Invitation

Dear CFL moderator,

In this letter you will find information about the CFL high school national qualifiers for this year.

(Middle Schools should check past emails and/or the NCFL website (www.ncfl.org) using the National Tournament tab.)

Date:
Saturday March 7
Speech, Debate, Congress

Place:
Fox Chapel HS
611 Field Club Road
Pittsburgh PA 15238

Times:

Registration 7:45 - 8:15 (debate schools register early!)
(Please be sure to pick up your wrist bands forany personconnected to your team who may need to enter the building. The Fox Chapel School District security has made this request and will be checking it throughout the day!)

Tentativeschedule!!

Judges’ Meeting8:30 - 8:45 -- or as soon as all schools are registered

SenatePrelims8:30 - 11:45

Debate Round I8:15 - subsequent rounds announced by the tabroom staff

Extemp Draw8:30

Round I9:00

Round II10:00

Round III11:00

Senate Super Session­­ ­­­­­­12:30 - 3:00

Lunch11:30 – 1:00

Speech Finals1:00- 3:00

Announcements/Awards4:00

Lunch:
Lunch tickets must be ordered by Monday March 2..Please remember that you cannot leave the campus to buy lunch, so plan accordingly. ALL schools need to completethis lunch form, even if you are not planning on purchasing a lunch!

Registration: Four (4) entries per category for all events

PLEASE REMEMBER -

1.there are no adds on the day of the competition

2.fees are assessed as of Friday, March 6 Noon – any drops after that time are expected to pay the registration fee

Fees: School fee: $10.00 per school

$6.00/person (duo, public forum, policy debate teams $12.00)

Judges
:Speech - 1 for every 4 slots or fraction thereof

Debate - 1 for 1 or 2 contestants or teams; 2 for 3 or 4 contestants or teams

Congress - 1 for 6

Names of judges are to accompany the registration. Judges areexpected to judge all events and are required to have prior experience.

Judges must be available for the entire day.

All tabbing will be online. Please be sure that your judges have a Tabroom account and are linked through their email accounts.

A school is assessed $25.00 per missed round per judge.If a student from the judge’s school qualifies for Nationals, that fee must be paid by April 1 in order for that student to attend the national tournament. If unpaid, the student ranked in the next position will take the original student’s place.

LD Debate:The NSDA March topic will be used.

PF Debate:The NSDA March topic will be used.

Deadlines:
Registration and judges’ names should be submitted online atwww.tabroom.com THURSDAY MARCH 5 - 5:00 PM.
Fees can be paid when checking in on the day of the tournament.

***Any school intending to enter the senate must submit at leastone bill or resolution by Thursday February 26on Tabroom.Legislationshould be submitted electronically as a Word attachmentusing the template posted atwww.ncfl.organd uploaded to Tabroom.com. Because the complete set of bills and resolutions will be posted on Tabroom (www.tabroom.com) on Saturday February 28, this is an absolute deadline!

CHECKS SHOULD BE MADE PAYABLE TO “Pittsburgh CFL”

Please check your copy of theNCFLconstitution for questions concerning events. These rules apply at this qualifier. (Please note: Check the national website if you are uncertain about a rule!)

We recently decided to allow double entries in speech events. These can occur in all eventsexceptextemp, congress, and any of the debates. Essentially that means that there are 5 speech events where double entries are permitted. Double entries count as part of your quota in each event where a student/team is double entered. If you have any double entries, please be sure to complete the form that can be found on this Tabroom website and bring it to registration on Saturday 3/7. Please note, there are signatures involved, so you need to do this before the submission deadline. (8:15 AM on 3/7)

In LD and PF there will be 2 random rounds, and 2 high-low paired rounds. After that the top 8 students will be bracketed; winners of that bracket advance to nationals. Losers of that bracket will debate again; winners of the second bracket advance to nationals; losers are the alternates. PHSSL tie-breakers will be used in all debates to determine the winners.

In CX, if there are fewer than 10 entries there will be 3 random rounds of competition. If there are 10 or more entries, then there will run 2 random rounds, and then a bracket (as described above) will be created and applied.

In IE, the first 3 rounds are paired randomly (except for OI). After 3 rounds, the top two contestants in each speech event will automatically advance to nationals. The next 6 contestants will compete in a final round; after that round, the top 4 contestants will advance to nationals, and the 5^thand 6^thplaces will be alternates. PLEASE NOTE – in OI we will have four random rounds with 2 judges in rounds 3 and 4.

Because of the use of Tabroom software, there is a need for fewer people in the tab room than in past years. Therefore, the diocesan CFL committee will run the tournament, but we will run this as on open tab room (head coaches are welcome to be in the tab room but will not be involved in tabbing unless we seem to be short-staffed). Some head coaches may be asked to assume various tasks necessary for running the tournament: prep room coordinator, ombudsman, etc.

Thanks to all of you who joined the League this year; because of your involvement, we are able to take six entries in each category to high school nationals in Washington DC this year!

The Pittsburgh CFL