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Eleventh Floor 69 Public Square Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701 Phone (570) 822-3311 Fax (570) 822-9894 e-mail address: kborland@borlandandborland.com
November 4, 2009 Dear Coach:
The E.L. Meyers High School Speech and Debate Team is very pleased to invite you to the Eleventh Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Open Speech & Debate Tournament to be held on Saturday, January 16, 2010 at E.L. Meyers High School in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
We offer competition in fifteen different speech and debate events, five of which are unique to this tournament and bear special relationships to the life and legacy of Dr, King. Because one of the missions of our tournament is to honor the memory of Dr. King, we permit double entries in order to encourage participation in the special Dr. King events.
Our debate events are: policy debate (3 preliminary rounds, semi-finals and finals); Lincoln-Douglas debate (4 preliminary rounds, semi-finals and finals); public forum debate (4 preliminary rounds, semi-finals and finals); congress (with a super-session) and parliamentary debate (3 preliminary rounds, semi-finals and finals). Parliamentary debate is one of the special Dr. King events and the topic this year will be Resolved: "It would be better to entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."
Our speech events are declamation, original oratory, oral interpretation of prose and poetry, extemporaneous speaking, dramatic performance, dramatic duo and crisis management. The special Dr. King speech events are Dr. King declamation (presentation of a Dr. King speech or sermon, open to all competitors, manuscripts permitted); Dr. King commentary (limited prep on topics related to Dr. King's legacy and causes); Dr. King oratory (on topic related to Dr. King's legacy or causes); and, Dr. King original poetry (inspired by Dr. King's life, legacy or causes). The speech events will have three rounds of preliminary competition followed by a final round, or, if the number of competitors in the event are sufficient, a semi-final and a final round.
Double entry is permitted for all events except policy debate, Lincoln-Douglas debate, public forum debate and congress. Public forum and parliamentary debaters may not double enter in extemporaneous speaking or Dr. King commentary and double entry is not permitted between extemporaneous speaking and Dr. King commentary. Students may double enter in original oratory and Dr. Martin Luther King original oratory, but they may not use the same speech for both. The same is true for declamation and Dr. Martin Luther King declamation.
To the extent that registrations warrant, events will be divided into varsity and novice divisions. A novice is any student in the seventh through tenth grade or any student in his or her first year of forensic competition. The special events and Dr. Martin Luther King events will have only one division.
The rules of the National Catholic Forensic League shall apply, except for public forum debate, for which the rules of the National Forensic League shall apply, and except for the special Dr. King events and crisis management. Event rules and ballots are available on the Meyers Speech and Debate Team website (www.meyersspeechanddebate.com).
Awards will be given to the first six places in each event and to the top three ranked policy debate speakers.
In addition to our event awards, we also offer a traveling, overall sweepstakes award; the Bob Crawford Memorial Award; and, the Congressman Paul Kanjorski Public Affairs Award.
Mr. Crawford was a beloved teacher at Meyers and this award in his memory is presented to the school with the most sweepstakes points in the special events dedicated to Dr. King.
The Congressman Paul Kanjorski Public Affairs Award is presented to the school which achieves the greatest number of sweepstakes points in our public affairs events: extemporaneous speaking; Lincoln-Douglas debate; Dr. Martin Luther King commentary; Dr. Martin Luther King parliamentary debate; Dr. Martin Luther King original oratory; policy debate; public forum debate; crisis management; and, congress.
We do not school protect room assignments in preliminary speech rounds.
For congress, you may submit bills of your students’ authorship, but are not required to do so as a condition of registration. Because we will be sending to congress registrants a packet of bills to be used at the Tournament by Thursday January 7, 2010, please submit any bills you wish to use by Tuesday, January 5, 2010, to allow us to include them in the packet. No bills submitted thereafter will be considered at the Tournament.
Lunch will be provided in the Meyers cafeteria at the cost of five dollars ($5.00) per person, which may be paid on the day of the Tournament. Policy, Lincoln-Douglas and public forum debaters will eat lunch at Meyers after the completion of their preliminary rounds at Kistler. Complimentary lunches will be provided for coaches and judges in the Tournament’s hospitality suite, and snacks and sodas will be sold throughout the day.
Registration for the Tournament is accomplished at the website of www.joyoftournaments.com. Our registration deadline is the close of business, Wednesday, January 13, 2010. However, due to potential space restriction at both schools, we reserve the right to close events as early as January 3, 2010. Should any event be closed, coaches will be able to place their students on wait lists in those specific events. Tournament day registration opens at 8:00 a.m. and closes at 8:30 a.m.
Registration fees are $20 for each policy debate team and $10 for each entry in an individual event, including congress, or other debate event. Checks should be drawn to the order of Meyers Speech & Debate. For registrations paid and received by January 6, 2010, we are discounting the registration fees by fifty percent. This discount applies to registration fees only and not to the purchase of judges. There is no charge for drops before January 13. The fee for each drop on January 14 or 15 by 5pm is $5. The fee for each drop on January 16 is $10. These fees are in addition to the initial registration fee and are not subject to the 50% discount.
Each team is required to provide one judge for each six individual event entries (or fraction thereof), including congress; and, one judge for every pair of entries in each debate event (or fraction thereof), including parliamentary debate. Parliamentary and public forum debate judges will be drawn from the speech pool. Judging pools will not be divided between varsity and novice divisions. Judges may be purchased at the following rates: policy debate, $75; Lincoln-Douglas debate, $35; and, individual events (including parliamentary and public forum debate), $25. All judges are committed through the final rounds of their respective pools.
A portion of the proceeds of the tournament will be donated to the Wyoming Valley Martin Luther King Committee.
In order to make the registration process more efficient on the day of the tournament, we are asking registrants to call us at our cell phone numbers, 570-357-5334 or 570-357-4860, Saturday morning with any drops or any other changes as soon as you know them. We will have your registration packet with the changes available upon your arrival. As an incentive, we will include all teams which do the "call ahead" Saturday morning registration in a drawing for a lovely and delicious snack basket.
Please call us with any questions at our office, 570-822-3311, or our home, 570-824-7061. We look forward to seeing you at the Tournament on January 16, 2010.
Very truly yours,
Ruth S. Borland Kimberly D. Borland Coaches E.L. Meyers High School Speech and Debate Team
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