Stanford Invitational Tournament

Stanford Invitational Speech & Debate Tournament

Important Announcements

February 9, 2012: Essential registration information!

Dear Coaches,

We are very much looking forward to hosting you at Stanford this weekend for our 26th Annual Stanford Invitational! This message contains vital information about the tournament – please read it carefully before registration tomorrow.

Registration This year we offer three different options for registration: E-Registration: If you have paid all your fees in full, have no judge changes and have no adds to your competitor lists, you can register through the E-Registration option on Joy of Tournaments. The E-Registration system will be open from 5:00pm – 8:00pm tomorrow, Friday February 10th. To complete E-Registration, simply go to the JOT site, login to the Stanford Tournament, and you will see the option for E-Registration.

Phone Registration: If you have paid all your fees in full, have no adds to your competitor lists and have no judge changes, and/or you have judge name changes for any event except Varsity LD and Varsity Policy (no judge changes are allowed in Varsity LD and Varsity Policy at this point, period), you can use our phone registration option. Phone registration will be open from 9:00pm – 10:00pm tomorrow, Friday, February 10th. Please call 650-723-9086 during those hours to register. If you get our voicemail, please call back until you can reach a live person to confirm your registration. We will not be able to complete your registration without speaking to you.

In-Person Registration: If you still have fees to pay, would like to add any competitors, or have judge changes, please register in person tomorrow at the Santa Clara Marriott. Registration will be held in Salons A & B from 5:30pm – 8:00pm.

As a reminder, your fees must be paid and your entry must be confirmed via one of the three above registration methods in order for your students to be scheduled in the first rounds on Saturday.

Opening Assemblies and Meeting Points Every event will have an opening assembly prior to the release of Round 1 pairings on Saturday morning. Please make sure your debaters are at the meeting on time – pairings will be released immediately after the end of the assembly. The times and the locations of the meetings are as follows: Varsity Policy and Varsity LD: 7:30am in the Cubberley Auditorium, School of Education, Stanford Campus Public Forum: 8:30am in the Cubberley Auditorium, School of Education, Stanford Campus Parliamentary, JV LD and JV Policy: 10:45am in the Cubberley Auditorium, School of Education, Stanford Campus Congress: 7:30am in Building 420, Room 041, Stanford Campus Individual Events: 8:00am in the in the Hall of Cities at the Santa Clara Marriott

Judge Rooms Please direct your judges to the following locations: Varsity LD & Varsity Policy Judges: Building 300, Room 300 at 7:30AM Public Forum Judges: Building 200, Room 002 (Sat) at 8:30AM; Building 420, Room 40 (Sun) Parli, JV LD & JV Policy Judges: Building 200, Room 002 (Sat) at 11:15AM; Building 420, Room 40 (Sun) Congress judges & competitors: Building 420, Room 041 at 7:30AM IE judges: Santa Clara Marriott (Saturday) at 7:30AM; Meyer Forum, 1st floor Meyer Library Stanford Campus (Sunday)

Handouts, Maps and Schedules For your convenience, PDF copies of all tournament handouts are available on our website for download. Please click here (www.snfi.org/invitational/handouts) to download.

If you need to make any changes still: One final reminder. If you have any changes to your entries, whether it be name changes, drops, adds, judge name changes, etc, the only way to make these changes at this point is via one of the three registration methods detailed above. We can’t accept any requests to make changes via phone or email because the data has already been downloaded and we need a clear path for these requests to follow from you to the tab software.

Best regards,

Matt Fraser & Rich Boltizar Stanford Invitational Directors

Update regarding Public Forum - final focus/last shot speech to be 2 minutes

Over the last couple of days it has been brought to my attention that there is some concern at the TOC (Tournament of Champions in KY) that our policy of adding one minute to each of the final focus/last shot speeches calls into question possible future TOC bid status.

We have added this extra minute for several years, and long time attendees will know that we added a minute before the national change was made. During those years no one expressed anything but appreciation, and again, last year we had an extra minute (for 3 total minutes per speech) and received no complaints and several comments of appreciation. I've communicated with the Director of the TOC about if this is an issue, and she tells me she thinks it shouldn't be, but was unable to make what I would consider certainty. I sent a communication yesterday to a committee member who I heard had this concern, but haven't received a reply. I've done what I can to get a timely answer from the folks at TOC, but at this point lacking anything definitive, need to proceed with a firm decision.

Given current uncertainly on this for us, while I know the TOC bid question is of limited importance for most of our 150 attending teams, I do want to minimize the chance of a major issue over this and so am reluctantly reducing our final focus/last shot speech time to 2 minutes for this year's tournament.

