APPLE VALLEY

The 35th Annual (1st Virtual)
MinneApple Debate Tournament
November 6-8, 2020
Sponsored by the Apple Valley High School Team, Apple Valley Speech & Debate Alumni Foundation, and American Legion Post 1776

On behalf of the Apple Valley Team, Apple Valley Speech & Debate Alumni Foundation, and the Apple Valley American Legion Post 1776, we would like to invite you and your team to attend the 35th annual MinneApple Debate Tournament on November 6th through 8th. The MinneApple is proud to offer Lincoln Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, and Congressional Debate. Our commitment to providing an efficient tournament with great hospitality, strong competition, and superior judging has made it one of the largest debate tournaments in the nation. We would be honored to have you be a part of this event. Our awards will once again feature the red marble apple.

The MinneApple is a Tournament of Champions qualifier at the OCTAFINAL level in LD, the OCTAFINAL level in Public Forum, and a Tier 2 level bid in Congressional Debate (top 16). We offer three divisions of LD, varsity and novice divisions in Public Forum, and an open division of Congressional Debate. We offer mutual judge preference in varsity LD debate and judge strikes in varsity PF debate.

All LD and PF divisions will have six preliminary rounds. In varsity LD and PF and all students with 4-2 records will be eligible to compete in partial triple octafinals. Students, coaches, and judges will be provided with a complimentary Friday dinner and Saturday lunch.

We look forward to seeing you at the MinneApple!

Sincerely,
Chris Theis, Pam Cady Wycoff, Colin Goodson, Scott Voss
Tournament Director, Tournament Director Emeritus, Administrative Director, Director of Debate

Details
Due to Covid-19, this year’s Minneapple will take place virtually using the NSDA’s Campus platform.
Links to virtual rooms will be available to students and judges directly through the tabroom pairing. Further instructions will be provided as the tournament nears.

The virtual format also necessitates changes to our typical schedule. Most notably, some late elims will push into Sunday morning, and start and end times will change to accommodate multiple time zones. Below is a sketch of start and stop times by day, for more detailed schedules please view the event schedules linked on the sidebar.

Friday November 6th
               First round begins at 3pm central
               Last round begins at 8pm central

Saturday November 7th
               First round begins at 10am central
Last round begins at 8pm central

Sunday November 8th
               First round (if needed) beings at 10am central
               Tournament concludes

Decision times:
LD Decision Times: We will again be using decision times in LD this year. Decision time simply means there will be a deadline by which the judge must make a decision in each debate. Each round’s decision time deadline is based on the Tabroom pairing start time. If the judge does not enter a decision in tabroom by the decision time, it is within the Tabroom’s power to randomly assign the winner of that debate. We do intend to enforce this, but hope we don't have to.
For prelims we will enforce a 75 minutes decision time for elims it will be 80 minutes.

Judge Preferencing:
In Varsity LD, the Minneapple will afford teams the ability to rate judges as well as strike a small portion of the field. In order to accomplish this, we require that all teams submit judge names by 6PM CST November 2nd. If a judge's name is changed or removed from the pool after this date, the tournament will assess a $50 fee. This fee is charged to prevent teams from adversely affecting all other teams preferences. This fee will be assessed at registration and will be due before teams are permitted to compete. All judges in the Varsity LD division are required to submit a judging philosophy on tabroom by 6PM CST on November 2nd. Teams whose judges have not submitted a paradigm will not be permitted to submit a preference sheet without exception. Judge Preferences will open on November 4th.
Any teams who have not fulfilled their judging obligation or who have judges without paradigms listed online before the deadline will not be permitted to preference judges without exception.

Any judge who is not listed on the preference sheet will become a free strike. Teams wishing to exercise their free strikes must notify the tab room prior to the next round's pairing to ensure that their strikes are honored.
In Varsity PF, we will offer limited judge strikes.

Judge Conflict Policy:
The tournament will use the TOC rules when evaluating judge conflicts.

Chaos Control Fees:
Because the judge pool is integral to the efficiency and quality of the tournament, a 'chaos control' fee of $40.00 will be assessed per missed round per judge and must be paid by the end of the tournament. Schools must have their judging obligations filled for all rounds including rounds one and two on Friday or pay for hired judges to fulfill those round requirements.

Awards:
Due to the virtual nature of the tournament, we will not be offering our signature marble apples as awards this year. Instead, we will use the money typically earmarked for trophies to make donations on behalf of elim participants to charities of their choice. We will be compiling a diverse list of reputable charities suggested by the community.

Time Limits and Resolutions:
In LD, we will use the NSDA 6-3-7-3-4-6-3 time limits with 4 minutes of preparation time. Each division of LD will debate the NSDA November/December resolution.
In PF, we will use NSDA rules and time limits. Each division of PFD will debate the NSDA November resolution.

LD/PF Pairing Protocols:
Rounds one and two in all divisions will be randomly paired. Rounds three through six will be paired high-low within brackets. Brackets will not be broken in elimination rounds. Varsity speaker awards are based on speaker points in preliminary rounds.

NSDA Rules:
The MinneApple will use NSDA rules for all events, but the enforcement of all rules is left to judges in the round. If there are NSDA pilot rules available for an event, they will be in effect at the tournament.

Congress Information:
Legislation: Schools must use CongressionalDebate.org legislation templates, and submit -- via this Tabroom registration site -- up to one (1) item per student, and up to 4 per school. Only Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, or Rich Text Format (RTF) file types will be accepted - no PDFs. Legislation may be rejected if it does not meet standards enumerated for relevant legislation within the jurisdiction of the United States Congress. If there are many submissions from schools, we will select the best from among each school's submission for the overall tournament docket. See below for deadlines and posting dates.

Rules/Procedures: The MinneApple uses NSDA rules, including pilot rules.
Advancement and Finals: Using NSDA tabulation protocols, about one-third of the preliminary session field advances to semifinal chambers of 9-12 students, and a final session chamber of 10-14 students. Direct questioning will be used for semifinal and final rounds.

Awards/TOC Bid Level: The top six students receive MinneApple apple awards, and non-placing final session participants will receive an award. The top PO from each preliminary chamber -- as well as the final session PO -- will receive a gavel. All final round contestants, plus the next highest-ranked student in each of the semifinal chambers earns one bid/leg to the University of Kentucky Tournament of Champions.
Student Leadership Award: While student vote will not determine outcome of the tournament, a special award modeled after the NSDA National Tournament leadership award will be conferred upon one final round debater who earns preferential ranking by their peers.
Judges: One judge for every five Congressional debaters. This judging obligation may not be shared with other divisions. Since the Minneapple offers small chambers to allow students more meaningful opportunities to debate, more judges will be needed. Please note experience as a parliamentarian in the notes area when registering judges.

Important Dates:

October 16th
Congress Legislation Due.

October 24th
Congressional Debate Legislation Released.

November 2nd
Varsity LD Judge Paradigms submitted on tabroom

November 4th
Judge Preferencing available.

APPLE VALLEY MINNEAPPLE DEBATE TOURNAMENT

6-8 November 2020

Information

Entry Price

Schedule

Drop Fee

Contact Info

Registration Form

We would love to have you visit soon at one of our open houses.
Check our home page for the schedule!

School year Hours

Telephone

Email (preferred)

Locations

APPLE VALLEY MINNEAPPLE DEBATE TOURNAMENT ​