RYAN MILLS

RYAN MILLS SVUDL INVITATIONAL

29-30 March 2025

DEADLINE

25 March 2025
NO REFUNDS AFTER THIS DATE

ELIGIBILITY

Open to middle and high school students

PLATFORM

Online through NSDA Campus

Information

Dear Colleagues,
The Silicon Valley Urban Debate League(SVUDL) presents:
The SVUDL Ryan Mills Memorial Invitational. March 29-30

All proceeds from this tournament will go to theSilicon Valley Urban Debate League, a local non-profit organization whose mission is to empower Silicon Valley students, regardless of their race or socioeconomic status, to reach their full potential to become professional and community leaders by teaching critical thinking and communication skills through speech and debate programming.

Ryan Mills was a volunteer with the Silicon Valley Urban Debate League (SVUDL) since its inception more than 10 years ago, through and until his untimely passing in March of 2021. Ryan was the consummate professional and a model volunteer, judging hundreds of rounds of competition for SVUDL over the years. He was one of the most sought after judges by our students, for not only his expansive debate knowledge, but also for the care in which he gave constructive feedback and shared resources, all with the idea of helping them grow as competitors and young adults. He was also an advocate for SVUDL in the wider community, building bridges that let our students access deeper coaching and opportunities to aid in their professional growth as well.
This tournament will be held online via NSDA Campus for all events.

Tournament Waitlist
Entries may be waitlisted if the tournament reaches capacity. Schools will be moved off the waitlist as space opens up. Remaining waitlisted entries will be moved on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Judging Requirements

All debate entries are required to have judges for all prelim rounds, and for Debate Elim 1 and Debate Elim 2. Beyond that, all debate judges from a school are obligated until one round past where the last student from their school is eliminated.
Judges are assumed to be experienced and prepared to judge their assigned events or debate formats.
Debate judges are free to determine style questions at the beginning of each round.
Debate judges must have properly linked Tabroom accounts for online ballot entry.
Speech judges are committed for all rounds of the day they are assigned to judge.
Judges who fail to check in to their rounds online when assigned may have their team fined penalties per round.
During the tournament, please make sure to inform any issues you may have to Victor through Slack first before you contact the tournament organizers.

Topics:
LD Debate Topic: NSDA Mar/Apr Topic
PF Debate Topic : NSDA April Topic and NSDA March Topic

Divisions

All speech and debate events will offer a novice and open division. We reserve the right to collapse divisions if entry size is too small for two separate divisions.
Novice is defined as a student’s first year of competition, or not advancing to an elimination round in your first two years of competition, regardless of debate format.

Double Entry Policy
Double entries in Speech Events are allowed. Debate entries may not double enter.

General Tournament Rules

The tournament will consist of five preliminary debate rounds for varsity, five prelims debate rounds for novice, and the three preliminary rounds of varsity and open events. We reserve the right to combine divisions if the entry warrants.
Persuasive will include both advocacy (Original Advocacy) and other "persuasive" speeches (Original Oratory). Extemp is combined national and international. Semifinals will be held in individual events with 50 or more entries or the discretion of the tournament director. Undersubscribed events may waive finals. Due to scheduling, we will only be breaking to Double octos for debate, events, entries permitting.

Entry Price

One PF event and parent is judging $95
One PF event and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $235

One LD event and parent is judging $110
One LD event and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $250

One speech event and parent is judging $90
One speech event and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $190

Two speech events and parent is judging $135
Two speech events and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $235

Each person in a PF/Duo team would be responsible of providing their own judge, so one PF/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

DEBATE SCHEDULE

Saturday, March 29
Debate Round 1 - 8:30am
Debate Round 2 - 11:30am
Debate Round 3 - 2:30pm
Debate Round 4 - 5:30pm

Sunday, March 30
Debate Round 5 - 8:30am
Debate Elim 1 - 11:30am
Debate Elim 2 - 2:30pm
Debate Elim 3 - 4:30pm
Debate Elim 4 - 6:30pm
Debate Elim 5* - 8:00pm
*only if needed

SPEECH SCHEDULE

Saturday, March 29
7:30 AM - Judging Instructions for Speech
8:00 AM - Speech R1 - Extemp Prep at 7:45 AM
10:30 AM - Speech R2 - Extemp Prep at 10:15 AM
1:00 PM - Speech R3 - Extemp Prep at 12:45 PM
4:00 PM - Speech Elim 1 - Extemp Prep at 3:45 PM
6:30 PM - Speech Elim 2 (if necessary) - Extemp Prep at 6:15 PM
ASAP - Awards

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: [email protected]
Nadia Budiman
Contact email: [email protected]
Or [email protected]

Registration Form

STUDENT INFORMATION

* Indicates required field

Student Name *

First

Last

Student Email (DO NOT USE PARENT'S EMAIL) *

Student Phone Number *

Does the student have a Tabroom account? *

Yes and it is linked with GSA's account(s) Yes but it is not linked and we need you to add to your roster No but I will create one before submitting registration

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.

Parent Name *

First

Last

Parent Email *

Parent Phone Number *

EVENT SELECTION
Got any questions? Please email [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
No cross entry, so you can only choose speech OR debate. But if you choose speech, you can select up to two events.

Division *

Novice Open

JUDGE PROVISION
Descriptions of each event can be found here.

Will you (parent) be judging at this tournament? *

Judge Name *

Judge email (Must be linked to a tabroom account. Register first at tabroom.com before completing this sign up) *

Judge phone *

Does your judge have a Tabroom account? *

Yes No but I will create one before submitting registration Not judging

Does your judge understand that he/she is responsible for the entire tournament schedule and that missing a round incurs fines from the tournament? *

Yes, understood Not judging but understood as well

Click here to complete the highly recommended 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?
This is a great collection of short videos that one of the leagues have put together to learn each event: click here.
There are also these training cards available that include a summary of each event's rules and comments.
Click here to find other training and official certification resources. Or watch our Youtube playlist here.

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

I will keep a copy of this form for reference. *

YES

We are signing up with the understanding that my child will work to be ready by the tournament date. If we choose to drop out because my child is not ready that will be considered when making assessments for future classes. *

YES

I understand that if I fail to drop the tournament before the deadline that I will still be responsible for the fees of both my son or daughter, along with that of his or her partner and the fines. *

YES

I understand that if payment is not received we won't be registered and our spot will be given up to someone else. *

YES

I confirm that I have completed all necessary paperwork for this tournament. *

YES

I understand that The Golden State Academy has no control over tournament entries other than the initial sign up. I understand that my child's priority will be based on either the last time I signed up OR the date paid, whichever is latest. *

YES

I understand that my child must check in and check out periodically at the tournament with the coach and that if I do not my child will be barred from participating in following tournaments. This is to ensure coaches can see where students are at competitively and to give any initial feedback for improvement. *

YES

I understand that I can check my entry status through tabroom.com. *

YES

I am a consenting adult. I understand that by submitting this form I agree to all that has been covered. *

YES

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: [email protected]

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

Dublin: Loving Tree Academy, 6693 Owens Dr, Pleasanton, CA 94588