Tournament Information

Registration:

When registering, all entries will be initially waitlisted. Once payment is received, your registration will be guaranteed, and your entries will be removed from the waitlist. Payment by check or purchase order must be received by Friday, October 5, 2018. As of 7 pm CST on Friday, October 5th, fees will be assessed and refunds will no longer be available. If your school is traditionally slow to process paperwork, email or fax a copy of the purchase order before October 5th. The fax number for AVHS is 952-431-8282.

Registration Checks (Change from 2017):

Please make checks payable to:
Apple Valley Speech & Debate Alumni Foundation

Click here for a copy of our W9

Checks can be mailed to:

Minneapple Debate
Attn: Colin Goodson
16240 Godson Drive
Lakeville, MN 55044

Entry Rules and Fees:

The registration deadline is October 5th. We may need to close registration prior to October 5th due to space.  We will continue to take registrations after that date if space can accommodate entries. In order for us to provide the best tournament possible, all changes should be communicated promptly and as they occur up until the day of the tournament. You may continue to make changes to registration after the website is shut down by emailing minneappledebate@gmail.com.  On the day of the tournament, all changes in registration must be called directly into the tab room before you arrive at the tournament site. The pre-tournament tab contact on registration day is Chris Theis at 952.412.9353. 

Fees can be refunded until 7PM CST on Friday, October 5th; no refunds are available after this date.  If space allows for late entries, they must be followed by payment per the procedures listed in order to be guaranteed.

Any outstanding balances for the tournament must be paid at the registration desk before any entries from your school are allowed to compete.

• Schools may enter up to EIGHT Varsity LD debaters and EIGHT Varsity PF teams. Additional entries may be entered on the Addtional entry waitlist. Schools will be notified no later than October 12th to accommodate travel plans. Do NOT make travel arrangements for students on the additional entry waitlist prior to a confirmation of the entry.  If you have special concerns regarding travel arrangements, please contact minneappledebate@gmail.com with questions.

• There are NO entry limits in JV and Novice LD, Novice Public Forum, or Congressional Debate.

• There is a school registration fee of $25.

• The Varsity Public Forum fee is $75 per team.

• The Varsity LD registration fee is $75.

• The Congressional Debate entry fee is $50.

• The Novice Public Forum fee is $35 per team.

• The Novice LD fee is $35.

• The JV LD entry fee is $40.

• The fees include two meals (Friday's dinner & Saturday's lunch) and shuttle buses as noted in the schedule.

Independent Entries:

In accordance with the TOC's policy, we will not admit any student who wishes to compete without the approval, knowledge, or consent of their school administration and/or coach(es).

Judging:

In Varsity divisions, schools may not hire out their entire judging commitment.  A minimum of one judge must represent each school.  We believe this will further enhance the diversity and quality of our Varsity judge pools.

Also, in Varsity divisions, please assist us in having the best pool of judges possible by making judges available to us that reflect the quality of the competition.  First-year outs are allowed to fulfill a school's commitment, but we strongly encourage the head coach to serve as a critic and be represented in the judge pool. 

Please remember that a school's judges are obligated at least through the first full elimination debate, or one round past the elimination of its last team/debater after that.  To ensure the best judging pool possible and flexibility for pairings, we cannot guarantee requests for partial judging commitments. Given that the Minneapple has only single flights in each preliminary round, this commitment is comparable to a half-time commitment at a tournament that has flighted rounds. 

Judges obligations cannot be split across divisions.  For example, if you have two novice LD debaters, you will need one judge at Scott Highlands Middle School. However, if you have only one Novice LD debater and one Varsity LD debater, you would need one judge at each building for a total of two judges.

If judging obligations are not met, the tournament reserves the right to remove a school's entries to balance the student-judge ratio. This includes cases where judges are missing the first round on Friday or Saturday. Debaters may be reentered into the schedule but with losses for the missed rounds.

