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Directions

Awards
Results

Dear Fellow Debaters:

The St. Sebastian’s Debate Team cordially invites you to participate in our eleventh NOVICE Parliamentary Extemporaneous Debate Tournament on Sunday, February 17, 2019. The tournament will consist of three rounds of Parliamentary debate. We will be debating straight resolutions and using only points of information (no points of order, personal privilege or heckling). Each school may register one or two four-person novice teams (teams should include a judge as well; St. Sebastian’s will not provide judges). Schools may register by e-mail to: michael_nerbonne@stsebs.org. Please respond by Friday, February 8. Fees for the debate are $75 per four-person team and $15 per observer. Checks should be made payable to St. Sebastian’s School. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call us at 617-462-3651. We also request that you call us at 617-462-3651 on the morning of the tournament, between the hours of 8:00 and 10:00, to report any changes in your final registration.

The schedule for the day is as follows:

10:00 – 11:00 am	Registration in the front foyer of the Birmingham Academic Building
10:00 – 11:30 am	Brunch served in Ward Hall. Dinner will be available after 3:00 pm
11:30 – 12 noon	Judges’ and Debaters’ Meeting in Ward Hall
12:00 – 1:00 pm	Round One
1:00 – 2:00 pm	Round Two
2:00 – 3:00 pm	Round Three
3:00 – 4:15 pm	Dinner in Ward Hall
4:15 – 4:30 pm	Presentation of Awards in Ward Hall

The maximum length and order of speeches are as follows:

Prime Minister	5 minutes
First Opposition Speaker	8 minutes
Minister of the Crown	8 minutes
Leader of the Opposition	8 minutes
Prime Minister’s Rebuttal	3 minutes

A 30-second grace period will be allowed for each debater, after which the speech will be terminated. The Government will be given 2 minutes to define the terms in the room with the Opposition and the judge, followed by a 10-minute preparation time for both teams. The Government Team should repair to the hallway for the preparation period. Debaters are strictly forbidden from consulting any reference materials during the preparation period or during the debate. Violation of this rule will warrant disqualification from the tournament.

Directions to St. Sebastian’s can be found on our website. Please note that registration, meals and all of the debates will take place in the Academic Building.

Information on rules, scoring, points of information, etc. can be found in the rules section of our league website at www.daneis.org. Please see the five PDFs under the heading “DANEIS Parliamentary Debate with POIs.” We ask that your debaters and judges be thoroughly familiar with all of this information prior to the tournament as we will have just a short time for the judges’ and debaters’ briefing on the day of the debate. There are also a couple of helpful videos in the members’ section of the website.

We look forward to seeing you on February 17, and express our appreciation for your participation.

Michael P. Nerbonne
Debate Coach

Invitation as a PDF
Schedule and Directions
Event Guidelines (PDF)
KO Public Speaking Ballots<

Dear Members and Friends of DANEIS,

We cordially invite you to attend the 2019 Kingswood Oxford Public Speaking Tournament on Sunday, February 10 in West Hartford, Connecticut. Each school may register up to eight speakers. Every speaker must compete in two rounds of two events, meaning that each speaker will compete in two events in a total of four rounds:

I) After Dinner Speaking or Persuasive Speaking
II) Impromptu Speaking or Ethical Dilemmas

Our goals in departing from the traditional three single-round events followed by finals are the following: to encourage students to prepare one event really well, to offer more opportunity for learning over the course of the day, and to balance out any potential anomalies by determining awards based on two sets of scores. Guidelines for all of the events are attached. Also attached are copies of all the ballots we will be using along with sample ethical dilemmas. If you require further information about any of the events, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We ask that each school entering bring at least one adult judge for its first four entrants and one additional judge (who may be either an adult or a senior with public speaking experience) for any additional entrants. Student and adult judges will work together; neither will judge any speakers from their own schools.

Although there will not be separate advanced and novice divisions, we will award distinguished younger speakers competing in their first public speaking tournament. Awards will be given to the top three speakers in each individual category, the top three overall speakers, and the top three schools. In order to be eligible for a school award, a team must consist of at least four speakers.

Space is limited, so please RSVP as soon as possible to Heather Wayne. At that time, please let us know how many speakers you plan to bring, whether they will be entering After Dinner Speaking or Persuasive Speaking, Impromptu Speaking or Ethical Dilemmas. The deadline for entering is February 1. The registration fee of $18 per competitor (payable to Kingswood Oxford School) should be paid by check at the door. We look forward to seeing you on February 10.

Sincerely,

Michelle Schloss, Heather Wayne, and Ted Levine, Forensic Union Coaches