Tournament announcement doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11vuEGpPAhtAZEUEXSE-BJvAbl91k7BT7falMZBZ-yvs/edit?usp=sharing

Important Tournament Announcements will be posted at https://www.facebook.com/ParliDebateAtBerkeley.

Please check frequently.

Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us for the 2017 National Parliamentary Debate Invitational!

There are important announcements in this email; please forward to competitors and judges. Please read through the entire email, because there are a number of action items to complete. I will also be sending out another email this week with more detailed information on registration and other tournament logistics, so please watch out for that. 

1. [URGENT] UPDATES TO NECESSARY MINOR FORMS

There has been a change in the university's requirements for forms that minors must provide upon registration. Please ensure that both forms listed below are filled out and submitted prior to the start of the tournament.

Teams without the necessary forms will not be eligible to compete. 

PLEASE SEND IN FORMS TO CALPARLI@GMAIL.COM RATHER THAN BRINGING THEM TO REGISTRATION. While we will still accept forms the morning of, there is a very large chance that checking all of them that morning will make us late for round 1, particularly with this large of a field. Especially with the change in forms, it is extremely important that we can catch any problems ahead of time to make sure we don't have to drop anyone the morning of. 

ALL COMPETITORS MUST COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING FORMS:

a. Parents must sign a medical release form that authorizes the University to provide medical assistance in case of an emergency. If you are a coach and your students have filled out another form with the equivalent emergency/medical information (e.g. for the school or district), you may provide a copy of that form instead. Please send any equivalent forms to calparli@gmail.com in advance to ensure it will meet our requirements. 

This form can be found at http://riskservices.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/AuthorizationConsentTreatmentMinor.pdf. 

b. All minors must also have their parents sign a liability waiver for the University. Please sign and return the form located at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BygBaFsoijTMNU1ZcXJiZnc5Vjg/view?usp=sharing.

Failure to provide necessary forms will result in the competitors being dropped from the tournament. Any relevant drop fees will apply.

2. TOURNAMENT REGISTRATION 

a. Registration will be held in the lobby of Dwinelle Hall. Please make checks payable to Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley. We are hoping to host the tournament primarily within Dwinelle Hall and Wheeler Hall, although we may have to use rooms in the Valley Life Sciences Building as well.  

b. Due to the large amount of late registration changes that have been requested, as well as various mistakes that were made during the registration process that we had to fix, all teams should check their registration on Tabroom and make sure that there are no errors regarding judge or team entries. If there are any errors, let us know by Friday, November 10 at 6PM PST so that we can make the necessary changes.  

c. Please make your checks out to "Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley." We will be accepting checks or cash at registration on the first day of the tournament. We will have invoices ready for each school. If you need an invoice in advance, please email calparli@gmail.com 

3. OPEN JUDGE PREFS

Open division judge prefs for the tournament will open midnight tonight (12AM November 9) and are due Friday, November 10, at 7:00 PM PST. We're using mutually preferred judging with a ranking range from 1-4, as well as offering strikes and conflicts. Philosophies should be available on Tabroom, and instructions for how to complete this should be relatively straightforward, and are available directly on Tabroom. 

If there are any questions, please email: calparli@gmail.com

The topic area for this year's National Parliamentary Debate Invitational at Berkeley, which will be used in 2 of the 5 preliminary rounds, will be:

US tech policy

NPDI's topics and topic area are developed by a group primarily consisting of UC Berkeley students and alumni. This year's committee, headed by Parli at Berkeley Directors Charlene Jin and Trevor Greenan, included Alice Lin, Tom Kadie, Brian Yang, Sheelah Bearfoot, Isabella Riezler and Adrian Tang. 

The National Parliamentary Debate Invitational at Berkeley

November 11 - 12, 2017

Hosted at the University of California, Berkeley, CA

Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley cordially invites you to participate in the fall semester’s premier parliamentary debate tournament: The National Parliamentary Debate Invitational at Berkeley on November 11 and 12, at the University of California, Berkeley.

The tournament will feature an open division and a junior varsity division with each division guaranteed five preliminary rounds. All open division rounds will be adjudicated by individuals holding a background in high school and/or college parliamentary debate. Following the conclusion of each round will be a constructive oral RFD of no more than 15 minutes in length and disclosure of the victor. This tournament places a premium on providing a unique educational experience for all participants.