LD: We do not flight rounds. Therefore, each school must provide one qualified judge for every two LD debaters in each division, or portion thereof. 

PF: We do not flight rounds.  Each school must provide one qualified judge for every 2 teams, or portion thereof. 

Hired Judges:

YOU MUST SPECIFICALLY REQUEST A HIRED JUDGE BY OCTOBER 6th.  LEAVING THE JUDGING COMMITMENT BLANK DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE HIRED A JUDGE. Requests are NOT guaranteed until confirmed. We have a limited number of hired judges available and will try to honor requests to the best of our ability. Please make every attempt to bring your own judges for each division. The fee is for a judge is $175 per uncovered entry.  Requests after that designated date will incur a late fee charge of $130.00. If you are interested in being hired by the tournament, please send an email to minneappledebate@gmail.com.

Judge Preferencing:

In Varsity LD, the Minneapple will afford teams the ability to rate judges as well as strike a small portion of the field. In order to accomplish this, we require that all teams submit judge names by 6PM CST October 29th. If a judge's name is changed or removed from the pool after this date, the tournament will assess a $50 fee. This fee is charged to prevent teams from adversely affecting all other teams preferences. This fee will be assessed at registration and will be due before teams are permitted to compete. All judges in the Varsity LD division are required to submit a judging philosophy on tabroom by 7PM CST on October 29th. Teams whose judges have not submitted a paradigm will not be permitted to submit a preference sheet without exception. Judge Preferences will open on October 31st. 

Any teams who have not fulfilled their judging obligation or who have judges without paradigms listed online before the deadline will not be permitted to preference judges without exception. 

Any judge who is not listed on the preference sheet will become a free strike. Teams wishing to exercise their free strikes must notify the tab room prior to the next round's pairing to ensure that their strikes are honored. 

In Varsity PF, we will offer limited judge strikes. 

Chaos Control Fees:  

Because the judge pool is integral to the efficiency and quality of the tournament, a 'chaos control' fee of $40.00 will be assessed per missed round per judge and must be paid by the end of the tournament.  Schools must have their judging obligations filled for all rounds including rounds one and two on Friday or pay for hired judges to fulfill those round requirements. 

Hospitality:

We are pleased to offer complimentary meals for Friday's dinner and Saturday's lunch for the competitors and coaches. We will offer vegetarian and non-vegetarian options.  Breakfast for the coaches and judges will be complementary.

Debaters can plan on breakfast items being available for purchase at our concession stands on Saturday morning. There will be light concessions available at each building throughout the tournament.

Locations, Registration, and Transportation:

Registration for each division is at Apple Valley High School. Varsity and JV LD registration and rounds will take place at Apple Valley Senior High School. Novice LD preliminary rounds will be at Scott Highlands Middle School.  Congressional Debate and Varsity Public Forum preliminary rounds and elimination rounds will both be held and remain at Falcon Ridge Middle School for the entire tournament. Novice Public Forum preliminary rounds will be held at Scott Highlands Middle School.  Novice Public Forum elimination rounds will be at Falcon Ridge Middle School.  All schools are less than 10 minutes driving distance of each other. Shuttle buses will be available from AVHS on Friday before round one to take debaters to each site but will not return debaters to AVHS Friday night. Coaches need to make arrangements to pick up debaters at the various sites.  Shuttles will NOT be available on Saturday morning from AVHS but will be available to return all LD debaters to AVHS for lunch and LD elimination rounds. Public Forum and Congressional Debate will remain at Falcon Ridge for all preliminary and elimination rounds. Novice PF debaters will be shuttled to FRMS for lunch and Elimination Rounds.  Given the many locations, we strongly encourage out-state competitors to have a rental vehicle.

