January 8, 2025

Dear Colleagues:

Your team is invited to compete at BCFL5 at Calvert Hall College on Saturday, January 25^th.

Registration: Registration will take places on www.tabroom.com.

The deadline for adding entries is 9:00 PM on Wednesday, January 22^nd. Coaches can make changes or drops until 9:00 PM on Friday, January 24^th. Drops or name changes on Saturday morning will only be accepted as a result of an emergency situation. If you have trouble registering, you may contact Tournament Director Teresa Needer on her cell phone at 443-798-0052.

Saturday morning check in: Coaches, please check in your team and judges on Saturday from 8:00-8:30 with the Tab Staff. We need to be certain that all contestants and judges are present so that first rounds can be paired.

Judges: We are expecting you to prepare your judges ahead of time for any events they may be judging. Event information, tournament schedule, and judging information can be found at our website: https://mdspeechanddebate.org.

Each school is obligated to bring enough judges. Your registration on tabroom.com is based on these requirements:

Policy: 1 qualified judge for every two teams

Lincoln/Douglas: 1 qualified judge for every four debaters

Public Forum: 1 qualified judge for every four teams

Speech events: 1 qualified judge for up to 4 entries (cap of 5 per school)

Student Congress* 1 qualified judge for every 10 entries.

*Student Congress judges should be prepared to judge speech events.

Rules to communicate to your team:

Laptops: Laptops are allowed during rounds of Policy, Public Forum, and Lincoln-Douglas debate according to NCFL rules of connectivity. They can also be used in Extemp Prep according to the NCFL rules of connectivity.

Students ought to be prepared to work offline in the event that internet service is interrupted. Internet outages can happen at any school and have occurred in the past. Students who rely on digital resources during the tournament ought to have offline resources and ought to have fully charged devices and chargers for their devices as a backup.

Coaches, please communicate to your students that we follow the rules of the NCFL for all events. If these rules are not followed during competition, your students could be disqualified. These rules are found within the bylaws of the NCFL and can be found at https://www.ncfl.org/bylaws.html.

Audio and video recordings of rounds are strictly prohibited.

Please remind your students to follow good tournament etiquette: do not enter a room while others are performing, do not be loud in halls outside of rooms, do not enter rooms until the judge has arrived, do not write on any boards, respect the arrangement of the room, and restore the room after each round, keep food and drink in the cafeteria, and report any issues to the Tab room staff. Students who are entered in more than one event ought to know how to show up for multiple events and communicate with judges.

Maps of the school will be provided. Calvert Hall will have guest access to internet.

Meals and beverages will be provided for judges throughout the day. There will be food for sale for students in the students’ lounge.

There will be a prayer room for those who need it. Check with Tab staff as to the location.

Looking forward to seeing you on January 25^th!

Yours truly,

Peter Susko

Speech & Debate Coach