Welcome to the Henry Clay 

"SPEAK OF THE DEVIL" VIRTUAL 

 Senior & Junior Division

Speech & Debate Tournaments

Speech events will be completely asynchronous (pre-recorded) and run throughout the week with two guaranteed rounds of prelims plus finals while Debate events will be synchronous (held live via NSDA Campus on Saturday, October 23rd) with 3 guaranteed rounds of debate prelims plus semis (if warranted) and finals in all divisions!

EVENTS OFFERED:

We plan to hold ALL Kentucky High School Speech League SENIOR HIGH & JUNIOR MIDDLE speech events*

*Here is the link to all KHSSL events including rules and procedures for each... 

https://82e6d243-a8cf-405e-ab00-8288aa6652d7.filesusr.com/ugd/d25b56_770cca9f095b4a76a0a622be11ff6e43.pdf

*Senior Division Events: Broadcasting, Declamation, DI, Duo, Extemp, HI, Impromptu, Improv Duo, Informative, Oratory, Poetry, POI, Prose, & Storytelling *These events are ONLY for high school students (grades 9-12)

*Junior Division Events: Broadcasting, Declamation, DI, Duo, Extemp, HI, Impromptu, Improv Duo, Oratory, Poetry, Prose, & Storytelling. *These events are ONLY for middle school students (grades 3-8)

along with the following debate events:

*Debate Events: Congress, Varsity Lincoln-Douglas, Novice Lincoln-Douglas, Varsity Public Forum, & Novice Public Forum

Also - all events are initially capped at 50 entries so if you have kids you for sure know will be attending, please get them registered ASAP!  All entries past 50 will be waitlisted so to guarantee their entry into their respective events, please register them early!

ENTRIES:

IE competitors can compete in as many events as they choose (Junior competitors up to 12, Senior competitors up to 14) PLUS students may also enter in live debate (as speech events are totally asynchronous and debate is synchronous competitors can opt to do both categories of speech & debate).  Debaters are limited to only 1 debate event as the schedule will not allow for synchronous doubling.

Each IE speech entry will be $6, with Duo Acting, Duo Interp, & Improv Duo charging $12. Congress & Lincoln-Douglas entries will be $12 while Public Forum entries will be $24. 

DEADLINE:

Deadline for entries including video uploads is 6:00 PM EST on Tuesday, October 19 - Registration will close at that time so please do not ask for an extension on this so we can prep to get the tournament immediately underway the following day.

*Drops/adds after the deadline will be charged $10 fee per single entry & $20 per Duo Interp, Improv Duo, Public Forum or Policy entry in addition to the original entry fees*

JUDGES:

You must supply one judge for every 6 IE or Congress entries (6 slots = 1 judge; 12 slots = 2 judges; 13 slots = 3 judges; etc.) For debate you must supply one judge for every two debaters (1 slot = 1 judge; 3 slots = 2 judges, etc.) A fee of $50 per missing judge will be assessed. Please make sure that all your judges are familiar with all KHSSL rules in the 2020-2021 KHSSL Handbook (located on the tabroom.com tournament homepage) so they can properly assess the students.

*NOTE – Speech Judges will be asked to judge BOTH Senior & Junior Division KHSSL Events – so please prep your judges of this beforehand as all judges will be expected to adhere to this obligation if you wish them to be counted for your team quota.

TOPICS FOR DEBATE:

Congressional debate will use the October NSDA packet of legislation. No other legislation will be published or used for our tournament.  Note:  If the NSDA does not post a packet for us to use we will instead use a previously published NSDA packet or I will announce a different plan prior to the registration deadline the week before our competition.

Lincoln-Douglas (Varsity) will debate the following topic for September/October 2021:

Resolved: The member nations of the World Trade Organization ought to reduce intellectual property protections for medicines.

 Lincoln-Douglas (Novice) will debate the following topic for September/October 2021:

Resolved: Civil disobedience in a democracy is morally justified.

Public Forum (Varsity & Novice) will debate the following topic for September/October 2021:

Resolved: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization should substantially increase its defense commitments to the Baltic states.

 Speak of the Devil 2021

Official Virtual Schedule 

ALL TIMES EASTERN

Monday 10/18 @ 6 PM EST (or slightly before): LTD PREP TOPICS RELEASED: Improv Duo topics, Impromptu quote options, & Extemp questions will all be released for both divisions. Students will have from the time you receive the email containing the LTD prep event info until the registration deadline to submit recordings via the registration process on tabroom.com. Please remember that entries WITHOUT recorded links will be dropped from the tournament past the deadline so please make sure that your recordings both work and are posted with each speech entry you have.

Tuesday 10/19 @ 6 PM EST: CLOSE OF REGISTRATION: ALL recordings, student entries, & judge names/info will be set in stone and locked into place at that time. PLEASE make sure to have everything tied up in a nice, neat, little metaphorical package by this time and please understand that I am on a strict time crunch for the entire week. My #1 goal is to make sure you and your students enjoy the experience. Help me help you by making sure you meet the deadlines as I will begin immediately pairing the tournament at that time.

