Dear Speech Team Coach,

We are pleased to invite you to our annual Rolling Meadows Varsity Speech Tournament to be held on January 18, 2025.  As we get deeper into the season, we look forward to hosting you and your students for a fun and competitive day!  Here is the information you need to know.

 

SCHEDULE

This will be a standard 3-round preliminary tournament, with a final round.  We are hopefully going to follow the schedule from the most recent years, which broke the 3 rounds into 4 time slots.  As the number of attending teams changes, the schedule will change accordingly.  We will keep you posted!  Because of this stagger, we WILL allow students to be TRIPLE-ENTERED, but please restrict this option to only your best competitors, as we will not hold the tournament up because of an issue.  The schedule will be posted on SpeechWire as well.  Depending on the size of the tournament, we will likely hold Next-In finals as well, so that more kids can get rewarded for their hard work.

 

ENTRIES

Teams will be allowed to enter up to 3 entries in each event.  Please enter through SpeechWire.  Extra entries will be considered based upon requests, but cannot be guaranteed.  There are only so many rooms that can be used, and we don't want to be here on Sunday!  Of course, those teams that offer the same courtesy to us will be given priority. 

 

AWARDS

Individual trophies will be given to the top 6 competitors in each event (medals for all other finalists), based on FINAL ROUNDS.  Any Next-In finalists will receive medals as well.  The top 5 teams will also be awarded a trophy.

 

FOOD

We will plan to provide food throughout the day.  Judges and coaches can enjoy food in the Faculty Lounge as well.

 

RULES

The rules for all 14 IHSA events will be followed, with Extemp and Radio prepping twice for Rounds 1 and 2, and once more for finals.  Students can choose EITHER prep for Round 3.  Time violations in radio will be ranked 6th, regardless of the number of competitors.

 

ENTRY FEES AND JUDGES

Please make checks payable to Rolling Meadows High School.

1-14 entries = $150, and please bring 1 judge per 7 entries, rounding up (max of 2)

15-28 entries = $200, and please bring 1 judge per 7 total entries, rounding up (max of 4)

29-42 entries = $250, and please bring at least 5 judges

43 or more entries = $300, and please bring at least 7 judges

 

BALLOTS AND CRITIQUES

We are also going to use e-ballots and online critiques.  Please make sure all students have been registered for Speechwire (coaches should do this in the team roster section of Speechwire).   Anyone judging should plan on bringing a device for filling out critiques.

 

SpeechWire will be open to change entries as your team warrants.  I will close SpeechWire at 7 am on Saturday, January 18.

Please email me at mike.concialdi@d214.org if you have any questions or concerns.  You can also reach me at (847) 718-5725.  As the tournament gets closer, I will send out final information for the day.  We look forward to seeing you in January!

Sincerely,

Mike Concialdi and the Rolling Meadows High School Speech Team

(vr24)