Dear Speech Coach,

 

Hello.  I hope all of you are having a great school year so far, in what is in some ways the most challenging school year of the pandemic so far. Sorry for how late this is going out. A few factors have meant that our tournament date has been adjusted, and depending on your personal district and tournament schedule, I recognize that this date may not work as well for some of you this year. I apologize for any inconvenience there and will miss any of you who cannot attend this year. On the other hand, I know that we have schools we regularly invite who can't always come, so perhaps this'll open up the possibility to those schools. For all who can make it, we are pleased to invite you to participate in the annual Sandwich Invitational on Saturday, January 22nd, 2022, at Sandwich High School. As for everything these days, many of these details are subject to change as we all figure out the best way to hold in-person tournaments these days.

 

This tournament will run as follows:

   

1) There will be three rounds of competition--no finals.

 

As of now, to avoid mass eating of concessions, we plan to run on a slightly altered round schedule of 8am, 9:30am, and 11am. This would allow us to get through the tournament hopefully without too many rumbling bellies by the time we're done. Stay tuned on awards ceremony as well--fortunately for us we can see how other schools handle these logistical wrinkles earlier in the season and see what's working well!

 

2) Individual awards will be given to the top six individual finishers in each event. Team awards will be presented to the top three schools.

 

3) Each school may bring one FULL team; a full team is defined as two entries (an A and a B) in each of the fourteen categories.  Students may double enter. 

 

Because we have tried to be open to more teams in the last few years, we cannot guarantee spaces for extras. Entries will be initally capped at two per event for each team. While building changes at our school may open additional rooms to us and could allow us to be more accommodating, we of course have the added pandemic wrinkle now which could offset that a bit. Closer to the week of the tournament I will send out emails about any space we have available.

 

4) Radio will prep the night before, but material must not be more than twenty-four hours old.  Extemp will prep on site, beginning at 7:30am, in a room to be announced.

 

5) Only radio will have timers, but all judges/coaches are asked to bring stop watches and note gross time violations as part of their rankings. 

 

6) Each school must provide one judge for every five contestants or fraction thereof.  Each school will not be asked to provide more than 5 judges. Due to the small nature of our tournament, CLEAN judges are preferred whenever possible. If a school cannot secure the required number of judges, the school may pay SHS $80.00 for each missing judge, and SHS will provide the needed judges.  If you know you won't be able to provide the necessary number of judges, please let us know as soon as possible.

 

7) Entry fees are $100.00 per team.  Please make your checks payable to Sandwich High School.

 

Please send your check, ten impromptu topics, and ten extemp topics ASAP (if you have entries in these categories).   Please submit them on SpeechWire,  or mail to: Kevin Pajor, 515 E. Lions Road, Sandwich, IL 60548.   We look forward to seeing you on January 18th!  Please do not hesitate to email me if you have any questions: kpajor@sandwich430.org

Sincerely,

Kevin Pajor, Head Coach         

Donna Botts, Mike Botts, Rachel Kocurek, Assistant Coaches

(vr)