University of Lynchburg Snowball Speech and Debate Tournament
2024 — Lynchburg, VA/US
Congress
Event Description:
LEGISLATION TOPIC AREAS
Domestic: Education
International: US/East Africa Relations
Economic: Taxation
Virginia: Rural Development
Bills/resolutions are due by December 6th, 2024 at 11:59pm to swvaflcongress@gmail.com. The docket will be emailed to competitors and posted on the TabRoom website by noon on December 7th. PF and LD are going to be the topics found at www.speechanddebate.org/topics for December (we don't have Novice divisions for Snowball)
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Student congress (click to read document) attempts to replicate the workings of an official legislature within the confines of a competitive speech activity. The purpose of a student congress is to formulate legislative bills and resolutions, debate them, and adopt or reject them by casting votes. A student congress can be composed of both a house and senate, or all representatives may form a unicameral or single house, legislature. A house has a presiding officer, elected by the delegates, to call on members to speak. Other congress officials include a parliamentarian to make final decisions on matters of parliamentary procedure, a timekeeper to keep speeches on time, a judge to award points.
Legislation: Legislation must be submitted via Google Doc, Microsoft Word doc, or PDF to swvaflcongress@gmail.com by Friday, December 6 at 11:59pm in order to be considered for the docket. The docket will then be shared here on TabRoom and by email to those who submitted on December 7th.
Researching the Docket – Tournaments send to participating schools or post online a docket of legislation. Each squad then brainstorms affirmative and negative arguments and finds supporting evidence through research. Students should have a firm working knowledge of issues in the docket, but should not write word-for-word speeches ahead of time; rather, they should be prepared to dynamically respond to arguments given by peers at the tournament.