PBCFL #4

Registration	Subscribe	General information	Schematics	Files for download	Tournament schedule	Fees	Registration handbook

General information

This is a High School tournament in Florida.

View manager contact information

Palm Beach Catholic Forensic League Tournament Invitation

PBCFL #4

DATE: December 14, 2024 @ John I. Leonard High School, 4701 10th Ave N, Greenacres, FL 33463

TOURNAMENT GUIDELINES:

• This is a mixed varsity-novice tournament.
• Any student, varsity or novice, will be allowed to compete in Declamation (G9/G10 only), Dramatic Performance, Duo Interpretation, Extemporaneous, Informative Speaking, Oral Interpretation, Original Oratory, Program Oral Interpretation, Lincoln Douglas, Public Forum, Congressional Debate, and World Schools Debate (pending enough entries).
• There are separate divisions for varsity ("open") and novice entries in all events EXCEPT World Schools Debate.
• A "novice" is considered any student who is in their first year of high school debate competition.
• NEW AS OF NOVEMBER 2024: Students in the Novice Extemporaneous Speaking division have the option to utilize a 3x5 note card with a maximum of 50 words. Said notes may only be on one side of the card. Students may not be penalized by judges for opting to use or not use notes during their speeches. Novices competing in an open Extemporaneous Speaking division may not use notecards. Students must supply their own notecards.
• Students may double-enter in two speech/interp events.
• LD will be able to compete using the November-December topic.
• PFD will be able to compete using the November-December topic.
• The WSD prepared motion is listed below.
• Legislation will be posted as full-text on the PBCFL website (www.pbcfl.net).
• NEW COACHES (first- and second-year in particular) should plan on judging (choose an event group!).
• ALL TOURNAMENT ATTENDEES, INCLUDING ADULTS, WILL NEED TO PASS THROUGH METAL DETECTORS WHEN ENTERING THE CAMPUS. PLEASE PLAN ACCORDINGLY - THIS INCLUDES ARRIVING EARLY TO AVOID POSSIBLE DELAYS!

ENTRY PROCEDURES and REGISTRATION INFORMATION:

• You may register 8 entries/teams in each open event, except for Congressional Debate (20 entries) and World Schools Debate (2 entries).
• You may enter 12 entries/teams in each additional novice event, except for Novice Congressional Debate (20 entries).
• You may only enter 4 students per Congressional Debate chamber. (The PBCFL reserves the right to collapse houses and modify this rule when necessary.)
• Once registration closes, houses may be balanced and students may be shifted to another chamber. All efforts will be made to keep the same group of students together.
• No changes will be made after the Tuesday 3 p.m. drop deadline ... please plan accordingly.
• Double-check your registration. No student will be added to the tournament on the morning of the tournament.
• Make sure to set your Chamber preferences. To do this, go to TOURNAMENT HOME, then select CHAMBER/PO PREFERENCES.
• POs for novice chambers should be first-year students who have been properly trained.
• Coaches do NOT need to designate POs in advance.

PREPARATIONS BEFORE THE TOURNAMENT:

• Assign the sponsorship speech to one person from your school in each chamber.
• Because full-text legislation will be on-line, it is each school's responsibility to access legislation in advance.
• DOUBLE-CHECK your entries. If a student is not listed on your registration, or is listed in the wrong event or experience status, they will NOT be added or changed on the morning of the tournament.
• Make sure you tell us who your student judges are (juniors or seniors with 150+ NSDA points) when registering them - include info in the notes section.
• Make sure all your students have signed a behavior/attire contract.
• PLEASE INCLUDE PRONUNCIATION INFO FOR STUDENTS - coaches can do this by accessing their student information from the team roster

REGISTRATION ON SATURDAY:

• Extemp Draw for Round 1 is at 7:45 a.m.
• Students/programs that are late may be dropped from the tournament by league officers.
• Check your registration carefully; there will be a "hidden drop fee" for any drop that is not reported at registration.
• Refer to the chamber breakdown list in order to make sure all competitors know where to report.
• Make sure all judges check their email and text messages for ballot assignments.

