Berkeley International Parliamentary Debate Invitational
2025 — NSDA Campus, CA/US
A request about communication
Dear Tournament Participants:
We are thrilled that you have chosen to spend your weekend with us, and we hope you enjoy the tournament. We want to do everything we can to give you a positive experience. It is evitable that before and during a tournament, participants will need to communicate with staff about issues that arise. We want to address the issues quickly and effectively. There are over three hundred of you, and we want to give everyone's issues the attention they deserve.
The ideal for communications is OHIO (Only Handle It Once). There would be a lot of email traffic, even if every issue could be resolved with one email. But if every issue takes three emails on each side to resolve, that's a much more time intensive process for everybody.
So here's our request.
When you email tournament staff, please includein your initial email all necessary information for the staff to understand the issue and to do what you're asking. For example, if you want to add a team, include their names in your original email, to reduce the back and forth--as opposed to just saying "May we add a team?" And check to make sure they're in your roster first. Then we need only one email from you, and one from us, and we're done.
During the tournament, if you email us because a judge is missing from a room, tell us in your initial email what division, room, etc. in your initial message. If there's a panel, tell us which judge is missing (or which judges are there).
Thanks again for being part of our tournament.
Berkeley High Speech and Debate