We have already changed our judging instructions to reflect this as tournament policy for this year.

Thank you for your understanding. We look forward to hosting all of you and hope you have a great tournament!

Sincerely,

Matthew Fraser, Tournament Director

February 9, 2012: call for students wanting to PO and other congress info

Hello,

We are calling for students who would like to be presiding officers this weekend.

We generally have 2 presiding officers per round, and they trade off with equal time presiding for roughly half of the time each during each round. We do allow presiding officers to speak during the time they are not presiding, so they can also place as an individual speaker.

The best PO from each house will be one of the students advancing to the super congress, so being a PO if you can do it well can greatly improve your chances of making the finals.

Please nominate students to be presiding officers by sending an email with the names of the students who wish to be presiding officer, and your school name, to:

stanfordinvitational@stanforddebate.com by 6 pm tomorrow (Friday).

Finally, congress students should report to their own general assembly in buiilding 420, room 41, at 7:30 am on Saturday for an overview from the congress tab staff of all final information about how the congress tournament will run. Congress judges should also report to the same room at 7:30 am on Saturday.

Many thanks, and we look forward to seeing you at registration tomorrow and at the general assembly on Saturday morning!

Stanford Invitattional Congress Tab Staff

February 9, 2012: we are opening the site until 9 pm CA time for changes

Hello!

We are opening the registration site until 9 pm California time for changes. Please make all name changes and the like right now, and during the next four hours. We will then close the site again. If you have an add to an event you would like to attempt, now is the time to do that and we will try to facilitate as best we can.

Though all debate events are full, we will allow last minute entries as drops permit us to free up space. We do have a small number of spaces in student congress and in pattern B events; any other entries you wish to add we can attempt and will clear them tonight by midnight if we can accept them if you put them on the waitlist by 9 pm!

You CANNOT make the following changes at this point on the website:

You can make your own name changes without losing the spot, even in team debate events, by doing the following:

  1. Log in and go to your entries page.
  2. Drop the student first
  3. Add in the new student. (note: if they are on the waitinglist -- drop them from waitinglist and then go back in to add them)
  4. This should work in in two person debate events, as if you don't log out after de-selecting a student, the spot is still reserved for you UNTIL you log out.
  5. Complete all aspects of adding the new name or student immediately after de-selecting the placeholder students. Most problems that people have completing this process successfully occur from simply waiting too long, in which case the site itself may have already logged you out, dropping your space permanently.

The system will "save the spot" and allow you to put them in to the exact same event AS LONG AS YOU DO NOT LOG OUT of Joy of Tournaments in the middle. If you log out before adding the new kid in the spot will disappear, and that may also occur as mentioned if you simply take too long to complete the process and are auto logged out.

More announcements coming through about noon tomorrow,

Matthew Fraser and Rich Boltizar Tournament Directors

February 8, 2012: Update on making late adds

Dear Coaches,

While we are completely full in most events and have been able to admit most of the students who have remained on the various waitlists during the last few weeks, we do still have space available in a few events. If you have students looking to compete, we can still accommodate a few adds in the following events:

Congress "B" Pattern of IEs (both Varsity & JV): Expository Humerous Interp Duo Interp Impromptu International Extemp All other events are pretty much full at this point Matthew Fraser & Rich Boltizar

February 8, 2012: Computers in Parli debate

Hello,

Just a quick note to clarify the usage of computers at the upcoming Stanford tournament in parli debate. You can use computers in the prep room, but the policy does NOT extend to using computers during actual debates/during rounds for this year. Specifically:

  1. Students may use computers in the prep room, but NOT the internet. All internet capability must be turned off.
  2. Students may also have in the prep room any written material they choose including extemp files, briefs, notes, articles, magazines etc.
  3. They may NOT use computers in/during their rounds. Computers must be off and completely put away during the round.
  4. During prep students will be given colored paper to write on. That colored paper is the only material that students may use during the round.

Hopefully this clarifies our policy. We apologize for any prior lack of clarity, but the rules on this at the State level have been evolving year to year, and we believe this to be the best match with the current state of the rules.

Thank you,

Stanford tournament parli tab and administrative staff

February 8, 2012: Judge Philosophies Missing - VLD

Hello again,

I wanted to take a minute to identify a number of judges in both the VLD and VCX judging pool that don't have the judging philosophy/paradigm listed on the wiki. If by Thursday February 9th at 3pm, your judge's philosophy/paradigm isn't posted, your preferences will not be honored for that event. This timeframe will allow those schools who've entered their preferences to modify them based on these philosophies/paradigms. Again, if your judges paradigm is not entered by 3pm tomorrow, your preferences will not be honored in the event with the missing paradigm.