There will be one topic area, released on or around October 27, that will be used for two of the preliminary rounds. We will also be disclosing topic committee membership at this point. Both announcements will be released here, as well as on the Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley Facebook page listed above. 

The tournament reserves the right to collapse the open and junior varsity divisions if required by tournament logistics.

The tournament will break to up to a full or partial double-octafinals elimination round. We will break brackets based on school affiliation. The tournament reserves the right to adapt the amount or structure of elimination rounds if required by tournament logistics.

We will also be hosting a mandatory equity forum during lunch on Saturday, discussing issues of bias, micro-aggressions and harassment in the community.

Casual attire is permitted for students, although formal attire is equally welcome.

Junior Varsity Eligibility: Debaters are considered eligible to compete in the junior varsity division if they have no more than two years of debate experience.

Judge Requirements: Each school will be required to provide 1 qualified judge for every two entries or fraction thereof. A single open-qualified judge can cover both an open and a JV entry.

Open:

A qualified judge is at least a high school graduate or equivalent AND a coach or former open debater. Experience in debate events outside of parliamentary debate is accepted. Any questions about what characterizes a qualified judge should be directed to calparli@gmail.com. 

JV:

Anyone who satisfies above Open requirements, in addition to those who are at least a high school graduate or equivalent.

ALL judges will be required to provide a paradigm by November 9 and are highly encouraged to give an oral Reason For Decision after the round. Schools who have difficulty meeting these requirements should contact us at calparli@gmail.com. Fee breaks and exceptions will be made on a per-case basis.

Additionally, due to delays caused by ballot distribution in the past, we are requiring that ALL JUDGES have individual Tabroom accounts set up prior to the tournament, and the tournament will be transitioning to only online ballots this year.

Schools will be charged $25 for every judge without an individual (non-teamwide) Tabroom account linked to their judge entry at the start of the tournament. This does not apply to teams that have hired judges. Please email calparli@gmail.com for any questions about this.

Judge Fee: Schools may choose to pay a hired judge fee of $200 per uncovered entry.

Judge Penalty: If a team's judge misses a round, the team will be charged $50 for each missed round. This does not apply to teams that have hired judges.

Tournament Fees: The cost of competing in the 2017 NPDI will be $110 per entry.

Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley is firmly committed to expanding accessibility of debate. If this fee is financially prohibitive, please contact us at calparli@gmail.com. We tend to be very generous, but we cannot help you if you do not contact us first. We expect that any team receiving a fee break will cover their entries with qualified judges.

Please make your checks out to "Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley." We will be accepting checks or cash at registration on the first day of the tournament. We will have invoices ready for each school. If you require an invoice before the first day of the tournament, please contact us no later than 11/3 with the date you need the invoice sent to you. Please ensure that all entries and judges are finalized before requesting an invoice.

Any drops after 11/5 will be assessed the full entry fees. The entry limit per school is 6 entries per division; if for whatever reason you feel like an exception should be made, please email calparli@gmail.com.

Location: All rounds will take place on the UC Berkeley campus. Specific campus locations will be provided when available. We anticipate that all or nearly all rounds this year will be held in Dwinelle Hall, Wheeler Hall, and the Valley Life Sciences Building

Parking: Parking is available in several structures near campus for a fee. Please see http://pt.berkeley.edu/parking/visitor for details. On Sunday, street meters are not enforced; so street parking is free and highly recommended.

Food: Food is available for purchase at multiple locations both on and off the UC Berkeley campus. Breakfast and lunch will be provided for coaches and judges.

Lodging: There are several hotel options in Berkeley, including:

·        Hotel Durant (walking distance) 2600 Durant Avenue Berkeley, California 510-845-8981

·        The Shattuck Hotel (walking distance) 2086 Allston Way Berkeley, California 510-845-7300

·        Best Western Inn (10 min drive) 920 University Avenue Berkeley, CA 94710 510-849-1121

·        Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites (10 min. drive) 1175 University Avenue Berkeley, CA 94702 510-548-1700

·        The Double Tree Hotel at the Marina (15 min drive) 200 Marina Boulevard Berkeley, California 510-548-7920

Hotels outside Berkeley:

·        Emeryville Courtyard Mariott (15 min drive) 5555 Shellmound St, Emeryville - (510) 652-8777

·        Richmond Courtyard Mariott (20 min drive). 3150 Garrity Way Richmond, California 94806 USA. 510-262-0700

Required Forms for Minors:

If you are under the age of 18, two forms are required to attend.

