The Odyssey: Your Speech Journey Continues Here

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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 February 29, 2019. The Tournament will be held at Orono High School and Orono Middle School (on the same campus, in walking distance). We will use Speechwire and will accept all MSHSL and NSDA speech categories. We will offer Impromptu and POI, provided we have a minimum of 6 entries in either category. 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 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.

Registration and Fees

• The cost is $7 per entry.
• New this year: there will be a cap of no more than 10 entries allowed per event per school.
• Registration Deadline:
  • Thursday, February 27, 2019 at 8:00am (drops and adds – all drops after this point will not result in a change of statement)
• 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 mail to (preferred; you may also hand a check to our front info desk in the morning, but please have late changes accounted for):

Barb Shofner
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 sizes.
• Novice and Varsity Finalists will have an equal 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), nor Impromptu.

Schedule

Judges

• Each team is required to bring 1 judge for each 6 entries (including double entries).
• 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 is an e-ballot tournament! When registering your judges, please provide their email addresses.
• Let your judges know before the tournament they should expect an email inviting them to activate their account on eballots.speechwire.com.
• Judges should make sure they have tested logging in once before the tournament to verify their account works.
• Judges will need to bring a wi-fi enabled device to the tournament to record ranks and critiques.
  • We recommend a device with a keyboard (laptop, chromebook, tablets with keyboard).
  • Do not use a smart phone for writing critiques online!
• Judges who prefer not to write critiques electronically, may pick up paper critiques from the tab room, but should still plan to submit ranks through the e-ballots site throughout the day.
• During a round, the judge would perform the following steps:

1. Start the e-ballot as soon as the round begins. This step notifies the tab room that the round is starting.
2.  As each speaker speaks, type the critique in a text editor, such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
3.  After all speakers are done and excused, fill in the ranks and submit them. A judge should NOT wait to submit ranks after finishing their critiques. 

• After a round, the judge should continue editing critiques, and take time to provide robust, constructive feedback.
  • A judge may copy-paste from the text editor back into the e-ballot critique for each speaker after ranks are submitted.
  • A judge may also go back and continue editing a critique from any round throughout the day.
  • Make sure all critiques are entered into the e-ballots site before leaving the tournament!
• E-ballots will be sent to the coach of each team after the tournament is finished that same day.

Double Entering

• Double entering is permissible. Triple entry is only allowed for students competing in Impromptu Speaking.
• Draw categories (ER, ES, STY) are not allowed to double entry in other draw categories, or Discussion. Draw categories may double enter in any other category, including Impromptu Speaking.
• Discussion is not allowed to double enter in a draw category. Discussion may double enter in any other category, including Impromptu Speaking.

Locations and Logistics

• We have asked for initial registration to be completed by Friday, February 21. This allows us to make any last minute room assignments so we keep rooms close to each other in each category.
• Please drop your team off at the Orono High School's main entrance:

Orono High School
795 Old Crystal Bay Rd N
Long Lake, MN 55356

Minnesota State High School League Event Info:

• Extemp. Reading Prose: All chapters (students cannot repeat a cutting from their preliminary rounds in finals)
• Extemp. Reading Poems: All poems (students cannot repeat a cutting from their preliminary rounds in finals)
• Storytelling Stories: All stories (students cannot repeat a story from their preliminary rounds in finals)
• Discussion will have tasks from Topic II (Sub-Section)
• Impromptu Speaking prompts will be delivered in the room by the judge. Speakers will draw several prompts from an envelope, and select one prompt to speak on. Speakers have a total of 7 minutes to decide on their prompt, prep and deliver their speeches. The judge will start timing a speaker at the time they draw their prompts from the envelope. 

Manager contact information

Rhys Jones
Email address: jonesr@277apps.org
Phone number: 612-308-3038

Mailing address

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