The Presentation Invitational

competition in PF + LD, benefitting the Voices Foundation

Tournament on October 6-8 and Round Robin on October 9, 2017
at Presentation High School in San Jose, CA

We invite you to the Presentation Invitational, formerly known as Voices Foundation Lincoln Douglas Debate Tournament and the Presentation PF Invitational.

We provide competition in Varsity and JV Lincoln Douglas debate and Varsity and JV Public Forum debate. The tournament will use the NSDA September/October topic for all divisions.

We continue to be a TOC quarterfinals bid tournament in VLD and a semifinals bid tournament in VPF.

VOICES FOUNDATION

Since 2005, the Voices Foundation has raised funds for members of the debate community with financial need, in order to increase access to debate opportunities. Last year we generated more than $10,000 for the Voices Foundation through the tournament. We hope that you can join us for this tremendous event.

THE TOURNAMENT

The tournament will be able to accommodate 120 VLD and 80 VPF entries. Any remaining space will be used for JV. Once we reach the cap in an event we will start a waitlist that will prioritize new school admission and then smaller school entries. There will be an initial cap of 5 entries in Varsity events and 3 in JV.

Both divisions will feature six preliminary rounds of debate and will clear all winning records to the elimination rounds up to a full double-octafinal.

In VLD, mutual preference judging will be available to all schools whose judges have entered their paradigms at http://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/. We will be policing this with increased vigor this year - and it's now fairly easy to turn off a given school's ability to pref, so please don't sleep on this rule.

The JV divisions are not intended to be a novice tournament, so while middle schools and novices may compete, this is not the same as a novice division.

ROUND ROBIN

The Voices LD Round Robin and the PF Round Robin will take place on Monday, October 9th this year. Information about the Round Robin schedule and format is located under "Voices Round Robin" Link at the top of this page. If you are interested in attending, please send an application of accomplishments to shawn.matson@gmail.com.

LOCATION

Presentation High School is located in south San Jose near the Willow Glen neighborhood. We ask that you park on campus at all times. We also ask that students remain on campus for the duration of competition.

ENTRY FEES & PAYMENT

Entries in VLD and VPF are $125/entry and are inclusive of dinner on Friday, lunch and dinner on Saturday, and lunch on Sunday for all students, judges, and coaches. We will also have a variety of concessions available for purchase throughout the day each day, including breakfast items. 

This tournament has a long track record of making every effort to expand access to debate, so if the cost of attendance somehow limits your ability to participate, please contact shawn.matson@gmail.com to make requests for financial and and to explain your situation.

All payments are due prior to the start of the tournament and all fees must be paid before Round 1.

JUDGING

All schools are required to bring qualified, competent judges. All judges must be familiar with using Tabroom.com for ballots and are required to do so. We will charge a $75 Administration Fee for each judge that needs to be trained or have their tabroom account fixed. In the past, this has caused significant delay to the tournament. If you do not have a judge who is competent as an adjudicator *and* with using the e-balloting, please contact me ahead of time. We'd rather solve that issue beforehand.

All judges are obligated for the double octafinals round, which we plan to hold on Saturday evening.

HIRED JUDGES

We will have a limited pool of hired judges and will prioritize requests for schools outside of the state first, outside of the area second, and to local schools last. Assume that if you are a local bay area school, it will be difficult for you to procure a hired judge from us.

Hired judge fees are not one set rate and depend on what we must pay to secure the judge on your behalf. Contact shawn.matson@gmail.com with requests.

INDEPENDENT ENTRY POLICY
There are no exceptions to these rules. Please do not ask, it will be a futile effort. We cannot, for liability reasons, accept independent entries who do not achieve the following criteria:

1. You must have an adult, school-approved chaperone on campus at all times during the tournament. This chaperone is not allowed to leave campus and must be present if you compete in elimination rounds. Failure to do so will result in immediate disqualification--even if it's during the bid round.

2. You must possess approval, in the form of a signed official letter, to compete by your school's administration and acknowledging the name of your chaperone as a school-approve chaperone.

We do not accept entries under the names of for-profit private organizations and those students must compete under the name of their actual school. Students who participate in these groups are free to continue to do so, but they will have to obtain approval in the same way that any other independent entry would.

We do not offer "school protection" for these students to not have to debate each other. We do not provide school protection between a high school and their affiliated middle school.