RULE REMINDERS:

• No student member shall use an original oration, a non-original oration, or a selection of poetry, prose, or drama during a given league season which has been used by such student in any tournament of a previous season(s).
• No school shall substitute a non-registered competitor in the place of a registered competitor on the day of competition. This includes “event-shifting.”
• No varsity member(s) may compete in a novice event unless specified by tournament rules (collapsing of a novice and varsity division). Violation of this shall be punishable by disqualification from the tournament.
• POI and OI must have different pieces - you cannot do the same prose or poetry in both events (you will be subject to disqualification).
• SPEECH COMPETITORS: Students who are in Speech events CANNOT wear airpods, headphones, etc. when performing
• ORAL INTERPRETATION and POI: While there’s no rule governing binders, they should be the smaller 5x8.5” black binders. Students should also use plastic sheet covers for their pages to reduce distracting page turn sounds during performances.

JUDGE QUOTAS:

• CONGRESS: 1 judge per every 10 entries or fraction thereof
• SPEECH/INTERP: 1 judge for every combination of 5 entries or fraction thereof
• PUBLIC FORUM DEBATE: 1 judge for every 2 entries or fraction thereof
• LINCOLN DOUGLAS DEBATE: 1 judge for every 2 entries or fraction thereof
• WORLD SCHOOLS DEBATE: 1 judge for every 2 entries or fraction thereof
• Register ALL judges on Speechwire.
• Make sure you distinguish any student judge when registering on Speechwire by informing us in the "notes" section. Student judges must be juniors or seniors with 150+ NSDA points on record. Coaches must be able to verify their student judges meet this criteria. Students may only judge Declamation and novice-specific events.
• PLEASE ENTER THE CORRECT EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR YOUR JUDGES INTO SPEECHWIRE (they all need to have an individual Speechwire account to access and submit electronic ballots). Teams are liable for missing judge fees if the email addresses are improperly entered into Speechwire and judges miss rounds.

ENTRY FEES:

Each school's PBCFL membership fees ($75) and league registration form must have been received by the PBCFL Treasurer by the Tuesday before the tournament, in order to compete at the tournament. Schools that do not achieve both of these will be ineligible to compete, and any registered students and judges will be dropped from the tournament.

$20 per student (includes meals)

MEALS:

$10 for adult meals. Coaches must order meals for all entries, adult judges, judge trainees, and coaches.

STUDENT LUNCHES: Pizza - cheese or pepperoni

ADULT LUNCHES: Buffet

DROP FEES:

Tuesday, December 10, at 3 p.m.is the deadline for registering students. At this time, schools are responsible for the $20 fee.

Wednesday, December 11, at 3 p.m. is the last opportunity to drop students before the website shuts down. At this time, an additional $10 drop fee goes into effect.

$100 - judge drop fee for any no-show judge on Saturday morning. In addition, you will be required to drop students until the team meets the judge quota.

$50 - missed judge rounds (hidden judges).

TOPICS:

Extemporaneous Speaking Topic Areas: TBD

Lincoln Douglas Debate: We are using the November-December NSDA topic - Resolved: The United States ought to adopt a wealth tax.

Public Forum Debate: We are using the November-December NSDA topic - Resolved: The United States should substantially reduce its military support of Taiwan.

CONGRESS-SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

All full-text legislation must be emailed as a Microsoft Word attachment in the proper format no later than 3pm MONDAY, DECEMBER 2 (but we'd really like to have it before Thanksgiving Break, so you're not scrambling to enter legislation the day you return).

Send legislation to pbcflcongress@gmail.com.

NOTE: All legislation must be Federal in nature. No State legislation is allowed.

NOTE: Good legislation has good arguments on BOTH SIDES. For example, “increasing the penalty on drunk drivers” is heavily weighted towards the affirmative. “Confiscating the cars of drunk drivers” has room for negative arguments.

THE FOLLOWING TOPICS ARE PROHIBITED DUE TO HAVING BEEN DONE WAY TOO MANY TIMES IN THE PAST!

