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The Golden State Academy
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    CALIFORNIA INVITATIONAL BERKELEY

    18-20 February 2023

    DEADLINE
    11 Jan 2023
    NO DROPS/REFUNDS AFTER THIS DATE
    ELIGIBILITY
    Open to middle and high school students
    LOCATION
    In-person at UC Berkeley

    Information

    2023 California Invitational
    Hosted by Berkeley Debate
    February 18-20, 2023

    Greetings,
    This is your formal invitation to the 2023 California Invitational Speech and Debate Tournament, to be held February 18-20, 2023.
    We plan to hold our usual offering of both speech and debate events for this year's tournament in-person for all three days of competition. We believe the chances of a COVID-related cancellation are very low this year.
    We are of course subject to any changes in relevant policies from the CDC, U.C. Berkeley, and state and local authorities.

    Entry Procedures and Waitlist
    Every year we have a waitlist for all events. You will not be guaranteed a spot automatically so the sooner you register the better. Do not make any non-refundable travel arrangements until your entries have been moved off the waitlist on Tabroom and into the tournament.
    Any entries received after the deadline will be assessed a $25 late fee per entry. Any entries received after January 30 will be assessed a $50 late fee per entry. It is also VERY possible that we will have to turn away late entries due to space limitations.
    The drop deadline is the same as the registration deadline. You will not be refunded for drops subsequent to this date.

    Events & Double-Entry Policy
    • We reserve the right to cancel or combine divisions with insufficient entries, and will notify participants in advance of any COVID-related changes.
    • All divisions will receive trophies.
    • There will be 3 rounds of speech/individual events (IE). Specific event schedules will be released on Tabroom in advance of the tournament, but our overall schedule is likely to be similar to previous in-person years.
    • Students may double enter in-person in speech and debate, and may double enter in speech events. All double entry is at a student’s own risk. No accommodations will be made for a student missing a round due to double entry.
    • Varsity divisions are a Tournament of Champions qualifier in the following:
      Double Octafinals in Silver PF
      Octafinals in Gold PF
      Octafinals in LD
      ​Speech events according to size

    Debate Topics
    Lincoln-Douglas Debate will use the 2022-2023 January-February NSDA topic.
    Public Forum Debate will use the February 2023 NSDA topic.

    Judge Commitments
    All judges are committed through the first elim on Monday (usually the Double Octafinals depending on event size), or one round beyond the elimination of your teams, whichever is later.
    Even if your school doesn’t have any teams in elimination rounds, your judges are still committed through the first elimination round on Monday. Elim judging commitments also apply in all divisions of an event so if you have a JV team in your Varsity judges are still committed and vice versa.

    Judge Fines
    The penalty for a judge failing to report to an assigned round is $75 per round. This fine is assessed even when a replacement judge is found.

    Decision Times
    Decision times will be strictly enforced. Policy rounds must be decided two hours after the announced start time, and LD/PF rounds must be decided fifty five minutes after the announced start time.

    COVID Safety Protocols
    All attendees are solely responsible for following all guidelines from your institution. The California Invitational accepts no responsibility or liability for the health of tournament attendees. All participation in the tournament is at your own risk.
    Vaccination against COVID-19 is strongly recommended for all tournament attendees. However, there is no tournament vaccination requirement.
    We will utilize the best practices and any rules and regulations required by the University or recommended by the CDC. We will keep attendees updated with specific policies as we get closer to the event.


    We look forward to hosting you!
    Berkeley Debate

    ​Entry Price

    LD and parent is judging $225
    LD + 1 Speech and parent is judging $325
    LD + 2 Speech and parent is judging $425
    LD and parent is OPTING OUT of $385
    LD + 1 Speech and parent is OPTING OUT of $495
    LD + 2 Speech and parent is OPTING OUT of $605

    PF and parent is judging $160
    PF + 1 Speech and parent is judging $260
    PF + 2 Speech and parent is judging $360
    PF and parent is OPTING OUT ​of $310
    PF + 1 Speech and parent is OPTING OUT ​of $420
    PF + 2 Speech and parent is OPTING OUT ​of $530

    One Speech Event and parent is judging $150
    Two Speech Events and parent is judging $250

    One Speech Event and parent is OPTING OUT ​of $275
    Two Speech Events and parent is OPTING OUT ​of $375

    Each person in a PF/Policy/Duo team would be responsible of providing their own judge, so one PF/Policy/Duo team would need to either provide two judges, both pay the judge fee, or one of each option.

