Dear Colleagues:

 

The District 4 Committee is pleased to invite you to attend the Joel Hefling D4 Spring Qualifying Tournament on Saturday, March 6, 2021. We will be hosting a synchronous one-day tournament using Speechwire and Zoom. The tournament will have two flights/two rounds and a final of 11 AFA individual events.  Rounds/finals may be collapsed depending on the number of competitors. Please set your clocks to Central Standard Time for this tournament. Please send in your D4 at-large & Fall District qualifying forms to the D4 Chair, Najla Amundson no later than midnight on Friday, March 5, 2021. You can put several students on one form - you do not need to complete a different form for each of your students.

 

AFA-NIET District IV consists of colleges and Universities in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.  Competitors may be entered in up to 3 events per flight. All team judges are expected to be available for final rounds and considered clean for final rounds. No one team may have more than 5 competitors entered in one event.

 

To compete, you must pay your District 4 subscription fees for the AFA- NST. Fees are $50. If you attended the Fall D4 Tournament, you've already paid that fee! If you did not, fees can be paid directly on the AFA website here: https://www.americanforensicsassoc.org/product/national-individual-events-tournament/ 

 

The top three competitors in all 11 AFA-NST events at the Joel Hefling D4 Qualifier will count as district qualifiers to the 2021 AFA-NST.  If that placement qualifies the student at-large, the district qualification will “trickle down” to the next student.  No student that has qualified an event at-large or at the Fall District Qualifier in December 2020 may enter this tournament in that event. 

 

We will be using Speechwire for entries, e-ballots, and tabulation. Please go to their website to enter: www.speechwire.org.  We will use Zoom for synchronous tournament rounds. A unique website is being created to make navigating the tournament via Zoom much more user friendly.  There have been a lot of changes in AFA-NST qualification rules, number legs needed to qualify, number of legs that count.  Some of these rules are only for the 2020-21 virtual season.  Others will be in effect when we get back to in-person competitions. If you have any questions about rule changes, this district tournament, or the National Speech Tournament, please don't hesitate to contact D4 Chair, Dr. Najla Amundson at namundso@cord.edu or via cell phone at 701-799-8487.

 

Our Best, 

 

Your 2020-21 D4 Committee

 

 

(vr)