Grapevine Classic
2021 — NSDA Campus, US
Grapevine Classic Tournament Guidelines
33rd Annual Grapevine Classic Guide
General Guidelines
*Ballots will be ONLINE through Tabroom.com. All coaches, competitors, and judges will need to create a Tabroom.com (free) account to participate in the tournament.
*Postings for all rounds will be blasted.
*An adult sponsor (authorized by the school) must be in attendance at all times either by:
- Teams with in-person entries : being physically present on the Grapevine campus
- Teams with just virtual entries : judging at the tournament virtually or waiting in the virtual designated judging pool.
- Teams with both in-person and virtual entries : an adult in charge of the team (either the coach or a school approved chaperone) must be physically present on the Grapevine campus
*All written manuscripts for Oratory and Informative Speaking must be available upon request
*All typed cuttings and physical copies of sources for all Interpretation events must be available upon request.
*Any team or competitor that is more than 15 minutes late to their round will forfeit that round with zero speaker points. Exceptions will be made for those who are late due to tournament error.
*We will accelerate the schedule when possible – please remain available during the tournament to avoid forfeiture.
*All judges will complete training prior to judging their first round at the tournament.
*No show judges, like no show students- will be charged.
*If you are not listed on a debate round – please stand by in the designated virtual judging pool.
*All school judges- both IE and debate are obligated to judge 1 round past their student’s elimination; please remain available.
*Facilities Fee - a $25 facilities fee will be charged per school. What does this cover? It covers online platform management for those competing virtually and building maintenance for those competing in person.
*Concessions - Coaches will have the option to pre-order box lunches and dinners for their students. Coaches can fill out this google form to ensure dietary needs are met for their students, as well as assist us in getting the correct balance of meals in hospitality. Concessions will also offer individually packaged snacks and drinks throughout the tournament to further supplement the food needs of your students. A limited amount of additional box meals will be ordered and available for purchase day of. The best way to ensure we can meet the nutritional needs of your students in consideration for safety during the pandemic is to preorder. This same google form will be used to get a headcount on judges and coaches that will need food on Saturday, as well. The food preorder form is due Friday, August 27 @ 4:30 PM to allow time to confirm orders with caterers/restaurants.
Expectations and Guidelines
*Everyone must have a Tabroom account to participate.
*Every judge and competitor participating virtually will need a device with a microphone and camera
- It is encouraged that, for team events, competitors consider having a separate device (phone, tablet, etc) for communicating with partner/ team in round, if available and needed.
*Use of Google Chrome as your browser is highly recommended.
* Logging into Tabroom when competition begins will show upcoming rounds with a video icon, rather than a room number for virtual events. Clicking the video icon will link you to your competition room. In-person events will have a room number on their postings.
* Only the judge(s) and competitors may access their competition rooms- except for Tab/Tournament staff. We are working to see if there is a secure way to provide access to coaches and observers for the educational merit of the activity.
*Every team will have a virtual squad room available throughout the tournament. Coaches, judges, and students registered for that school for the tournament will have access.
*All IEs will be in person. If we need to move to virtual for the safety of our participants, the tournament will be conducted synchronously.
*Test rooms are available on the NSDA website with a login- these rooms will at least show you what a competition room will look like.
*Congressional Chambers will be capped at no more than than ten students per chamber in Congress, no more than twelve in semis, and no more than 12 in finals. Each congressional debate round will have two hours of debate time with a maximum of 10 minutes of recess time allocated to the round.
Entry Limits, Event Sections, & Cross-Entry Sections
Entry Limits Per School: Quick Reference Chart
Extra Notes on Entry Limits and Cross-Entry:
* Entries in CX will be limited to 2 entries, 4 entries per LD, and 4 entries in PFD.
* We will have a waiting list for schools who might want more than their limit, but that list will only be used if the entry total is below our maximum.
* Entries are limited in Congressional Debate to 8 from each school with a wait list available for more entries, and it will run on a schedule that Congressional Debate entries may enter.
* Individual Events are limited to a total of 4 events in section A and B, with a limit of 2 in each section, and a total limit of 8 competitors entered in section A and B for each school.
* We will be offering HI, DI, USX, FX, NX, OO, DUO, POI, INFO, PROSE, POETRY, and NOVICE ORAL INTERPRETATION. Individual events will be Saturday only with every IE entry guaranteed 2 preliminary rounds for each event before going into the required elimination rounds depending on the entry.
* Brackets will not be broken in any debate event. We will also be planning to have panels in elimination rounds, if possible.
* We do reserve the right to collapse JV and Varsity in any event in order to retain reasonable numbers for the Varsity division. However, if this decision is made, entries originally entered in JV will NOT be required to cover Varsity level fees.
Debate Topics
* The LD topic will be the September/October NSDA topic
* The CX topic will be the high school 2021-2022 Policy topic
* The PFD topic will be the NSDA topic for September/October
* The World School Debate Topics will be announced or published.
* Congress Legislation can be found in the Congress section.
Extra Notes on Topics:
* Contact us if you need event rules for the TFA events, which can be found at www.txfa.org.
