Greetings Indiana Debate Coaches! Fishers High School would like to invite you to participate in the Fishers Debate Tournament, to be held on Saturday, November 6th. This will be an fully in person tournament unless our district changes its policy. We will offer both Novice and Varsity competition in all IHSFA debate events: Congress, Lincoln Douglas, Policy, Public Forum, and World Schools Debate. Here are the key details:

 

 

• We will use the November NSDA topics for all events. 

• Round topics for World Schools Debate will be published closer to the tournament. 

• Congress should prepare for IHSFA Bills 2, 3, 4, and 5

• For the purposes of this tournament, Novices are defined as students with no prior High School debating experience. Students who have previously competed in HS level speech events but never any debate events are novices. Students who have previously competed in any debate event, including WSD and Congress, are varsity. 

• Online registration for this tournament will close at 3 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday, November 3rd.  

• Teams may check in starting at 7 AM the morning of the tournament. There will be a meeting for judges and competitors at 8:30 AM, postings at 8:45 AM, and Round 1 will start at 9 AM. 

• We will run 4 rounds of debate for all events, 2 sessions of Congress. Rounds 3 and 4 of debate events will be power matched.

• WSD Rounds 1 and 4 will be impromptu. Rounds 2 and 4 will be prepared motions which are available under "Files for Download"

• We are running this open debate tournament concurrently with a small speech invitational. Placings and awards for these tournaments will be separated. 

• Please bring at least one judge for every four students or fraction thereof (Two policy teams = 1 judge, five LDers = 2 judges, etc…).  Expect your judges to be assigned to judge any category you enter.  I have created a few judge preference categories on SpeechWire.  Varsity students (200 or more NFL points) who are not competing may judge novice rounds.  

 

This will be an electronically balloted tournament. Please make sure all judges have active speechwire accounts and have seen the speechwire resources for using electronic ballots. Judges should please bring a device that will allow them to connect to the WiFi and manage their online ballots--- smart phones will work but are not recommended. We will have some laptops available on loan for emergencies. 

 

We will request that all students, judges, and visitors wear masks at all times on campus unless they are eating or actively competing. Competitors will be more than 6 feet apart when speaking and will have option to remove masks if it makes them more comfortable. Judges will be given explicit instructions not to take students' decision to wear a mask into account when completing their ballots. Judges will be empowered to request that all students keep masks on throughout the round if it makes the judge more comfortable. Thank you for helping us keep everyone safe and keep us in alignment with HSE Schools policies. 

 

Prior to the tournament, please contact me at pkennedy@hse.k12.in.us if you have any questions. I will not check that email during the day of the tournament--- please send any questions to fisherstournament@gmail.com. We are looking forward to a great competition! 

 

(vr)