Awards: 

Once again, our awards feature the apple theme. Varsity LD will break to partial triple octafinals and awards will be given to double octafinalists, while JV LD and Novice LD will break to octafinals. Varsity Public Forum will break to double octafinals.  Novice Public Forum will break to quarterfinals. Congressional Debate will break to semifinals. This plan is subject to change based on final registration numbers. All LD and PF debaters who break to full elimination rounds will receive a red marble apple. The finalists in Congressional Debate will receive apples.  The top Varsity PF and LD speakers will be recognized. We will also award sweepstakes trophies based upon the performance of the school's top two debaters in each division in both Public Forum and LD, and an overall team sweepstakes award based on the top two entries in each division of debate (Varsity, JV, and Novice LD, Varsity and Novice Public Forum, and Congressional Debate).

Time Limits and Resolutions:

In LD, we will use the NSDA 6-3-7-3-4-6-3 time limits with 4 minutes of preparation time. Each division of LD will debate the NSDA November/December resolution.

In PF, we will use NSDA rules and time limits. Each division of PFD will debate the NSDA November resolution.

LD/PF Pairing Protocols:

Rounds one and two in all divisions will be randomly paired. Rounds three through six will be paired high-low within brackets. Brackets will not be broken in elimination rounds. Varsity speaker awards are based on speaker points in preliminary rounds.

Congress Information: 

Legislation: Schools must use CongressionalDebate.org legislation templates, and submit -- via this Tabroom registration site -- up to one (1) item per student, and up to 4 per school. Only Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, or Rich Text Format (RTF) file types will be accepted - no PDFs. Legislation may be rejected if it does not meet standards enumerated for relevant legislation within the jurisdiction of the United States Congress.  If there are many submissions from schools, we will select the best from among each school's submission for the overall tournament docket.  See below for deadlines and posting dates.

Rules/Procedures:  The MinneApple uses NSDA rules.  Students set agendas upon a majority vote in each preliminary chamber based on the items in the docket released on the tournament website. Legislation debated during a previous session may not continue into subsequent sessions (so, if there were three speeches on bill X toward the end of session 1, session 2 must start with bill Y). 

Advancement and Finals:  Students advance to elimination rounds based on cumulative rank totals from judges, using NSDA tournament procedures for tabulating ranks.  We will break about one-third of the preliminary session field to semifinal chambers of 9-12 students, and a final session chamber of 10-14 students. Semifinal and final round legislation information will be released October 20.  Direct questioning will be used for the final round.

Awards/TOC Bid Level: All finalists will receive MinneApple apple awards, the remaining final session participants will receive an award.  The top PO from each preliminary chamber -- as well as the final session PO -- will receive a gavel. All final round contestants earn one bid/leg to the University of Kentucky Tournament of Champions.

Student Leadership Award: While student vote will not determine the outcome of the tournament, a special award modeled after the NSDA National Tournament "Leadership Bowl" will be conferred upon one final round debater who earns preferential ranking by his/her peers. 

Judges: One judge for every five Congressional debaters. This judging obligation may not be shared with other divisions.  Since the Minneapple offers small chambers to allow students more meaningful opportunities to debate, more judges will be needed.  Please note experience as a parliamentarian in the notes area when registering judges.

Important Dates:

October 5th
Registration Due (capacity may be full prior to this date).

Final Fees Assessed at 7 PM CST.  No refunds are available after this date.

Check Payment/Purchase Order Due.

Golden Apple Award Nominations Due.

Distinguished Alumnus Award Nominations Due.

October 6th

Hired judge requests due by 7 PM CST.

Additional entry waitlist notified.

October 11th

Congress Legislation Due.

October 14th

Hotel Booking Deadline.

October 19th 

Congressional Debate Legislation Released.

October 29th

Final Judge Names Entered by 7 PM CST.

Varsity LD Judge Paradigms submitted on tabroom

October 30th

Judge Preferencing available. 

After October 31st:

ANY changes to your entries or judges should be entered on the website until it is closed. Then all changes should be emailed to minneappledebate@gmail.com.  Changes on the day of the tournament must be called  in to Chris Theis at 952.421.9353.