Hello friends!

 

The Minnesota Collegiate Forensics Association Executive Committee invites you to attend the 37th annual Minnesota State Intercollegiate Speech and Debate Championship Tournament to be held February 20 and 21, 2021 in the virtual world of Zoom and Speechwire! Entries are due by 5:00 pm on Feb. 16.

 

This tournament is open to any Minnesota community college, college or university. All eleven of the AFA-NIET events, and four preliminary rounds of Parliamentary Debate will be offered. We will not have an experimental event this year. This tournament also serves as the state qualification tournament for the Interstate Oratorical Association Tournament. The two top competitors in Oratory will represent Minnesota at the IOA tournament in April 2021. You will find all the necessary details for the tournament in this invitation. Please consider having your seniors apply for the 20201 Minnesota All-State Team. The forms can be found on the MCFA website at https://mnforensics.org/state-tournament/ Details are below.

 

A reminder that each school is limited to a maximum of 4 entries per event. This rule applies to both individual events and parliamentary debate.

 

In our effort to make this State tournament special, we are asking all coaches/student leaders to read the additional information provided by the MCFA Awards Subcommittee led by Katie Brunner of Minnesota State University, Mankato.

 

We will also be conducting our Spring 2021 MCFA Business Meeting on Saturday, Feb. 20 at 12:15 pm. All members of the MCFA are invited to attend. Each member school has one vote. One item on the agenda will be the dates, schedule and format (in person or virtual - prep for both) for the 2022 State Tournament. If your school would like to host the 2022 State Tournament, please submit that proposal to Najla Amundson at namundso@cord.edu no later than February 17. 20201 at 5 pm. Also, we will discuss the experimental event for 2022. If you have any proposal for an experimental event, or agenda item for the Spring meeting, those items should also be emailed to Najla Amundson at the same email and by the same deadline. An agenda will be sent out prior to our meeting.

 

If you have any questions feel free to contact any of us listed below. We look forward to seeing everyone in February!

 

On behalf of your 2021 MCFA Executive Committee:

 

Najla Ghazi Amundson, executive secretary namundso@cord.edu Katie Brunner, member-at-large Katie.brunner@mnsu.edu William Heinze, member-at-large heinz178@umn.edu Abigail Ibisch member-at-large abigail-ibisch@bethel.edu Kelsey Walock member-at-large kwalock@gustavus.edu

 

Entries Feb. 16 at 5:00 pm via Speechwire

MCFA Proposals & Agenda Items Feb. 19 by 8:00 am to namundso@cord.edu

Oratory Scripts Feb. 19 by 8:00 am emailed to heinz178@umn.edu

MCFA Meeting Feb. 20 at 12:15 pm via Zoom

 

Entries and Fees For teams facing financial difficulties, please contact Najla Amundson at namundso@cord.edu. The MCFA wants to include any team who wishes to participate and does not want finances to prohibit participation.

 

Events will be offered in 2 flights. Students may enter no more than 3 events per flight. Students entered in 3 events in a single flight are responsible for getting to their rounds on time. Each school is limited to a maximum of 4 entries per event. Please see the event descriptions later in the invitation.

 

Entry fees are $8 per IE slot, $15 per Original Oratory slot and $30 per Debate Team. One judge covers 6 IE entries or 2 debate teams. The cost per uncovered entry is an additional $12 for IEs and $30 for Debate Teams. Judge usability will impact uncovered slot fees. If a judge is deemed “unusable” by MCFA Executive Secretary, including the judge during registration will not defray the cost of individual event or parliamentary debate slots. In the event clean judges are not provided by your school, it may be necessary to “double up” students from your school during preliminary rounds to keep the judging pool clean and productive.

 

Entries are due via Speechwire 5 pm on Tuesday, February 16. Fees are assessed at this time as well. A fee of $15.00 is assessed for each student drop or add after this time. All judges are expected to be available for final rounds on the day of competition. All judges are considered “clean” for final rounds. Teams will be charged a fee of $50.00 for every judge dropped from the tournament after 5 pm Tuesday, February 16. The MCFA will charge teams for changes.

 

 

(vr)