***LIMITED PREP PROMPTS ARE NOW POSTED AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE AND IN FILES TO DOWNLOAD!***

 

AFA-NIET District 6 Spring Qualifying Tournament

January 29, 2022

 

Dear AFA-NIET District 6 Schools: 

The University of Alabama will host the AFA-NIET District 6 Spring Qualifying Tournament. This will be a virtual tournament held asynchronously in tandem with SpeechWire. We will hold this event using Central Standard Time.

District 6 is comprised of the following states: AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, and TN and Louisiana State University. Several schools have already paid their District 6 subscription fees for the AFA- NST. Subscription fees are $30 (before the December 1st deadline) and $50 (after the December 1^st deadline) and can be paid directly on the AFA website or can be added to your school's entry fee at the district qualifying tournament registration. If you know of other programs in your state that would be interested in joining the AFA-NST, please encourage them to attend our district tournament or to contact me for more information. We want our district to be well represented at the 2022 AFA-NST. Be sure to check out the AFA-NST website at www.afa-niet.org for additional information and the invitation. 

 

In addition to the usual tournament awards, District 6 will accept nominations for the 2021- 2022 All-American Individual Events Team presented at the AFA – NST. This is a wonderful recognition of students who excel at academics, service, and forensics. The nomination form and requirements are included with this invitation. Please email a copy of your students’ nominations in a PDF format no later than the end of registration on February 7 to me at bspyle@ua.edu. The nomination packet must include the student’s official transcript. This can be a copy in the PDF, but if the student’s packet is forwarded to the national committee, you will need to mail an official transcript at that time.

 

Please also forward your team’s current qualification forms for all at-large AFA qualifications to the District Tournament. This will help us continue the process of verifying qualifications for the AFA – NST.

We will use SpeechWire for entries, scheduling, and tabulation. To enter the tournament, please go to: www.speechwire.com. Also, because of the virtual nature of the tournament, please be sure that all of your students have activated SpeechWire accounts and are listed in your Team Roster. If you have any questions about this year's district tournament or the national tournament, please don't hesitate to contact me. 

 

We look forward to seeing y’all, virtually, soon! 

 

Dr. Ben Pyle                                                                  

District VI Chair                                                             

Assistant Professor, Director of the Alabama Forensic Council                

205-348-8077                                                                             

bspyle@ua.edu                                                              

District Six Qualifier Spring 2022 Tournament

Virtual Platforms: For this tournament, we will use multiple Zoom rooms for competition. Please be sure that you and your students have updated your Zoom apps with the most recent updates to ensure best connectivity and functionality. For ballots and schematics, we will use Speechwire, so please be sure that all students are “activated” on your team roster if they are competing. We will release more details about the process of the tournament closer to the day of the event.

Entries : All entries must be entered on Speechwire.com. There will be two preliminary rounds with finals. A school may not enter more than five students in each event. Material must not have been used by the student before September 1, 2021 Competitors may enter up to three events in a grouping. A STUDENT MAY NOT ENTER AN EVENT THAT HAS BEEN QUALIFIED FOR THE 2022 AFA-NIET THROUGH THE AT-LARGE QUALIFICATION METHOD--please see at-large qualification method below.

At Large Qualifications Process for the 2021-2022 competitive season: Two tournament placements used for qualification may not exceed a cumulative total of five (5), based on the following formula:

Up to six legs may be awarded in a final round, but no more than 50% of the competitors may earn legs in an event. The total number of entries will be rounded down.
 

# of entries in the event	# of legs earned	Places that earn legs
1	0	0
2-3	1	1st
4-5	2	1st, 2nd
6-7	3	1st, 2nd, 3rd
8-9	4	1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th
10-11	5	1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th
12+	6	1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th

District Qualification: The top three placements (or more based on entry size) automatically qualify for the AFA-NST. If an event receives its second leg to qualify at large, the district automatic qualification will move down to the next highest placing entry. Coaches, please make an effort to provide information about your students’ at-large quals available to the D6 Chair (Ben Pyle, bspyle@ua.edu) prior to, during, or immediately following this Spring District tournament so that we can expedite and recognize all of students who automatically qualify for the AFA – NST at the Spring District Tournament.

Tournament Fees: $10 per individual event slot entered. Additional fees: $10.00 per slot not covered by a judge provided by your school; $20.00 per slot drop; $60.00 per judge drop.

