SpeechWire Tournament Services - Forensics Tournament Software

AWARDS VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYIJhQ7fuh0

LIMITED PREP TOPICS HAVE BEEN POSTED AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE. VIDEO SUBMISSIONS ARE DUE BY TUESDAY, 2/2 AT 11:59PM PST (WITH SOME LEEWAY).

Dear Forensics Colleagues:

On behalf of Cal State L.A. and ELAC, we would like to invite you to participate in our second annual Hollywood swing! The swing will feature all eleven AFA/NFA individual events, and will occur in two distinct competitions:

Gone Hollywood: asynchronous competition - students will submit Youtube links for recordings, which should be submitted by Tuesday, 2/2 at 11:59PM PST. Each event will have two preliminary rounds. Preliminary round judging will occur from Wednesday, 2/3 - Thursday, 2/4, with ballots due at 11:59PM PST. Finals ballots will be released early Friday morning, and will be due Saturday, 2/6 at noon PST, with an awards ceremony at 2PM PST. Semifinals will be scheduled if the need arises.

Straight to DVD: synchronous competition - on Sunday, 2/7, students may compete over Zoom by joining the tournament Zoom link (which will be posted and sent out to participants the week of the tournament), and competition will occur in breakout rooms. In order to best approach wellness and Zoom fatigue, the schedule will be fairly condensed to shorten the tournament day - patterns during preliminary rounds will be collapsed. For this reason, please feel free to provide as many extra judges as you’d like. Similarly, to accommodate for students take a large variety of events, the time between rounds is a bit longer than at typical tournaments, and judges are expected to accommodate students running late - that said, while it is very mathematically possible to bring more than 6 events and make it to all rounds on time, this strategy probably isn’t an advisable one. Patterns will be separated out for finals to accommodate the need for additional judges and to provide students the opportunity to listen to the advocacy and performances during this time. Semifinals will be scheduled if the need arises.

-All events will use the 2020-2021 AFA-NST guidelines for competition rules and online considerations. Please feel free to reach out with any questions here. Rounds procedure and tiebreakers will follow AFA guidelines.

-All proceeds for the tournament will go back toward hiring judges and supporting the Kunkle family. Joseph, Edward, and William Kunkle competed/coached with ELAC and Cal State LA, and this December, lost their father to COVID-19. Fees will be directed toward legal, medical, and living fees.

-All entries will be $10, with $25 for a school fee. Entries and judges are due for BOTH Gone Hollywood and Straight to DVD on Tuesday, 2/2 at 11:59PM PST. Late entries will result in an additional $10. Judges are expected to cover 5 entries - missing judges will incur a penalty fee of $50, and late judge drops an additional $25. For general ease, please send all entry fees over Venmo to @Holly-Smith-56. Registration (as well as this invite) will be located on Speechwire, and any additional updates will be sent through Speechwire’s messaging system and/or posted on the tournament page.

-While neither day of the tournament will have awards to mail competitors (to allocate tournament fees elsewhere), we will announce and celebrate speakers, teams, and their contributions. Each day of the tournament will calculate team sweepstakes and individual sweepstakes for the top 5 programs/competitors (Final Placings: 1st-12 points, 2nd-10 points, 3rd-8 points, 4th-6 points, 5th-4 points, -6th-2 points, 7th/Semifinalist-1 point).

-Gone Hollywood: as the tournament will be asynchronous, Extemp and Impromptu will be similar to other asynchronous tournaments this season - students will submit a single recording for each event to be judged for the entire tournament. Limited preparation prompts will be released 24 hours prior to the entry deadline so that students have additional time to accommodate for recording a speech.

-Straight to DVD: as the tournament will be synchronous, students should expect a fairly straightforward experience here. Students who are double-entered (or more than double-entered) should let the prep proctor know so as to be bumped up in the speaking order. For purposes of accommodation (image-based prompts are not always accessible to all participants), Impromptu will only use quotations/proverbs.

OPEN DOOR POLICY: Cal State LA and ELAC are committed to providing safe performance spaces for all competitors and judges. We acknowledge the art of performance may be a healing process and/or opportunity to speak on important topics. As a performer, it is impossible to know all the ways in which content or a performance may unintentionally harm or trigger members of our audience. To better serve our competitors, we will be honoring our various institutions’ open door practices during all synchronous. An “open door policy” means competitors and other audience members may choose to leave or stay in a Zoom room when a performance negatively impacts their wellbeing. Competitors may discreetly leave the room (e.g., before, during, or after someone’s performance) even when not double-entered, without question or penalty. Competitors may disengage from a performance (e.g., turn off their camera, actively dissociate, put their head down on a desk, cover their ears). If competitors need to leave a round due to physical (e.g., uncontrollable coughing, vomiting) or spiritual (e.g., Salat times) needs, they may also excuse themselves without question or penalty. Judges should not penalize competitors for any of the above reasons, though this list is not exhaustive.

ETHICAL TREATMENT OF OTHERS Cal State L.A. and ELAC are fully committed to a safe and healthy educational, work and competition environment that is free from unlawful discrimination and harassment. As such, we prohibit discrimination and harassment on the basis of sex, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity, race, disability, religion and other lawfully protected categories. This prohibition includes sexual assault and misconduct, and stalking. Should you experience a Title IX violation while attending our Tournament, please report the violation to your coach or someone you trust, and the tournament host. The tournament host will ensure that the Title IX officers from the host institution, your home university/college, and from the institution of the perpetrator are notified so that investigative procedures can begin. Please report behavior that is not in line with our stated anti-harassment policy. If, at any point in time, behavior is reported that is antithetical to a positive learning environment for any tournament participants, it will be handled accordingly. Directors, please remember, you are responsible for the people that you bring to our campus.

JUDGE STRIKES: We ask that if your students have any conflicts with judges for non-competitive reasons that you let us know so we can block the judge from judging the student. Examples of when this could happen might include: the student is a family member/close friend of the judge, a student was harassed/assaulted by a judge, a student was a teammate of the judge, a student was coached by the judge. We respect the privacy of these decisions. We hope that if a judge has participated in improper behavior that the tournament director will be notified so that, if necessary, the judge can be removed from the judging pool before interacting with students. Students can inform us through their coach or inform the tournament directors directly. The tournament director will not ask for details and do not expect any; we trust in the decision of the student.

CONTACT: If you have any additional questions, comments, or concerns about the tournament itself, please contact pattridg@asu.edu. If you have questions about the payment or donation process, please contact hsmith11@calstatela.edu.

EXTEMP QUESTIONS (Pick one, no need to record prep):

Will state-level Republican organizations continue push the GOP further right in 2021?

Is the United States ready for incoming deadlier COVID-19 strains?

What impact will potential US sanctions have for Myanmar's citizens?

What steps should the UK take to best accomodate incoming Hong Kong refugees?

Will 2021 see meaningful change to Iranian-Venezuelan relations?

What should be the primary goal for year one of President Biden's Department of Education?

IMPROMPTU PROMPTS (Pick one, no need to record prep):

"Rich men are born with opportunities they can waste."

"I heard that speech, I knew we'd make noise. I just thought it'd be in the streets."

"If I wanted a boyfriend, and a yoga class, and a house, and kids, and a job my mom could brag about, I'd have done it. It would take ten minutes.

"The world can be a damn cruel place. But for me, those moments of stillness, that's the kingdom of God."

"The more music you have in the world, the fuller it is."

"Martin's dead. Malcolm's dead. Medgar's dead. Bobby's dead. Jesus is dead. They tried it peacefully. We're going to try something else."

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