Har-Ber Speaker Series

    February 17-18, 2017        

Dear Coach,

You and your team are invited to 1^st Annual Har-Ber High School Speaker Series on February 17-18, 2017.  We are hoping to offer an efficient, exciting, and educational experience.  One with lots of new features 

We will be offering Finalist, Sweepstakes, and speaker trophies for all events offered.    Deadline for entries is Friday, February 10, 2017. Registration opens on January 9, 2017.  There will be no refund for any team who drops after the deadline. There will be a $10 penalty for any drop after this time. There will also be a $20 uncovered judge fee.  You must bring a qualified judge for every 2 debate teams entered and a qualified judge for every 10 IE’s entered. Please register debate teams as novice or champ, depending on entries divisions maybe collapsed.  This will be determined and shared with coaches on the Friday before competition.

We will have Lincoln Douglas, Public Forum, IPDA, World Schools Debate, The Big Question, Extemp, and Original Oratory.  We will be offering World Schools, Big Question, and the two I.E. Events on Friday night so that if your students don’t advance they can participate in the other forms of debate.  With that being said you will not be able to double enter on Friday evening.  However, on Saturday if you break in either World Schools or Big Question, and are scheduled to compete in any other form of debate your rounds will not be held for you, you will have to make a choice.

Please register through tabroom.com at http://.harber.tabroom.com.    All judges will want to create a tabroom account so that they may enter their ballots.  They can also sign up for live updates and it will text them every time they have a round coming up.  In addition students can do the same thing and you can link them by adding there email address.  We will have all students on school campus before school is dismissed.  Please have your buses drop you at our Performing Arts Complex beginning at 3 pm.  We will have them park in our south lot as soon as you are dropped off to avoid any congestion with our school traffic at 4pm.  We will have a general meeting starting at 3:30 pm.  There will be a judges meeting at 3:30 pm and rounds will start at 4:30 pm.  All World Schools topics will be prepared topics and will be released on January 14^th.  We will use the yearly topic for Big Question and using the new time formant.  LD and PF will be collapsed. 

Concessions will be provided in the Cafeteria Friday evening and Saturday.  We would appreciate your business!  Costs will be kept to a minimum.  We do ask that you tell your students NOT to take food into classrooms.  A coach’s/driver’s lounge will be provided as well.  We will be trying a few new things with this tournament.  In an effort to be more efficient and environmentally friendly ballots will be done online so all judges will need access to either a smart phone or a laptop computer.  Once onsite you will be allowed to register online and make changes to your entry for drops.  You can also register in person.  Specifics will be discussed during the judges/coaches meeting.  We will also be doing awards before the semis and finals round of debate, so sweeps will be based on prelim performance.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at jbrown8@sdale.org or 870-460-5451.

Thanks,

Joel Brown

Har-Ber High School

Debate/Forensics/Oral Communication