Dear Fellow Debaters,
The Roxbury Latin School Debate Society cordially invites
you to
participate in our Parliamentary Debate Tournament on Sunday, September 18, 2011.
There
will
be both Novice and Advanced divisions. The
resolutions will be "traditional" extemporaneous, e.g. "The
pen is
mightier than the sword", not
"straight" resolutions, and there will be new resolutions
for each of the three rounds. The top teams in the Advanced
division
will conduct a public exhibition debate after the three
rounds have been completed. Each school may enter no
more than
one four-person team in each division, and must also provide
one judge
for each four-person team (with an adult
judge in
the advanced
division, not a student).
All schools are expected to have
briefed their judges thoroughly on the rules, format, and the
scoring
techniques of debating. Schools are invited to bring
additional
students as observers. Last year’s winners of our two
traveling trophies (Best School & Best Advanced
Speaker), please be
sure to bring these trophies with you to the competition or
mail them
to Stewart Thomsen in time for them to be awarded the day of
this
year’s debate. Many thanks!
Registration on the day of the debate will be held from 10:30 to 11:15 A.M. Teams arriving after the close of registration will not be allowed to compete. Judges' and debaters’ briefings will follow the registration. Dinner will be served in the Refectory after the third round to avoid lost time while the scoring room tallies the results of Round III to determine the participants in the Exhibition Round. We will start the Exhibition Round as soon as possible. The scoring of the debate and the standings in each division will be announced immediately following the Exhibition Round.
The format will be as follows (with 5 minutes to define the terms and 10 minutes to prepare arguments):
Member of the Opposition - 8 minute speech
Minister of the Crown - 8 minute speech
Leader of the Opposition - 8 minute speech
Prime Minister - 3 minute rebuttal
There is a $60 entry fee for each four-person team, and an additional $15 entry fee for each observer in order to offset the food costs. Please make checks payable to "The Roxbury Latin School".
Please fill out the linked entry form and fax or e-mail it
to us by
Sunday, September
11.
Because our space is limited,
we encourage schools to contact us ahead of this deadline as
we may run
out of space before September 11. If you have any
questions,
please email Stewart
Thomsen.
Sincerely,
John Gabrieli
President, Roxbury Latin Debate Society
Stewart Thomsen
Advisor, Roxbury Latin Debate Society