The 2010 Conway Winter Classic (IE/LD/PF/Congress ONLY)

 January 8th - 9th, 2010 (Fri-Sat)

Gonzaga University

Spokane, Washington 

 

Thanks to all judges, coaches, and competitors for making the 2010 Conway Winter Classic a huge success.

A file containing complete results for all events can be downloaded here

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Colleagues,

The Gonzaga University Debate Program extends an invitation to you and your students to attend the 61st Conway Classic.  The Classic is named in honor of Sister Margaret Mary Conway, former Director of Debate at Gonzaga University.   Sister Conway is the major reason why Gonzaga has remained a perennial competitor in collegiate policy debate.  Her commitment and dedication to forensics in the state of Washington served as a model for our entire community and it seemed only fitting to rename name this tournament in her honor.

Please note that we now host 2 high school tournaments. The Conway Winter will feature ONLY individual events, Lincoln Douglas, Public Forum, and Student Congress. If you are interested in the Conway Spring Tournament, which is our TOC Qualifying Tournament (semis bid) please click here).

This year’s tournament will be held Friday January 8th - Saturday January 9th on the campus of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.  Our tournament will offer Open and Novice divisions in Lincoln-Douglas debate, Public Forum Debate, and Student Congress.  We will also offer Novice and Senior Divisions in 9 individual events; humorous interpretation, extemporaneous speaking; oratory, interpretive reading; expository; impromptu; duo, ed comm, and dramatic interpretations.  The tournament will consist of six preliminary rounds and an appropriate number of elimination rounds in each division of debate as well as three preliminary rounds and finals of individual events. Note: We have eliminated conflict patterns in individual events.  All 9 events will occur simultaneously and students will be limited to entering a maximum of 4 individual events.  Lincoln Douglas will use the January/February topic.   Kara Smith (Lake City), Mike Stovern (Mead), Sam Normington (Mead), and Glen Frappier (Gonzaga) will serve as your friendly tab room staff.

Deadlines:  The deadline to enter is January 1st, 2010.  We will accept drops without payment until January 5th. All drops after January 5th will be charged.

We look forward to seeing you for what promises to be an exceptional tournament. We hope that you have a happy holiday season and that your travels bring you safely to Spokane in January.

Sincerely

Izak Dunn                                                 Karina Momary                                                           

Director, Conway Winter  Classic            Assistant Director, Conway Winter  Classic

 

Tournament Fee Structure Tab Room Staff and Procedure Judging Sweepstakes Tabulation
Hotel Information Deadlines  Debate Rules Individual Events Rules
Student Congress General Info Schedule of Events Entry Form  

Tournament Fees and Entry

School Entry Fee:                  $25.00

Debate:                                 $25 per LD Entry (note, this is per individual LD entry)

                                             $25 per Public Forum team

Invidual Events                      $15 per slot

Student Congress                  $15 per slot

Judging:                                 $60 additional per LD and Public Forum entry not covered

                                             $15 additional per IE slot not covered

Tournament Staff and Procedure

Tournament Director: Izak Dunn (Gonzaga University)

Assistant Tournament Director: Karina Momary (Gonzaga University)

LD Debate: Sam Normington (University HS)

Public Forum: Stephanie Laurentz (CDA HS)

Individual Events and Student Congress: Kara Smith (Lake City HS) and Mike Stovern (Mead HS)

Student Congress: Dave Smith (University HS)

Judging

Each judge you bring covers two Lincoln Douglas or Public Forum entries, and six individual event slots. Gonzaga is not in session during our tournament and thus we have a very limited judging pool to hire from, so we strongly encourage (beg) you to bring qualified judges. Judges that you list will be expected to fulfill their commitment. Please indicate any and all restrictions (such as schools that the critic cannot see.) Please also indicate the times that the judge will be available, and match it to the schedule to make sure they know when rounds will begin. Debate judges are committed one round past the round their team was eliminated in. For example, if you clear no teams in debate, you are still obligated for the first elimination rounds. If your team loses in the quarters, your judges are still obligated for the semis, etc.

All high school coaches are expected to be available to judge unless they provide enough judges to cover their entire entry.

The quality of the judges that you bring to our tournament will in large degree determine how good a tournament we can run. Please consider this when choosing your judges.

 The tab room and ballot table is the only entity that is allowed to assign ballots.  Any coach or judge  pushing a ballot (i.e. giving away their ballot to someone else) without going through the tab room/ballot table subjects their top team in the top division to a forfeit.  This doesn't mean you can give your ballot away and then come and tell the ballot table/tabroom. If a change needs to be made come and talk to us and we'll make any appropriate changes. We are very serious about this so please adhere to new rule.

Sweepstakes Tabulation

We will be awarding trophies to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place schools in the overall sweepstakes.  These sweepstakes are for debate and individual events only.  Please see Student Congress section for explanation of SC sweepstakes awards.

Points for Sweepstakes will be awarded as follows:

            Place                            I.E.’s              Debate/Congress                  

            First                             15                    25                   

            Second                         10                    20                   

            Semis/IE 3rd                  5                     15                   

            Quarters/Finalist            2                       5                   

Hotel Information

We have arranged with Red Lion River Inn to extend special rates for people attending our tournament.  Individual reservations can be made by calling 1-800-RED-LION (1-800-733-5466) and requesting the rate for "Gonzaga Debate." 

BE SURE AND TELL THEM YOU ARE REQUESTING THE GONZAGA DEBATE SPECIAL RATE.