The judge wiki is located at - judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com

Here is the list:

VCX:

Jason Clarke Fort Collins High School David Ly James Logan High School Riyaz Shah San Jose Independent Jamison Viet Skyline (SLC) Pinky Ghuman Stockdale High School

Brian Manuel

Director of Policy Debate

Stanford Debate Society; Stanford University

February 8, 2012: Judge Philosophies Missing - VLD

Hello again,

I wanted to take a minute to identify a number of judges in both the VLD and VCX judging pool that don't have the judging philosophy/paradigm listed on the wiki. If by Thursday February 9th at 3pm, your judge's philosophy/paradigm isn't posted, your preferences will not be honored for that event. This timeframe will allow those schools who've entered their preferences to modify them based on these philosophies/paradigms. Again, if your judges paradigm is not entered by 3pm tomorrow, your preferences will not be honored in the event with the missing paradigm.

The judge wiki is located at - judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com

Here is the list for both events:

VLD:

Tom Amestoy Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy Ivor Barber Notre Dame San Jose Elyse Barrere Marlborough School Uwe Becker Marcus High School Grayson Blakeley Turlock High School Priscilla Carson Bishop O'Dowd High School Kate Carter Claremont High School Hielam Chan Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory John Foy St. Francis High School (Mountain View) Latha Ganapathy Evergreen Valley High School Elaine Hanken Oaks Christian Maria Ibrahimzade San Marino High School Wesley Koo Claremont High School Naveen Krishnamurthi Torrey Pines High School Ankit Kumar The Harker School Heather Lester Putnam City North HS Thien Pham Bishop O'Dowd High School Rajeev Prasad Monta Vista High School (Cupertino) Rita Prichard Granite Bay High School Alex Roberts Kahuku High and Intermediate School Sarah Schmidt Bonita Vista High School Cody Sam Brentwood School Jon Thorpe Bishop O'Dowd High School Emma Tibbetts St. Pius X High School Jean Tobin Walla Walla High School Jeff Tsai Monta Vista High School (Cupertino)

Brian Manuel

Director of Policy Debate

Stanford Debate Society; Stanford University

February 8, 2012: Varsity LD Judge Preference Sheets Correction

There is a correction for the LD pref sheet. I wanted to clear up the category allocation just so everyone is on the same page.

Here are the instructions for Varsity LD

Apologies,

Brian Manuel

Director of Policy Debate

Stanford Debate Society; Stanford University

February 8, 2012: Varsity CX/Varsity LD Judge Preference Sheets Opened

Hello,

This year we'll be using a Mutually Preferred Judging system, as we did last year, instead of a Community Preferred Judging system.

The major difference in these systems, for those who haven't dealt with both, is that MPJ is based on the current round and matching the most mutually preferred judge between the two teams debating based on your rankings and current status in the tournament. This differs from the old system where the community as a whole would select the quality of judge regardless of the debate that was happening. This system looks to achieve a better judging match on a round per round basis according to the teams in those debates.

For this years system we'll be utilizing a 9 category preference system in Varsity CX and a 6 category system in Varsity LD.

Here are the preference instructions for Varsity Policy

Here are the instructions for Varsity LD

Constraints normally include:

A) Former students who are judging for another school

B) Former coaches, if there are still team members they coached present on the squad

C) College directors/coaches who are recruiting a student from your program

D) Coaches or College Students you've hired to do work for your school, even if its been at only one tournament (Work includes direct coaching or argument/card cutting)

E) Most importantly the judges/coaches who are currently working with your program.

Also, here is how the tab room will be distributing your judges throughout the tournament, in priority order. Please keep this information handy, it will help you if you are wondering why you have the judge you have.

Round 1 -- equal distribution Round 2 -- equal distribution Round 3 -- down 1, down 2, down zero Round 4 -- down 2, down 1, down zero, down 3 Round 5 -- down 2, down 1, down zero, down 3 or more Round 6 -- down 2, down 1, down zero, down 3 or more Round 7 -- down 2, down 1, down zero, down 3 or more

Preferences are due by Noon on Friday, February 10th. At this time the preferences will be turned off and you will no longer be able to access them. I personally suggest saving a copy of the preferences in case of any dispute between yourself and the tab room. Only with physical proof of your preferences will disputes even be considered.

Prior to Friday's deadline, I will be sending out periodic updates to make teams aware of the preferences which are still outstanding. We hope this helps to encourage teams to fill out their preferences in a timely manner. Any team who wishes to turn in a preference sheet after the deadline, do so at the discretion of the Policy and LD tab directors. They are under no obligation to honor your request for your preferences to be entered if you are late.

