2014 Brevard County Annual Speech & Debate Tournament
On behalf of the Brevard County Forensics Program, it is our pleasure to formally invite
you to the 2014 Brevard County Speech & Debate Tournament, taking place on
Saturday, February 15, 2013 at Palm Bay High School.
Who?
We warmly invite ALL BREVARD COUNTY MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS to
compete in a variety of forensics events.
What?
For high school students, we offer four rounds in the following events:
1. Original Oratory
2. Extemporaneous Speaking (mixed)
3. Duo Interpretation
4. Dramatic Performance (HI/DI combo)
5. Oral Interpretation
6. Declamation
7. Lincoln-Douglas Debate
For middle school students, four rounds in the following events:
1. Original Oratory
2. Declamation
3. Duo Interpretation
4. Dramatic Performance (HI/DI combo)
5. Oral Interpretation
6. Impromptu Speaking
When and Where?
9:00 am – 5:30 pm on Saturday, February 15, 2014 at Palm Bay High School, 101 Pirate
Lane Melbourne, FL 32901
Schedule
Team Check-in:
Judge Call:
Round 1:
Round 2:
9:00
9:45
10:15
11:45
Lunch*:
Round 3:
Round 4:
Awards:
12:30
1:30
2:45
4:30
*Box lunches will be available for purchase for $7.00. You will have a choice of a turkey, ham or veggie sub with chips, a
soft drink and a dessert (cookie or brownie). Lunches will be prepared by Jason’s Deli.
Entry Limits:
Each school may enter up to six (6) students/teams per event. We will offer a "Best Novice Award" for all
events. We will do our best NOT to collapse novice events, but if numbers in events are too small to offer
adequate competition, we will collapse the event. If this happens, Alexandra Dattoli will e-mail you and you
will then have to designate which 6 you wish to enter by 4PM Monday before the tournament.
Judge Requirements:
Each school must certify that all judges have been trained in all events. The tournament coordinator will make
every attempt to keep judges in the designated pool, but coaches must alert judges to the possibility that they
will be used in other pools if the need arises.
Brevard Public Schools requires that each judge be a registered volunteer. That means that AT A MINIMUM,
we must have their SS# and date of birth in our volunteer system.
All schools must meet the following judge quotas:
1 judge for every 2 Lincoln-Douglas entries, or fraction thereof
1 judge for every 5 entries in all speech events, or fraction thereof.
Deadlines:
Please observe these deadlines. It is vital to a smooth tournament to have accurate numbers as far in advance as
possible. Let’s all work together to make this a positive experience for ALL involved. All entries must be
submitted electronically through the designated website.
The deadline for submission of entry is 4:00 pm on the Friday prior to the week of tournament (2/7/14).
Late entries will not be accepted. Furthermore, no student may be added, and no student may change events,
after the final deadline. However, name changes in all events and swaps in Duo Interp are permitted until 6:00
pm on Friday (2/14), as are any drops.
Any changes to a school’s entry, including drops and judge name substitutions, will be made by e-mailing
Alexandra Dattoli
NOTE: When you enter the names of your students on the website, please designate your novices by
adding the following notation to the right of their last name - "(n)." So if John Smith is a novice
competitor he would be registered as John Smith (n). The tournament coordinator is not responsible for
the failure of a coach to register a novice student as a novice for the purposes of awards.
Check-in Procedures:
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Check-in begins at 9:00 in the cafeteria. Please be on time!
You will receive your school’s speaker codes at this time. Once you have checked-in and confirmed
your entries, please give your team members their speaker codes, ballots and lunch tickets.
All postings will be by speaker code. Make sure your students realize that they will NOT see their name
NOR their school’s name on the postings – only the speaker codes.
All postings will be in the cafeteria.
Food:
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Box lunches will be available for purchase for $7. Please see the schedule page for menu options.
When registering your team for competition, please be sure to indicate the number and type of box lunches
you will need (veggie, turkey, or ham).