    Registration will not be complete until payment is received.
     
    NOTE: We will charge set up fees if we have to create tabroom.com accounts for judges. It is recommended you do so on your own.

    Schedule - PST

    Our tentative schedule is as follows. Please note that the schedule remains subject to change based on room availability and event sizes.
    We plan to run IE/speech prelims entirely on Sunday, to give schools only bringing speech students an option to reduce their number of hotel nights and travel cost, as well as reduce the total amount of time spent waiting between IE/speech rounds.

    Saturday
    9:30am LD/PF Round 1
    1:00pm LD/PF Round 2
    4:30pm LD/PF Round 3
    8:00pm LD/PF Round 4

    Sunday
    9:45am IE/Speech Round 1
    11:00am LD/PF Round 5
    1:00pm IE/Speech Round 2
    4:15pm LD/PF Round 6
    6:15pm IE/Speech Round 3
    7:45pm Debate Events Triples
    8:15pm IE/Speech Octas
    ​
    Monday
    8:00am All events Remaining Elims

    Drop Fee

    Drop fees will be the same amounts as the entry fee PLUS any fees the tournament charges us for late drops. Drop requests should be made to Victor and Nadia.

    Please do not drop out last minute to avoid being charged these fees.

    Contact Info

    Victor Rivas Umana
    Contact email:  vrivasumana@tgsastaff.com

    Nadia Budiman 
    Contact email: nbudiman@tgsastaff.com

    Or info@tgsastaff.com

    Registration Form


    STUDENT INFORMATION
    ​
    Suggested attire for the tournament can be found here.
    ​More tournament resources can be found 
    here.
    If this is your first time competing, make sure to first create a Tabroom account here: https://www.tabroom.com/user/login/new_user.mhtml
    It's super simple and quick (<1 minute), but follow the guidelines here in case anything is confusing: ​https://docs.tabroom.com/Sign_Up

    PARENT CONTACT INFORMATION
    Your email address will be the one included when we send the logistics email.
    Parents are responsible for bringing their child to UC Berkeley on their own.

    EVENT SELECTION
    ​
    Double entry is allowed but at your own risk.
    BOTH partners must fill out form and pay in order to be registered!

    ​JUDGE PROVISION
    Debate judges are required to be available the whole 3 days from Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Speech judges are required to be available on Sunday and possibly Monday. What event you'll be judging depends on what your child is signed up for.
    DO NOT SIGN UP TO JUDGE IF YOU CANNOT MAKE THE SCHEDULE COMMITMENT

    ​Click here to complete the mandatory Cultural Competency judge training course

    Signing up a judge without having a Tabroom account will result in us charging you for the set up fee.
    ​You can do this easily on your own by going to tabroom.com. It literally takes less than a minute.


    First time judging? Click here to learn how to do it! Or watch our Youtube playlist here.
    ​There are also these training cards available that include a summary of each event's rules and comments.​

    ​Tournaments encourage judges to have a paradigm on their Tabroom account, which can be a few sentences on your preferences of debating styles, etc. See here for example. It doesn't need to be this long, but make sure to add something before you sign up. For example: "I am a parent, please speak clearly and slowly and avoid technical jargon".​

    ​More tournament resources can be found here.

    TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Submit/take to payment

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


School year Hours

M-F: 3:45 pm - 8:30 pm 
Sun: 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Telephone

510-270-8480
510-470-0531

Email (preferred)

For more info email us at: info@tgsastaff.com

Locations

Fremont: 200 Brown Rd #201, Fremont, CA 94539

Cupertino: 20432 Silverado Avenue Suite 211, Cupertino, CA 95014

Aborn Institute: 2804 Riedel Road, San Jose, CA 95135 
  • Home
  • About
    • Meet Our Coaches
    • Why Speech and Debate
    • What is Speech and Debate? >
      • Speech Events
      • Debate Events
    • Why Golden State Academy
    • Tournament Photos
    • Tournament results
    • FAQ
  • Forms
  • Registration
    • Ohlone Spring 2023
    • MS/HS Spring 2023
    • Late MS/HS Spring 2023
    • Elementary Spring 2023
    • Private Coaching >
      • Speech Private Coaching
      • Debate Private Coaching
    • MS/HS Summer 2023
    • GSA Tournaments
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Career Opportunities
  • Newsletter