Thank you, Brian Manuel Director of Policy Debate Stanford Debate Society; Stanford University

February 7, 2012: Re:Judges #2

Dear 2012 SNFI attendees,

We've been able to work with the wonderful Brenk Hinkle of Joy of Tournaments, and he is going to do a custom script for us that will do most of what we need as far as judge information. This means for most people, if the information is accurate and complete, we just need you to review it. So, we really only need two things from you as regards reviewing and confirming your judges:

  1. we do NOT need you to reduce the judges name to last name and first initial. In fact, please don't change it if the information is correct, just leave it.

  2. we DO still need you to replace all fictional or incorrect judge names with the actual, final names of your judges. Again, we will still be shutting down the judge information to changes by late this evening or early tomorrow morning, so please review all judge information and make sure it is correct and complete by the end of the evening today.

If you did change the information already to meet the format requested in the prior email, that is fine as well and you don't need to change it back.

Finally, here is a link to a list of locations for the tournament. Most locations are set, and we will be updating this information up until Friday morning with any additional information we can provide.

Sincerely,

Matthew Fraser & Rich Boltizar

Stanford Debate

February 7, 2012: Re:Judges

Dear coaches, colleagues and friends,

You will be receiving several major announcements regarding the Stanford Invitational tournament over the next few days. Most of them will be informational (such as important campus locations), but some, like this email, require action on your part. Please attend to all of these emails carefully and promptly so that we can all enjoy a smooth and trouble free tournament.

For the tournament to well we need judge information to be full and accurate in all events, and for many school information we are reviewing does not appear to be fully accurate.

Please review the following expectations for judge information, then review all judges in your account and make sure that information is accurate on each judge. The Stanford registration is open for you to revise and correct information on your judges through Tuesday evening (tonight). Please make sure that you have corrected any problems or inaccuracies with your judge information by end of the day on Tuesday, this evening.

  1. We need accurate name information for your judge, last name and a first initial please. If you have entered just your school name or a fictional name please replace that will the actual name of the judge, last name, first initial. If your judge were names Leland Stanford, we would ask that you enter StanfordL. Please note we don't want any space or comma between the last name and the first initial.

  2. We will be adding a school identifier to the name for each of your judges. This way if a school has a judge not present to pick up their ballot the judge room staff will know that right away.

  3. Please do NOT tell the judges to just pick up any ballot for judges from your school; if they take another judge's ballot but you have entered them as a judge, they will likely be getting a ballot as well, then would just be no-showing for their assigned round.

  4. Please be aware for ALL schools that we do need you to provide your judges one round past the elimination of your kids. This is standard for all invitational tournaments. If your kids are in elimination rounds on Monday, you must provide all of your judges one round past their elimination on Monday. If your kids are eliminated in the last round on Sunday, of course we still need you to honor your judging commitments for Monday morning.

  5. Information for Varsity CX and Varsity LD only:

This year at Stanford we're trying to organize all our VCX/VLD judge information in one place for our tabulation staff to have access to it, in the case judges are missing or need to be replaced. It is absolutely necessary that you enter ALL of your teams VCX/VLD JUDGES Information in the form below. We are doing this so we can increase the number of judges being notified of their judging assignments using the Warm Room, to keep the tournament on schedule.

Here is the link to the document that we need completed for each judge:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dFdiTkx1bDA0Rl9JckxYSy15aFhhNGc6MQ#gid=0

We assume for most schools this is a given but since some schools are relatively to new to attending invitationals, for the record we want to stress that you really must bring the judges that you agreed to provide as the tournament simply cannot run properly without everyone providing their promised judges. If we identify during the course of the tournament that you don't have your required judges or your judges are missing rounds, for those schools who are short on judges we may have to give losses or even remove teams from competition. If we are able to offer the option of 'buying out' at that point, you would need to pay 150% of the normal judge fee, so please be sure to provide the judging that you have agreed to provide.

Thank you very much for your timely attention to this email, and again, please review your judges to make sure you have entered them consistent with the items above.

Many thanks,

Matthew Fraser and Rich Boltizar, on behalf of Stanford Debate

January 26, 2012: Greetings from Stanford Debate - announcement #1

Dear coaches, colleagues, attendees and friends,

We are writing with a few quick announcements and reminders for this years upcoming tournament:

• JUDGE INFORMATION DUE BY END OF DAY TOMORROW, FRIDAY For varsity policy and varsity LD in particular, but for all other events as well, we need judges entered by tomorrow, Friday, end of the day so that we can determine where we stand with the need for hired judges. We will consider the fees for hired judges finalized at that point.