Legalize Prostitution

Legalize Marijuana

Legalize Euthanasia

Require Drivers over 65 Retest for Driver’s License

Raise or Lower the Voting Age

Lower the Drinking Age

Institute Stem Cell Research

Ban Animal Testing Ban the DeathPenalty

Ban Abortion

ANYTHING relating to the current Public Forum Debate topic

ANYTHING relating to the current Lincoln Douglas Debate topic 

Schools may send no more than ONE piece of legislation for this tournament.

ACTIVE LEGISLATION:

Legislation should be up and running through the PBCFL website (www.pbcfl.net) and on Speechwire by WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4. You will be notified via email when the legislation is active.

All chambers will set an agenda on the day of the tournament.

LEGISLATION TEMPLATES:

Legislative templates are available for use on http://www.pbcfl.net; they can be accessed through the "Legislation" link.

Improperly formatted legislation can be rejected at the discretion of league officers.

CONGRESS CHAMBER REMINDERS:

NEW AS OF NOVEMBER 2024: Recency resets after lunch.

Extending the questioning period is not allowed, nor are two-part questions.

All authorship/sponsorship and first-negative speeches have a mandatory two-minute questioning period. All other speeches have a mandatory one-minute questioning period.

Each legislative item must go through at least one complete cycle (three speeches).

Recency does NOT reset after lunch.

Recesses are allowed under PBCFL rules, with a maximum of 10 minutes of recess per session. Students are encoraged to wait until the recess is called and NOT to move to a point of personal privilege during a session, as to maintaikn a smoother flow during the session.

At least 2 hours of debate must take place each session. Recess time is included in this total. The 2 hours begins once the first speech of a session begins.

There is 30 minutes prior to the morning session that should be used for electing presiding officers, setting dockets, etc. There are no pre-set dockets at this tournament.

Direct Questioning must be utilized.

"MODIFIED" WORLD SCHOOLS DEBATE (WSD):

World Schools Debate is a three-on-three format. While a given team may consist of five members, only three students from a team participate in a given debate. Teams are assigned one of two sides in each round - either the “government team” proposing the motion, or the opposition team advocating the rejection of the motion. Resolutions come in two types: prepared motions and impromptu motions. All topics needed to be debated from a global perspective, meaning teams needed to stay away from United States-specific argumentation.

The PBCFL will be running a modified WSD format. The first two rounds will be a prepared motion, where each team will debate both the proposition and opposition sides. The third round will be an impromptu motion, with 60 minutes of "prep" time before the round. No internet access is allowed during World Schools Debate rounds or during prep on impromptu motions; the only tools that can be used during impromptu prep are a hard-copy dictionary and a hard-copy almanac.

The PBCFL will allow three-person non-hybrid teams. Normally, between 3-5 students from multiple schools can comprise a team, but for purposes of the PBCFL, this will not be the case.

THE DECEMBER WORLD SCHOOLS DEBATE PREPARED MOTION: This House would nationalize the housing sector (e.g., Evergrande in China). (Prepared motion to be used the first two rounds; the impromptu motion will be announced 60 minutes before Round 3 begins.)

Times for each speech are as follows:

• Proposition Team Speaker #1 – 8 minutes
• Opposition Team Speaker #1 – 8 minutes
• Proposition Team Speaker #2 – 8 minutes
• Opposition Team Speaker #2 – 8 minutes
• Proposition Team Speaker #3 – 8 minutes
• Opposition Team Speaker #3 – 8 minutes
• Opposition Rebuttal – 4 minutes
• Proposition Rebuttal – 4 minutes

The first full minute of a substantive speech and the last full minute of a substantive speech are considered "protected time;" no Points of Information (POIs) may be given during this time. In addition, no POIs may be given during the rebuttal speeches.

DEMO VIDEO - THE USA DEBATE TEAM SHOWCASE (Motion: This House Believes That the School Choice Movement Jeopardizes Civil Rights): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUF5BI1-1Ek

Manager contact information

Traci Lowe
Email address: traci.lowe@palmbeachschools.org
Phone number: 561-889-3649

Mailing address

c/o Daryl Hall
325 Orange Way
West Palm Beach, FL 33405