Students are NOT required to purchase a box lunch. However, other than the refreshments for our
volunteer judges, these box lunches will be the only food available on campus.
Students are, of course, welcome to bring their own lunch and/or snacks.
If you add or drop any competitors, remember to adjust your lunch order accordingly.
Closed Campus Rules
All tournaments will be a closed campus. "Closed campus" means that once competitors and student judges
arrive at the tournament they are to remain at the tournament location until dismissed by tournament officials at
the conclusion of the awards ceremony. Tournament officials will not release competitors prior to the
conclusion of the awards ceremony without written notice from the coach that the competitor may leave early.
Upon this notice, the tournament host school is no longer responsible for the attendee's welfare and safety and
the coach accepts full liability. Competitors who violate this rule will be immediately disqualified from the
tournament.
Visitor Rules
All individuals who are neither registered as a competitor, coach nor judge, but who are in attendance at the
tournament shall be deemed visitors and given a nametag to be worn throughout the day. Failure to comply with
these rules will result in the tournament coordinator (or hi/her designee) requesting all unauthorized visitors to
leave campus. Visitors from member schools must be checked-in at registration by their coach where they will
be given their nametag. Any visitor not affiliated with a member school must receive permission from a
tournament official to be present at a tournament.
Photography Rules
Photography of rounds will be strictly prohibited. No individual will be allowed to take still or moving pictures
of students during competition rounds. Any student who violates this rule shall be disqualified from the
tournament. Any judge who violates this rule will be immediately removed from the judge pool and the school
must immediately replace the judge or face dropped entries. Any visitor who violates this rule may be escorted
off campus.
Supervision Rules
Please remember that a school-approved adult must accompany students to the tournament and remain on site
for the entire competition. If the school-approved adult is NOT the coach of record on the membership card, a
letter signed by the school principal and printed on school stationary MUST be presented at registration. The
letter needs to specifically name the adult in charge. The penalty for failing to bring this letter when it is
required is disqualification of all contestants from the school involved. A coach of record or the schooldesignated adult must remain on-site during competition until all students from their team leave.
EVENT TOPICS & REGULATIONS
When planning your entry, please be aware of the following:
Lincoln-Douglas Debate: The topic for this tournament is the National Forensic League January/February
resolution: Developing countries should prioritize environmental protection over resource extraction when the
two are in conflict.
Extemporaneous Speaking: The topic areas for this month are (in no particular order):
-- U.S. Legal and Constitutional Issues
-- U.S. Medicine, Science, and Technology
-- International Economics
-- International Conflicts and Civil Unrest (Africa and the Middle East)
Oral Interpretation: A coin flip at the opening assembly will determine the prose/poetry round order.
Competitors are not permitted to move their feet at any time during the performance, exclusive of any
introduction to the selections, unless such movement is necessary to prevent a competitor from incurring
physical harm. The binder may not be used in any way in which the binder becomes something other than the
book.
Duo Interpretation: This is a memorized event; duos may have multiple characters for each performer.
HI/DI/DP: We try to offer HI and DI as separate events, but should there not be enough entries to have
separate events, HI and DI will be combined in DP.
Declamation: The speaker should convey the message in a sincere, honest, and realistic attempt to recreate the
spirit of the original presentation, however, this event is not an acting event and impersonation of the original
speaker is not allowed. The message should be clear and convincing as if the words were the student's own. The
speech must be delivered in English unless the speech uses a foreign language for rhetorical purposes.
Novice Designation: Please be aware novice is defined as follows: “A novice shall be a student who has
competed in no more than two tournaments in divisions in which high school students compete in previous
years. Students who are no longer in their first year of competition and change events do not revert back to
novice status."
***All other events follow NCFL rules, which are available on the NCFL website at www.ncfl.org. As per
NFCFL rules, with violators subject to disqualification, all contestants in non-script, memorized events must
bring a written copy of the script/performance to the tournament. Remember that all NCFL speech events
include a thirty-second grace period.