Payment: Payments can be made in the form of a check mailed to Ben Pyle, University of Alabama, Communication Studies Dept., Reese Phifer Hall Room 203, Box # 870172, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401.

 

Judges: All judges must be active coaching faculty, or graduate students, or persons with forensic experience. All judges will be responsible for judging one round past the elimination round of their students -- this means all judges are obligated to judge events in both flights which go straight to finals. Each school will be expected to provide one judge for every six slots entered. To ensure that we can utilize judges from all schools, we reserve the right to schedule students from the same school in the same section if necessary. The cost for hired judges will be $10.00 per uncovered slot.

Deadlines: All entries must be received by 5:00 pm, CST, Monday, February 7, 2022. Considering the asynchronous format, we do not anticipate drops or changes, as the complete video will be registered by Monday at 5:00 p.m. CST.

 

Virtual Tournament Standards of NST:

In order to count for qualification legs, tournaments that are held virtually under the NST health and safety provision must:

a. Restrict competitors to the use of a single camera and single microphone during a performance.

b. Physical audiences may be present during a performance (virtual audiences through the videoconferencing platform are welcome as well)

c. Competitors in Duo may compete together in the same physical space.

d. Promote editing practices that allow for simulation of a face-to-face environment (such as the use of visual aids and content warnings) while discouraging editing practices that would not be possible in a face-to-face environment (such as motion, video transitions, or audio manipulation)

 

When registering for the tournament, SpeechWire will provide a space to enter a student name, event, and the URL for their video.

 

The tournament will provide links for judging rounds to judges with their dance cards / eballots. We will also provide these links to other competitors in the round. Due to privacy concerns, only judges and students participating in a specific round will have access to video links for that round. Please do not share these links with others out of respect for the performers’ privacy.

 

The same video will be used for all rounds: 2 preliminary rounds and finals.

 

Note:

Competitor videos only need to be set on “unlisted” for the duration of the tournament. After the tournament is over, competitors can adjust their video setting to “private” ensuring the link will no longer provide access to the video.

 

Preliminary rounds will be judged on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Final rounds will be judged on Saturday and Sunday.

 

A live streamed awards ceremony will occur on Sunday afternoon. Time: TBD

 

Limited Preparation Instructions:

 

All LP prompts will be released on Noon CST Friday, February 4^th. Videos must be submitted by 5:00 p.m. CST on Monday, February 7^th.

 

Extemp prompts will consist of questions. Students can choose any question from the provided options. From the moment of selection students will have 30 minutes to prepare and then must immediately perform and record their speech. Impromptu prompts will be quotations. Students can choose any quotation from the provided options. From the moment of selection, students will have 7 minutes to prepare, perform and record their presentation. (Prep time does not need to be filmed for either Extemp or Impromptu.) The video URL must be provided (by way of registration on Speechwire) before the 5:00 p.m. CST deadline on Monday, February 7^th.

 

The 1 provided video will be judged in preliminary rounds 1 and 2, and then again in Finals if that student advances.

________________________________________________________________

 

INVOICE NUMBER 2021-2022 

 

American Forensic Association National Individual Events Tournament 

September 1, 2021

 

Subscription Fee for the American Forensic Association's National Individual Events Tournament. 

Payment due by December 1, 2021. 

Amount due: $30.00 ($50.00 if postmarked after December 1). 

Remit Payment to: DISTRICT CHAIR AFA-NIET 

 

Subscribing School: _________________________________ 

Coach:_____________________________ 

Office Phone:_______________________________________ 

Home Phone:________________________ 

Address: ____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

 

Make checks payable to American Forensic Association

This can also be paid directly on the AFA Website

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2022 District 6 Spring Qualifying Tournament Schedule

 

All times in Central Standard Time

 

Monday, February 7^th

5:00 p.m.   Registration and Videos Due

 

Tuesday, February 8^th

9:00 a.m.   Preliminary Ballots & Videos Released

 

Thursday, February 10^th

5:00 p.m.   Preliminary Ballots Due

7:00 p.m.   Final Round Ballots Released

 

Friday, February 11^th

5:00 p.m.   Final Round Ballots Due

7:00 p.m.   Virtual Awards

 

Flight A – Extemp, Prose, CA, DI, Duo and Pers 

Flight B – Imp, Info, ADS, Poe, and POI

 

(vr)