Hotel Rate Location
Red Lion  River Inn $85.00 for Single, Double, Triple or Quad Right Next to GU campus

Spokane's Red Lion River Inn provides complimentary shuttle service to/from the Spokane International Airport.  There is a courtesy phone near baggage claim that rings directly to the hotel.

Other hotels in the area, close to campus, include:

Courtyard by Marriott               509-456-7000

Holiday Inn Express                  509-328-8505

Deadlines

Registration must be received by January 1st, 2010.  Please use the entry form and email your entry to frappier@gem.gonzaga.edu.   Please make all drops by January 5th to avoid charges. Any drops made after January 5th will be assessed the drop fee (equivalent to the entry fee).

Our tournament adheres to all regulations and guidelines outlined by the WSFA and the WIAA.

Debate Rules

Lincoln Douglas will use the NFL  January/February topic which will be released on December 1st.  

 

Novice eligibility for debate divisions will be determined as follows:  To be eligible for the novice division each debater on the team should be in their first year of debate.  Ultimately this will be up to the directors discretion but I would hope nobody would try to stack the novice division with students who should be getting the experience in Open. Novice is for novice debaters, don't be that coach who is just hunting for points.

Rounds one and two will be pre-matched. Rounds three through round six will be power matched accordingly.  

WE DO NOT BREAK BRACKETS IN THE ELIMINATION ROUNDS.  If two teams from the same school are seeded in such a way that they meet in the elimination rounds no debate will occur.  One team will advance to the next out round based on their coaches decisions.  There are many reasons, both pedagogical and logistical, for this rule.  I would be happy to have a debate with you over this decision, but not during the tournament.

Individual Events

Individual event offerings will include novice and open divisions of humorous interpretation, extemporaneous speaking, oratory, interpretive reading, expository, impromptu, duo, ed comm, and dramatic interpretation. Junior division entries are limited to freshman, sophomores, or other students participating in their first year of compe tition. The times for HI, DI, Duo, and Original Oratory are 10 minutes with no grace period.

For Individual Event rules and guidlines please click here

All other questions regarding individual event procedure or rules should be sent to Kara Smith. ksmith@cdaschools.org

Student Congress

Congress will coincide with Debate.  Scoring will be adapted from the NFL base point system. 

Divisions

·        Novice: Open to all students who have no debate experience prior to the 2008-09 school year (excludes summer institutes) , and who have not placed first through fourth in any debate division at two invitational tournaments with 15 or more schools.

Divisions may be collapsed as necessary. 

Coaches should indicate students to be considered for Presiding officer on the registration.

Legislation

The official legislation adopted by the GSL will be the legislation used for the tournament.  If you need a copy of the legislation please click here.  If you are from a school outside of the GSL, we will not be accepting any additional legislation.  There are a number of legislation pieces that are not authored by a particular school.  Please have your students prepare sponsorship speeches for these pieces instead of submitting your own  Please have your students in Congress bring their own copies of the legislation.  It will not be supplied by the tournament.

Please contact Dr. David Smith of University High with any questions. Dr. Smith will be running the Congress tab. His email is dsmithy@cvsd.org

Scoring

We will use a base system. Speaker precedence will not be reset between the sessions.  The base will be determined by counting the total number of floor speeches and dividing that total by the number of Congresspersons who have actually given speeches.  Points awarded to PO’s for presiding do not count as speeches in the computation of base. 

Each speech will be awarded up to 8 points by the judge in the round.  After Session II, each Congressperson's speech scores will be totaled.  If the Congressperson has given fewer speeches than base, or a number of speeches equal to base, that Congressperson will have a total score from the judges equal to the sum of all his/her speeches.  If, however, the Congressperson has given a greater number of speeches than base, the sum of his/her speech points will be divided by the number of speeches that person actually gave, and the resulting average will be multiplied by the base number.  The product of this computation will be the Congressperson's total score from the judges.

To every Congressperson's total score from the judges will be added a score awarded by the Parliamentarian of the chamber.  The Parliamentarian will award from 1to 4 points to each Congressperson.  The sum of the judge’s total score and the Parliamentarian's score will be the student's total score. 

If the number of entries results in more than one chamber of Congress for a division of competition, there will be a final round called the Super Congress Sessions.  Then, scores for each Congressperson will be totaled after Session II, and the top 7 to 10 members of each chamber will advance to the Final Session.  Outstanding PO and Student’s Choice awards will be voted on at the end of the last session.  Student’s Choice will be done by Preferential balloting.

Schedule (Tentative)

Schedule: (Tentative)

Friday, January 8th, 2010

12pm         Debate Round 1 - Congress Round 1

1:15pm      Debate Round 2 - Congress Round 1

2:30pm       IE  Round 1

4pm            Debate Round 3 - Congress Round 2

5:15pm       Debate Round 4 - Congress Round 2

6:30pm       IE   Round 2

8pm            Debate Round 5

 

Saturday,  January 9th, 2010

8am             IE    Round 3

9:30am        Debate  Round 6 - Congress Finals

10:45am      IE    Finals

12pm           Debate Quarter Finals

2pm            Awards Ceremony

3pm            Debate Elims Continue until we have champions in both divisions of all formats

 

 

Entry Form

 

Please click here to access our entry form. This is a spread sheet and please note that each event (IEs/Congress/LD/Public Forum) all have a separate page in the workbook for your entries. Please fill out and email as an attachment to Karina Momary at karina.momary@gmail.com and also to Glen Frappier at frappier@gem.gonzaga.edu

 

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