1) ALL minors must sign and return a medical release form that authorizes the University to provide medical assistance in case of an emergency. If you are a coach and your students have filled out another form with the equivalent emergency/medical information (e.g. for the school or district), you may provide a copy of that form instead.

This form can be found at http://riskservices.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/AuthorizationConsentTreatmentMinor.pdf.

2) Minors without a district-approved chaperone (e.g. independents/hybrids) must have their parents sign a liability waiver for the University. Please sign and return the form located at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BygBaFsoijTMNU1ZcXJiZnc5Vjg/view?usp=sharing.

You may turn in both forms when you check in on the first day of the tournament. However, for the sake of tournament efficiency, we highly encourage teams to send scanned copies of the forms to calparli@gmail.com prior to registration. Failure to provide necessary forms will result in the competitors being dropped from the tournament. Any relevant drop fees will apply.

Rules:

1. Almost anything goes regarding prep materials. Printed materials, laptops, phones, internet, they are all allowed. However, only handwritten notes are allowed in round. Debaters may not utilize handwritten notes in round that were prepared prior to the round’s topic announcement. However, debaters may utilize any handwritten notes prepared prior to the round during the round’s 20 minutes of prep time. All handwritten notes written prior to a round’s topic announcement that are to be used in that round must be transposed, by hand, onto a new sheet of paper. Use of handwritten notes, in round, that were composed prior to the topic announcement of a round may lead to the forfeiture of the round.

2. Debaters may only prep with their partners. There is no team prep or coach prep.

3. Speech times for all rounds will be 7-7-7-7-5-5

4. There is no protected time in any speech.

5. No new arguments may be made in the rebuttal speeches.

6. POOs are allowed in rebuttals. POOs will stop time.

Past Results:

NPDI I

September 8-9, 2012

Bishop O'Dowd High School, Oakland, California

Champions: Saratoga Agrawal & Chiang

Finalists: Bishop O'Dowd Accinelli & Perl

NPDI II

November 16-17, 2013

Bishop O'Dowd High School, Oakland, California

Champions: Dougherty Valley Konath & Wang

Finalists: Bishop O'Dowd Walsh & Zepeda

NPDI III

November 15-16

University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Champions: Dougherty Valley Bhargava & Ziaee

Finalists: Sonoma Academy Maciorowski & Kornfein

NPDI IV

November 14-15

University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Champions: Evergreen Valley Abushama & Cochinwala

Finalists: Campolindo Hanvey & Moore

NPDI V

November 12-13

University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Champions: Sonoma Academy Kornfein & Saxena

Finalists: Evergreen Valley Zielinski & Shukla

Tentative Schedule, subject to change:

Saturday, November 11

8:00 AM—9:00 AM                Registration

9:00 AM                                  Topic Announcement, Round 1, Flight 1

9:55 AM                                  Topic Announcement, Round 1, Flight 2

11:30 AM                                Topic Announcement, Round 2, Flight 1

12:25 PM                                Topic Announcement, Round 2, Flight 2

1:30 PM—3:15 PM                 Equity Forum/Lunch

3:15 PM                                  Topic Announcement, Round 3, Flight 1

4:10 PM                                  Topic Announcement, Round 3, Flight 2

6:00 PM                                  Topic Announcement, Round 4, Flight 1

6:55 PM                                  Topic Announcement, Round 4, Flight 2

Sunday, November 12

8:00 AM                                   Topic Announcement, Round 5, Flight 1

8:55 AM                                   Topic Announcement, Round 5, Flight 2

10:45 AM                                 Topic Announcement, Elim 1

12:15 PM—1:30 PM                Lunch (POI Foundation League Meeting will be held at this time)

1:30 PM                                   Topic Announcement, Elim 2

3:30 PM                                   Awards

4:00 PM                                   Topic Announcement, Elim 3

5:30 PM                                   Topic Announcement, Elim 4

7:00 PM                                   Topic Announcement, Elim 5