• PLEASE INFORM US OF ANY STRONG VARSITY POLICY AND VARSITY LD JUDGES THAT MAY BE AVAILABLE FOR HIRE If you have or know of quality judges for varsity policy and varsity LD that otherwise wouldn't judge, it is very likely we would be willing to hire them. It's always a challenge to find sufficient qualified judges to put a well qualified judge in every room in these events, but that is our goal, and helping us identify such judges and get them into the pool improves the tournament for everyone.

• COMPUTERS IN EXTEMP AND PARLI PREP For extemp and parli debate, consistent with new rules for parli coming from the California HS Speech Association, we WILL allow computers, provided they are not connected to the internet in any way or at any time during the round or during preparation time. Our policy is slightly different from CHSSA though in that you may use wall plugs where available and we don't limit the number of computers a team has, though we expect that access to wall plugs will be generously shared between teams without issue.

• WAITLISTED TEAMS UPDATE We are clearing waitlisted teams as we get access to new room blocks. We are doing this as quickly as we can, and if you can wait, there is a reasonable chance we can clear your entry. You do become responsible for the fees for teams once they are admitted at this point, so if you know you no longer want a team on the waitlist, please remove them as soon as you are aware of that. Arranging rooms in large numbers for an event like this at Stanford has unique challenges, and we have several people working on this and are doing all that we can.

• UPCOMING ANNOUNCEMENTS There will be several important announcements coming out as the tournament approaches. Please read all such announcements carefully and act on any information requests. It is a large tournament, and providing the information promptly when it is requested helps make for a better tournament for all.

• TOURNAMENT SIZE The tournament has very strong enrollment, about 150 schools, up nearly 30 schools from last year! We have already admitted 200 Varsity LD, about 90 Varsity Policy teams, 120 teams each in Public Forum and Parli, and have over 800 IE students signed up, and strong entry in other events as well.

Thank you for including us on your schedule of tournaments this year! We know you have a lot of choices, and sincerely appreciate being included in your tournament planning. We hope that our maintenance of the same fees we've had for several years now, our hospitality, our efforts to find quality judges and many other small details have been and will continue to be a tangible expression of that appreciation.

Sincerely,

Matthew Fraser, Executive Tourament Director

Rich Boltizar, Associate Tournament Director

January 17, 2012: Entry Deadline

Dear Coaches,

We're writing to remind you that today is the entry deadline for the 2012 Stanford Invitational. After today's entry deadline, all entries are considered "final" and fees will be assessed based on your entry at the end of the day. Drops after this deadline will incur "late drop fees" as detailed in the invitation.

If you are planning to attend the tournament this year, please be sure to get your entry in today. We have had a significant increase in the number of schools registered and total entry thus far, and are still expecting more to trickle in throughout the day. If event(s) of your choice are currently waitlisted, we strongly encourage you to join the waitlist, as we will clear teams in the order that they sign up. If you have already registered and have teams on a waiting list, there is no need to take any further action at this time. You may verify that your team(s) are properly waitlisted by viewing your squad's entry for the tournament.

Please don't contact us yet with questions about whether your teams have been cleared from the waitlist--as soon as a team is cleared, you will automatically receive email notification at the address you have registered on Joy of Tournaments. Since registration is still open today, we have not yet begun clearing teams from the waitlist. We are also currently waitlisting a number of entries until an additional tranche of rooms is officially released to the tournament by the campus.

We of will do our absolute best to accomodate everyone, however please understand that we are ultimately constrained by the space available to us on campus, and when the tournament is full, that's it!

Thanks for your patience with the waitlist, and we look forward to seeing you all next month!

Best regards,

Matthew Fraser, Executive Tournament Director

Rich Boltizar, Associate Tournament Director

January 13, 2012: space quickly filling

Dear Coaches,

Demand for the Stanford Invitational continues to rise, and we strongly urge you to sign up ASAP if you plan to send teams to this year's tournament, as many divisions are already at or nearing capacity! We are already at over 125 schools (last year's enrollment), and still expect to have a surge of last minute signups next week.

At the moment, many debate events and some speech events have waiting lists. We do expect to be able to clear a substantial portion of the teams on our waiting lists. Teams are cleared in order of their waitlist position, meaning that your odds of being accepted off of the waiting list improve with earlier registration.

We're looking forward to hosting you all at Stanford next month! Don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Matthew Fraser, Executive Tournament Director

Rich Boltizar, Associate Tournament Director

invitational@stanforddebate.com

Stanford Invitational
555 Bryant Street #599
Palo Alto, CA 94301