SPEECH EVENTS SCHEDULE

Wednesday 10/20 @ 8-9AM EST: Prelim Speech Rounds 1 & 2 BEGIN! Pairings will be released and judge rounds will be blasted via tabroom at some point Wednesday morning. It's possible that I may get these out late Tuesday night before this time, but this Wednesday morning is my more realistic goal timeline. NOTE: All prelim speech rounds MUST be finished & turned in from ALL judges by Thursday evening at 10:00 PM EST (which gives you approximately a day and a half to finish all of your team's prelim judging obligations).

Thursday, 10/21: Prelim Speech Rounds 1 & 2 END! The window for judging will be CLOSED at 10:00 PM EST on this day. Incomplete rounds by judges will be treated as judge drops and immediately re-assigned so coaches PLEASE ensure that your judges fulfill their prelim obligations. I will be contacting coaches for any late judges or dropped round fines so be cognizant of this deadline. Please check in with your judges before I have to in order to ensure that they have all finished and turned in their ballots before I replace them and issue any nuisance fees (but I'm going to cross my fingers that nothing like that will have to happen).

Friday, 10/22: FINALS FOR ALL SPEECH EVENTS!!! Finals for Speech events will be announced & ballots will be sent out to judges early Friday morning. You will have from that point until 10 PM EST on this same day to finish your team's final round judging obligation. My plan is to give no judge more than 1 finals round (like a typical in-person speech tournament) so your judges who are assigned to finals will have around 10 to 12 hours to finish this judging assignment.

Saturday, 10/23: DEBATE ROUNDS BEGIN!!! 

DEBATE EVENTS SCHEDULE

9:00 AM Team check-in (ALL Coaches must check in with me either via text or email at this time)

(Also - coaches - please meet with your squads in your team’s assigned virtual squad room found on your tabroom

homepage - note that you must be signed in to access this room).

10:00 AM Debate Round 1 - Varsity PF, Varsity LD, Novice PF, & Novice LD 

+ Congress Session 1

12:00 PM Debate Round 2 - Varsity PF, Varsity LD, Novice PF, & Novice LD

1:00 PM Congress Session 2

2:00 PM Debate Round 3 - Varsity PF, Varsity LD, Novice PF, & Novice LD

4:00 PM Semi-Finals (Debate Round 4) + Congress Supers

6:00 PM Finals (Debate Round 5)

9:00 PM Awards*

(AWARDS: Awards will be announced for ALL Speech & Debate events Saturday evening (specific time TBA but expect it to potentially be later). My plan is to record a ZOOM ceremony and blast it out by 9PM EST. No matter what, I promise to be at least mildly entertaining while I inevitably mis-pronounce as few names as possible (feel free to use that very handy phonetic pronunciation guide located for all your students as you enter them in tabroom in case you happen to get bored over the next few days).

AWARDS:

Awards will be given out to the top 6 performers in each speech event and Congress, top 4 performers in each debate event, and team sweepstakes awards will be given out to the top 3 teams in Junior Speech, top 3 teams in Senior Speech, & top 3 teams in Debate. Note:  This plan will not change unless the entry numbers in events/teams are so low that we cannot justify the cost for it in each division and if that happens we will notify all teams in advance of the registration deadline (but this is our current awards plan).

Also - and this is really cool - we will be awarding an OVERALL Sweepstakes GRAND CHAMPION AWARD for the highest ranking team in ANY division combined...meaning, the highest point scoring school in total overall points will be up for the GRAND CHAMPION award for our tournament (whichever team scores the most points combined regardless of division will WIN the OVERALL GRAND CHAMPION AWARD)!

Note: There will be a $12 awards mailing fee for all United States based schools in attendance (this fee will be added to the tabroom invoice AFTER you register...please do not send payment for fees UNTIL you see this charge added to your invoice to avoid making a 2nd payment for this charge).  For any schools located outside of the US the fee will be larger than $12 but the actual cost will depend on where you are located (feel free to contact me in advance if you have any questions about this - I will update your invoice and send it to you once the tournament has concluded once I have determined an approximate shipping quote if you are outside of the US).  Note that we will not be issuing refunds for this after the tournament concludes in case your team does not receive any awards so please make note of this).

PAYMENT:

Please make payment to HENRY CLAY DEBATE.  We can accept checks or money orders (please do not attempt to mail cash).  If neither of these are viable options please contact me for additional options. Mailing address information will be added to the tabroom.com generated invoice.  Please note that we will not mail any awards until payment has been received so please take care of your owed fees for the tournament ASAP once you know what your totals are (and note that some nuisance fines could occur during the tournament so please do your best to avoid those and not have to mail multiple checks).

CONTACT INFO:

If you have any questions that are not answered above please feel free to email me at:

ryan.ray@fayette.kyschools.us

if you have ANY questions about our tournament!

We hope to see you with us virtually for our SPEAK OF THE DEVIL Senior Speech, Junior Speech, & Open Debate tournaments!  Thank you for your time and consideration!