Dear Friends,

On behalf of the NSU University School, we cordially invite you to attend the Sunvite Tournament to be in person on January 10-12. We promise to continue our tradition of top-notch competition, exceptional judging, sunny weather and amazing trophies! A new addition this year will be Worlds Schools Debate, and Middle School competition!! More details coming soon! We offer TOC bids in ALL events - Octas in Public Forum, Finals in LD, Finals in Policy (NEW), Tier 3 in Congress, and Speech based upon numbers!

Deadlines/Entries:

· New Entries Due by January 9 at 5:00PM We are expecting registration to fill-up much sooner so register ASAP!

· Fees will be frozen on December 29 at 5:00PM. If you drop any entries after that time, you will forfeit the entry fee.

· Nuisance Fines apply after January 5 at 12:00PM

· If you drop an entry the day before (January 11) or do not report a drop you will be charged an additional $75 plus the entry fee.

· PF/LD Judges are due by January 4 at 5:00PM

· Speech/Congress Judges are due by January 9 at 5:00PM

A school may enter 5 entries in PF, WSD, CX and LD, 10 entries in Congress and all IEs, and unlimited entries in Policy. If you have more students you would like to enter, please do so and they will be moved off the waitlist depending on space.

Fees:
$80 MS, JV PF Entries

$100 for Varsity PF Entries

$120 Policy Entries
$75 Congressional Debate Entry

$80 for Novice Lincoln Douglas Entry
$100 for Varsity Lincoln Douglas Debate Entry
$50 per individual event entry ($80 for DUO)

$125 for World Schools Debate
We will waive entry fees for UDL Schools. If the tournament is financially too expensive for your school please contact us.

Judging Requirement:
1 judge for every 2 Policy/PF/LD entries or fraction thereof

1 judge for every 5 IE entries or fraction thereof

1 judge for every 8 Congress Entries or fraction thereof

We strongly recommend you provide your ownqualifiedjudges for each event. We are able to hire averylimited number of judges. LD/PF/Policy judges will be required to have paradigms published online. Those paradigms will be audited prior to registration, and if blank or deemed inappropriate the school will be charged an uncovered judge fee. For every uncovered judge you will be charged $60/round in debate or $150/day for Speech. Any rounds missed by judges from your school, will result in an additional $50 fee per round in prelims and $100 per round in elimination rounds. It is not our goal to make a profit off missed rounds; however, having present/competent judges is vital to running a successful tournament. We will be using online ballots for all events.

Prefs/Strikes:Prefs will be available in LD and Policy. Strikes will be available for Public Forum. We will make every effort to strike AT LEAST 12% of the PF pool, and provide prefs in LD/Policy.

Entourage Rule: All coaches watching rounds, communicating with the tournament, coaching or in any way actively contributing to the competitive success of their team must be in for at least 3 rounds of debate or 1 day of speech. The determination of eligible/qualified is left up to the tournament staff. The penalty for violations of this rule may range from loss of MPJ/Strikes, forfeiture of your entries, or additional fines.

CONFLICT POLICY: This can be found here. It is the affirmative obligation for ALL attendees to report conflicts.

Resolutions/Topic Areas:We will be using the January topic in PF and LD. The NFHS Policy debate resolution. Congress legislation, Impromptu, and Extemp topic areas will be posted no later than December 20. If you’d like to submit legislation please upload to tabroom by Friday December 14.

Schedule: Detailed Schedule TBD

Event Rules: Unless otherwise indicated in tournament documents, we will defer to NSDA Main Stage Event rules for any issues or protests. We will have Mr. Steve Schauppaugh act as our ombudsperson this year for rule and equity violations.

Debate: We will run SIX rounds in PF/LD/Policy. The first two rounds will be pre-set randomly and will take place Friday afternoon. Rounds three through six will be power matched (high-low within brackets). We will break all winning records.

The order of tiebreakers is

1) wins

2)opposition wins

3) drop high-low speaker points

4) ZScore

5) total speaker points.

Public Forum will use the tabroom coinflip to flip before rounds. PF will not be side locked in elimination rounds if they previously hit.

Speech: We are dropping the lowest prelim rank, and we will use clean breaks--not cumulative ranks--in each elimination round unless needed for a tie break. We will clear 30% of the pool in each speech event. There will be NO section with more than 6 speakers. Speech competitors can double-enter within each pattern, so an ambitious competitor can compete in four different speech events. Breaks will be determined by total ranks in prelims, followed by recips and then judge pref. Whenever possible we will break the number of competitors on total ranks, using recips only when necessary.

Speech Patterns
A: DI, DUO, OO, MX, ADS

B: HI. POI, IMP, INFO

Congress: Congress will have 3 preliminary rounds, semis and finals. Each preliminary round will have 2 judges, semis will have 3 judges and finals will have at least 5 judges. PO’s will be recognized at awards. Congress Chambers will be posted January 5th (assuming no late drops). Congress legislation is due by Friday, December 13 at 5:00pm. Please submit legislation via email to uschooldebate@nova.edu. Remember there is no guarantee that submitted legislation will be included in the packet. Our goal is to have legislation posted no later than December 20. Assuming on time legislation submissions. There will be no school based legislation in semis or finals.

Registration will be conducted online only, and we encourage you to browse the tabs to find any additional information regarding our tournament. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. We look forward to SEEING you in sunny South Florida in January!

Warmly,

Alyssa Fiebrantz Awsare–Associate Director of Arts - afiebran@nova.edu

Michael Rankin – Head Speech & Debate Coach

Jacob Bosley – Assistant Speech and Debate Coach

Danny Swerdlow – Director of Arts

NSU University School

AutoNation Center for the Arts

3375 SW 75 Ave

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314-1400

(954)-262-4492

uschool.nova.edu/arts