* Congress legislation and World School Debate prepared motions are available in the same location.
Deadlines
* Friday, August 28 at 4:30 PM - Debate Campus Access and Food Preorder Forms are due.
* Friday, September 3 at 4:00 pm - Preferred Entry Deadline. You may continue to make changes on the site without penalty until the drop deadline. No new schools may enter after this time.
* Friday, September 3 at 11:59 pm - Judges Due & Fees Freeze.
* Friday, September 3 at 11:59 pm - Jonathan Brody Award Nominations Deadline
* Tuesday, September 7 at 4:30 pm – Drops and Name Changes Deadline. All name changes and drops are due at this point. If you drop an entry after this point you'll accrue an additional nuisance fee of $30 per drop plus loss of your entry fee.
* Thursday, September 9 at 1:00 pm - Prefs Deadline
Fees
*Individual Events $20
*Congressional Debate $30.00
*VLD $60.00
*JVLD $50.00
*VCX $80.00
*JVCX $70.00
*PFD $60.00
*JVPFD $50.00
*WSD $80
We know this is early in the year but payment is due upon registration or proof of check request or a purchase order. No student will be allowed to participate unless proof of payment arrangements are provided. Checks should be made to “The Grapevine Classic”.
Please pay as promptly as possible.
We do reserve the right to collapse JV and Varsity in any event in order to retain reasonable numbers for the Varsity division. However, if this decision is made, entries originally entered in JV will NOT be required to cover Varsity level fees.
Payment
Please send checks to the school address:
Grapevine High School
Attn: Stef Cambra
3223 Mustang Dr.
Grapevine, TX
76051
Please send POs to stef.cambra@gcisd.net.
Judges
* Each school is required to provide at least 1 QUALIFIED judge per event entered.
* Grapevine Classic will use ONLINE BALLOTS through TABROOM.COM.
* ALL JUDGES will need to get a Tabroom.com account no less than two weeks from the tournament start date. Tabroom accounts are required to post a paradigm and access the ballots when the tournament begins.
* Schools are expected to bring QUALIFIED judges.
* Our tournament judges - both volunteer and hired - will be utilizing NSDA’s judge training prior to the tournament.
* Schools may not “buy out” their obligations.
* If you have a judge on Friday for debate, you must also have a judge on Saturday or you will pay for a judge on Saturday.
* Anyone wishing to be hired by the Grapevine Classic should fill out the HIRED JUDGE form under the “Judges” tab.
JUDGING RESPONSIBILITIES:
* 3 Rounds per entry in VCX/JCX.
* 3 Rounds per entry in VLD/JLD/VPF/JPF
* 1 judge per 8 IE/Duo entries or portion thereof
* 1 judge per 2 WSD teams or portion thereof
* If you cannot provide the judges you are responsible for based on your entries, please see the fee chart below:
Judging Fees:
Extra Notes on Judges:
*CONGRESS: The judge fee will automatically be assessed unless there are 2 or fewer entries from your school competing in Congress.
*Every judge in the pool is obligated 1 round past your school's elimination in that event.
*If your school has too many entries that your school judges can't be used - your school will be charged $100 per judge required that can't be used in preliminary rounds for IEs.
*ALL SCHOOL JUDGES MUST BE SUBMITTED BY FRIDAY, September 3rd, 2021 AT 11:59 PM or fees will be added to your invoice.
Pref Sheets
* We use MJP for CX and LD. We use a strike sheet for PFD.
* Our goal is to have rankings/rating sheets online by Wednesday morning to allow schools to review these lists and enter their choices online. Those will be done on the Tabroom.com website.
* Schools will have until 1pm on Thursday, September 9th to enter their preferences. Any school that opts to/neglects to fill out the information online (and by the deadline) will forfeit the privilege to do so.
* Debate coaches are strongly encouraged to embrace the responsibility of filling this information out themselves and not turning it over solely to students.
* If the tab room feels adjustments to the judge pool/assignments are in the best interest of tournament to do so, we will exercise that option. So that no confusion about this statement exists, one example where the tab room might exercise its jurisdiction to change a panel's make up is if all first-year judges make up an elimination round panel. Rest assured we will attempt to honor preferences.
* If a school's judge(s) is unreachable and fails to meet the school's commitment, a fine of $100.00 will be assessed. Those not paying within 30 days will have a letter will be sent to their principal or head of school.
Sweepstakes
Grapevine HS has a long history as a complete squad of winning in All Debate Events and All Speech events, thus we have decided to award other schools which have strong programs in both.
There will be 1 Sweepstakes Award for Debate, 1 Sweepstakes Award for IEs and then a GRAND SWEEPSTAKES which will include schools which enter BOTH Debate events and IE events.
SWEEPSTAKES FORMULA - May be updated prior to tournament start date due to sweepstakes adjustments.
All IE'S, Duo/Duo:
1st - 20
2nd - 15
3rd – 10
Finals - 5
Congressional Debate:
1st – 20
2nd – 15
3rd – 10
4th -8th - 5
CX, LD, PFD, and WS Debate:
1st -20
2nd- 15
3rd -10
Quarters - 5