: $200 per round.

If you have any questions about the tournament, please contact Stefan Bauschard at

Stefan.Bauschard@gmail.com.

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The elementary public speaking competition is open to students in grades 3-6.

To compete, students need to provide a video that meets the criteria below that is 4:30-5 minutes in length. In the video, the students should present a persuasive case for anything they wish (later start to school, school uniforms, paying student athletes, homework ban, etc).

Students may use note cards (paper or electronic) to do the speech.

These videos will only be seen by the judges and will be deleted at the conclusion of the scoring.

Each video will be scored by 3 judges. The judges will provide written feedback and numerical scores.

An awards assembly will be held at 5pm on Sunday to announce the winners. Winners need not be present.

The $60 entry fee includes the judging cost.

There will be two divisions -- grades 3/4 and 5/6.

1. Content (30 points)

• Clear Persuasive Goal (10 pts): Speech has a clear thesis or main idea, with arguments designed to convince the audience.

• Logical Organization (10 pts): Introduction grabs attention, body presents 2–3 clear reasons with evidence/examples, conclusion reinforces the main point.

• Relevance & Creativity (10 pts): Topic is age-appropriate, interesting, and shows original thinking or personal connection.

2. Delivery (30 points)

• Voice & Expression (10 pts): Clear articulation, good volume, varied tone, and pacing appropriate for audience engagement.

• Eye Contact & Body Language (10 pts): Looks up from notes regularly, uses natural gestures, and stands confidently.

• Audience Awareness (10 pts): Keeps audience interested with enthusiasm, avoids monotone, uses pauses for effect.

3. Language & Style (20 points)

• Word Choice (10 pts): Language is vivid, persuasive, and age-appropriate; avoids fillers (“um,” “like”).

• Fluency (10 pts): Sentences flow smoothly, transitions link ideas, minimal awkward pauses.

4. Use of Notes (10 points)

• Effective Use (10 pts): Notes are used as a prompt, not read word-for-word; speaker maintains connection with audience.

5. Time Management (10 points)

• Within Time Limit (10 pts): Speech is close to 5 minutes (±30 seconds), shows good planning and rehearsal.