SpeechWire Tournament Services - Forensics Tournament Software

Dear Speech Coaches,

Conant High School is excited to host the JV/Novice Tournament portion of the District 211 Turkey Tournament on November 20th.

We all know how important it is to have the students compete in person, so we will hold this tournament in-person as long as IDPH allows for large groups to assemble. If this changes before 11/14, we will announce that the tournament is going online. If it changes after 11/14 we will still probably go online, but be prepared for lots of emails, hurried recording, frustrated judges and the gnashing of teeth.

Here are some basic things that you need to know for the tournament:

We will run the tournament live in order to reduce paper. As always, we will have signs on the doors to show you what is in each room. But, we will also have maps placed around the school to help you instead of placing them in the packets. Students will compete in 3 rounds with no finals rounds. Extemp will prep once before Round I and use this speech for all 3 rounds. Radio will prep at home and deliver that speech for all 3 rounds.

Schedule: The current schedule for the Saturday tournament is as follows.

7:00 Registration

8:00 Extemp Prep

8:30 Round I: All events

10:00 Round II: All events

11:30 Round III: All events

1:30 Awards

Fees: $150, payable to Conant High School Speech, ATTN: Vera Bass

Judges: Please bring one judge for every 6 entries.

Please upload 5 extemp topics when finalizing your rosters.

Here are some things that have to change for social distancing purposes:

Because of social distancing, we are limited with the seats we can provide. We will start by limiting the tournament to 25 schools. Each school is limited to 30 students, and you can have all of the entries you can muster within those 30 kids.

Everyone within the building will be allowed to have masks off when eating only, and should be on at all other times (even if they are talking with someone who is eating and they are not). We will have extra seating areas for students and adults in different parts of the building. We are asking that coaches remain with their competitors to help monitor mask wearing and social distancing. Judges are asked to use the faculty café and the multi-purpose room as areas to eat and relax between rounds. Seating is distanced in all of these areas. Each school will be assigned an area in the cafeteria or atrium for student seating. For students, we have 3ft seating in the cafeteria (zigzag at the tables) and 6ft seating in the atrium (individual desks). If your district would prefer 6ft seating, please let me know and I will assign you to that area. Otherwise, the luck of the draw will determine which area we assign your school.

We will have a concession stand of individually packaged and pre-packaged food. We are planning on providing lunch for purchase, but we are still working on those details. Look for future emails on what will happen there. I am sure that you have lots of questions so feel free to email me at vbass@d211.org or call me 224-653-3401 (W) or 630-726-9149 (C).

Good luck to everyone!

Vera Bass and the CHS Speech Staff