You are invited to attend the 10th Annual SSP Packer Middle School/Jr High Invitational on Feb 6, 2025.

 

There will be 3 rounds of competition and no finals, with round 1 beginning at 3:45.  It is our goal to have everyone on the road before 8:30. Teams will use the cafeteria as their home base. Awards will be held in our Lecture Hall.

 

SCHEDULE:

2:45-3:15     Registration will be in front of the high school offices. The Draw room is in the Media Center.

3:15              Draws for Round 1

3:45              Round 1 for all events

4:45              Draws for Round 2

5:15              Round 2

6:30              Round 3 (draw students choose their favorite draw from rounds 1 and 2)

7:45              Awards

 

ENTRIES:

The fee is $3.50/competitor, with each duo entry being $7.00.  Double-entries are allowed, it will be on coach and student to make it work. We have a fairly tight schedule, so there isn’t much wiggle room.

 

Entry deadline:

Please submit your initial entries by 3 pm Monday, February 3.  Please make adds/drops throughout the week as you know of them. Fees will be set at 3 pm, Wed., Feb. 5.    After that point, drops will not reduce registration fees or judge obligation. 

 

PLEASE make any final changes on Speechwire BEFORE you leave school on Thursday afternoon to travel to South St Paul.

 

Special category-specific instructions:

Discussion:  Tasks will come from part 1 and II of the outline, Personal Interests and Corporate Interests.

 

DRAW EVENTS: We will hold draws for rounds 1 and 2, but for round 3 the student will choose one of those two earlier draws to repeat.

Extemp reading draws will come from stories 1-10 and poems 1-36 (Part 1). 

 

Storytelling draws will come from stories 1-10.

 

FOOD:

Rather than a traditional concessions stand, we will be offering Domino’s pizza with a choice of sausage, cheese, or pepperoni, at cost, with a small surcharge for tax and tip. You may order pizzas for your team via our site on Speechwire. I still need to check on the price but will have that information up by Tuesday, Jan 21. I ask that you enter a preliminary pizza order by Thursday, Jan 30 so that I can give the restaurant a ballpark figure for their own planning purposes. Final numbers for pizzas need to be on the site by the registration deadline of 3 p.m., Wednesday, Feb 5.

 

Since SSP no longer sells pop in our vending machines, I will supply a variety of pop for the students. Students can, of course, purchase other treats from our vending machines or bring their own sack lunch. 

 

If you have students that need gluten-free or vegan options, they are invited to get something to eat at the coach/judge lounge that WILL have gluten-free and vegan options. I would appreciate knowing ahead of time how many more people that might entail so that I can be sure to have enough food prepared.  Just shoot me a quick e-mail if you think you have students that will choose that option.

 

JUDGES:

Your school must provide one judge for every six entries or fraction thereof.  Experienced senior high speech team members (preferably at least two years of experience) may be used as judges.  I don’t anticipate having any judges available to hire, but if you are desperate, let me know and I will try.  The cost for a hired judge would be $100. 

 

Our tournament is so small that it is difficult to honor requests for judge preference, so I have set all judges to EITHER. We will do our best to ensure that no one has to judge a member of their own team, but it has happened on rare instances. Instead, please block a judge from specific team members or categories that they should NOT judge in order to give us maximum flexibility. Please do the same with parent judges, but any coach probably needs to prepare for the possibility that they may need to judge a team member. I will avoid that to the best of my ability, but…

 

In past years, some teams have been able to bring extra judges, a blessing that comes from a large high school team with members that are willing (and eager!) to try their hand at judging.  If that is true for your team, you have my utmost gratitude! 

 

If you have any clean judges, please be sure to include that information in the judge registration. There will be a lounge for coaches and judges in our FACS room, A149. 

 

 

ARRIVAL:

School lets out at 2:30, and the parking lot (east side of the building) is pretty crazy until 2:45. I would advise NOT arriving until after that time.

 

 

ONE last request...If you have entries in Extemp Speaking or Extemp Reading, please send me a quick email (ceiltrow@gmail.com) when you register to let me know whether your ES kiddos are choosing national or international, and in ER, if they are choosing poetry or prose. That info helps me plan the draws. Don't worry; if you forget, you will receive an email request from me!

 

Sincerely,

Ceil

 

Home - Order SpeechWire - Tournament results - Your account - Tournament manager