The Odyssey: Your Speech Journey Begins Here

General information	Files for download	Tournament schedule	Fees	Final results

General information

This information is from a tournament in a past season!

This is a High School tournament in Minnesota.

View manager contact information

Come accept the challenge and begin your speech journey at The Odyssey Speech Tournament hosted by Orono and Mound Westonka on January 21, 2017. The Tournament will be held at Mound Westonka High School and Grandview Middle School. We will use Speechwire and will accept all MSHSL and NSDA speech categories including POI. We will have novice and varsity divisions with three preliminary rounds and honors (for novice) and finals (for varsity) rounds. Team sweepstakes trophies will be given to the top 2 large and top 2 small (under 20 entries) schools. Concessions will be provided to students, and our booster parents will be providing food and beverages for judges, coaches, and bus drivers at both buildings. Bring your teams for the journey and come hungry!

Registration and Fees

• The cost is $7 per entry.
• Registration Deadline:
  • Monday, January 16th, 2016 (Initial Team Entry Deadline)
  • Wednesday, January 18th, 2016 at 3:00pm (drops and adds – all drops after this point will not result in a change of statement)
• Drops made after the registration deadline will be charged $7 per drop.
• Entry changes (drops or adds) can be made on the speechwire.com tournament site up until the end of registration. We will be site scheduling all rounds of competition in order to make sure rounds are equal and fair. For this reason, registration must be completed promptly by 7:45 AM or a phone call to 612-308-3038 must be made to report your team drops.
• Please make checks payable to Orono Speech Team and either hand them in at the information desk that morning, or mail to:

​Julie McMerty
c/o the Orono Speech Team
Orono High School
795 Old Crystal Bay Road N.
Long Lake, MN   55356​

Format

• All divisions (Varsity and Novice) will compete together in the three prelim rounds.
• All entries will be sorted at the completion of the third prelim round:
  • First break to Finals will be by overall ranks in combined divisions (top 1-7 overall).
  • Second break to Honors Finals will be by ranks of the remaining Novice competitors (remaining top 1-7 Novice). 

​Team Sweepstakes:

• Team trophies will be available for the top 2 schools in both LARGE and SMALL (under 20 entries) sizes.
• Novice ranks will have a strong influence in team's sweepstakes in order to encourage teams to continue to develop their novice competitors. 

Novice Division

A Novice competitor needs to meet either of the following criteria:

1. A first time ever competitor in speech (changing events does not count), and can be in any grade.
2. Any student in 6th, 7th, 8th or 9th grade who has never broken into an out round (eg. Honors, Quarter, Semi, Final) at any previous varsity tournament.

Due to anticipated small registration numbers, there will not be a Novice division for Program Oral Interp (POI).

Schedule

Judges

• Each team is required to bring 1 judge for each 6 entries (including double entries) for each building.
• While registering judges, you will need to also indicate which building the judge will be at during prelim rounds (Grandview or MWHS).
• For each uncovered entry, the team will be assessed a $100 fee.
• We hope to have 3 judges in Finals Round, and so ask that your judges please stay for Finals. This means that judges who are stationed at Grandview during prelims will need to transport themselves (or via the team bus) to MWHS by 2:15 PM.

Double Entering

• Double entering is permissible. Triple entry is not allowed.
• Draw categories (ER, ES, STY) are not allowed to double entry in other draw categories, or Discussion. 
• Discussion is not allowed to double enter in a draw category.
• Due to the split between buildings, a competitor can only double enter in a category within the same building (see Locations and Logistics for more information).

Locations and Logistics

• Due to the use of two buildings, and the combining of divisions in prelim rounds:
  • All Draws (including Storytelling), Discussion, and PA will have preliminary rounds at Mound Westonka High School.
  • All Interp (except Storytelling) will have preliminary rounds at Grandview Middle School.
  • All Finals and Honors Finals rounds will be at Mound Westonka High School.
• We have asked for initial registration to be completed by Monday, January 16th. This will allow us to determine whether any categories may need to be moved to a different building. We will communicate any relocation of categories by midnight, Tuesday, January 18th so you can make any adjustments to your judges and double entries prior to 3:00pm the next day.
• Please drop your students, coaches, and judges assigned to Grandview there first in the morning. Then transport your students, coaches, and judges who will be assigned to Mound Westonka High School next. Please have your bus park at MWHS during prelim rounds. The bus should return to Grandview between 1 and 2pm to transport your team (including coaches/judges) to MWHS for Finals.

Mound Westonka High School
5905 Sunnyfield Rd E
Minnetrista, MN 55364

Grandview Middle School
1881 Commerce Blvd
Mound, MN 55364

Minnesota State High School League Event Info:

• Extemp. Reading Prose: Students will draw from ODD number stories.
• Extemp. Reading Poems 1-20 (students cannot repeat a cutting from their preliminary rounds in finals)
• Storytelling Stories 1-10 (students can repeat a story from their preliminary rounds in finals)
• Discussion Topic 1. Discussion topics for prelim rounds will be distributed approximately 2 weeks prior to the tournament.

Manager contact information

Rhys Jones
Email address: Rhys.GJones@Outlook.com
Phone number: 612-308-3038

Mailing address

None provided