ALTHOUGH THE DEADLINE SAYS FEB. 5, the deadline to add entries will be extended into the early part of the following week. If you can get most of the information in by Feb, 5, that lets us work with an estimated count of the participants and judges so that we can plan for rooms, food, and extra judges. THANK YOU!

THIS WILL BE AN IN-PERSON TOURNAMENT FEBRUARY 12

We are excited to invite you and your students to celebrate Valentine’s week by participating in the fifteenth annual Steve Sparks Memorial Forensics Tournament at Eau Claire North High School on Saturday, February 12, 2022. This tournament is both WFCA and WHSFA friendly, and students may double or triple enter. The Valentine’s theme is a reflection of our love for our students, the activity of forensics, and all our dear friends involved and especially for the memory of Steve Sparks.

There will be awards for all finalists, qualitative sweepstakes awards for the top two small teams (5 – 20 entries), and sweepstakes awards for the top two large teams, based on the top 25 entries from each school.

Continuing this year, we offer the following additional awards:

• Best Double-Entry: Top 3 (based on prelim totals)
• Best Novice Entry: Top 3 (based on prelim totals – will use best category if double entered)

The entry fee will be $8.00 per entry and $12.00 per group.  Please bring one judge for every 5 entries with a maximum of 5 affiliated (non-clean) judges per school (contact us for possible exceptions for affiliated judges).  Hired judges will be available for $15.00 per uncovered entry.  

Registration will be through http://ecn.tabroom.com  The deadline for registration will be at 5 pm Saturday, February 5.  Drops after this time will not reduce your fees nor reduce your judging requirements.  Checks are payable to: North High School.

Feel free to call us if you have questions.

Sincerely,

Changes and special notes for 2022

Keep it healthy:Coaches should ensure that all students and judges are screened for illness symptoms prior to coming to the tournament.  Anyone with symptoms cannot attend.

Social Distancing:Everyone is encouraged to be prudent with social distancing especially with people outside of your team. Both the commons and auditorium will be open for teams to find their own space in the morning, during lunch (but please no food in auditorium), and for final round postings. If any team would like a homeroom for their exclusive use for gathering in the morning or for lunch just let us know.

Masks:Masks covering the nose and mouth will be required in the building except when a student is performing. There may be other groups using the school that day in the gyms that are not wearing masks… but all forensics competitors and coaches will wear masks as some schools attending are more strict than others.

Lunch:As per WFCA covid guidelines… students can bring their own lunches to the meet. We will have some concessions available (prepackaged…precooked items like chips/hotdogs/fruit/etc…) for students as well. If you have a student with dietary restrictions, let us know and we can arrange for something to suit their needs… or they are able to bring their own as well.

Radio Announcing:We previously had computers available for receiving Radio materials and for editing the script. Because North’s students now have personal devices, the computer labs are gone. Competitors may bring their own devices for Radio preparation, and they may use the devices in the performance room for reading the script. Paper copies of the source packet will also be available.

Extemporaneous Speaking and Radio Announcing Internet use:Competitors in Extemporaneous Speaking and Radio Announcing may utilize the internet during their preparation for research but not for communicating with people or accessing pre-written speeches or outlines.

Final rounds:All students who did not advance to a final round are encouraged to be observers to learn from and enjoy the performances of the top entries. It’s also a great way to explore other categories that a student may want to pursue. For social distancing, students will be encouraged to attend a final round for a category being held in one of our designated large rooms. Play Acting, Group Interp, and a few other categories chosen at random will be in the large rooms.

Online ballots:All judges will be required to bring a Wi-Fi enabled portable device for receiving the judging schedule, writing critiques, and submitting ranks.

Finally if your team has specific restrictions or needs, please let us know and we can work best to accommodate. We want the best tournament experience possible for all in attendance.

Tournament Schedule for February 12

The North High School main parking lot and entry doors are on the north side of the building facing Piedmont Road. Look for the giant husky dog on the roof.

 Tournament Guidelines

We welcome WFCA and WHSFA schools, and to facilitate the slight differences in rules we have a basic overall philosophy: rules from either organization will be honored. If an element of a performance is allowed in either WFCA or WHSFA, it will be allowed at this tournament. Some examples of blending the rules include: 

1. Two speakers will be allowed in Demonstration Speaking. The entry fee for Demonstration will be the same price as other individual entries regardless of a Demonstration entry having one or two speakers. If there are two speakers under one entry, provide the names of both when submitting your roster.
2. Group Interpretive Reading and Play Acting will have 12 minute time limits.
3. One 4x6 note card will be permitted in Oratory. For other categories that allow a 4x6 note card, notes instead will have no specific limits, formats, or dimensions.
4. There will be no separate Public Address event, but students in Public Address can be entered in Oratory, and the judges will be alerted to this.
5. Chairs, etc. MAY be used in Solo and Group Interp. Optional speaker’s / reader’s stand may be used in the categories involving scripts or notes.
6. Storytelling: the order of the stories will be set by random draw the morning of the tournament at the opening meeting. For each round, everyone will be presenting the same story category.
7. A printed list of works cited does not need to be presented to the judge, but sources should be cited contextually during the speech.

*For the WFCA rules, go to https://wfcaforensics.org/ 
*For the WHSFA rules, go to http://whsfa.org

*For Oratorical Declamation rules, open to freshmen & sophomores only, go to http://ncfl.org

Registration limitations:

• Unlimited number of entries are allowed in each category.
• Double or triple entries are allowed (students may compete in multiple events).
• Please report how many of your judges are clean (have no school or team affiliation other than you hiring them to judge) versus dirty (coaches or others close to your team). This will give us more options for scheduling judges. Each school may bring a MAXIMUM of 5* dirty judges; schools with more than 25 entries will be required to fulfill their judging quota by bringing clean judges or hiring clean judges from us.  If you have extra clean judges, you may contact us and we may hire them.
  *Depending on tournament size we might allow more than 5 dirty judges.

Remember:

• The deadline for registration is 5 pm Saturday, February 5.
• Drops after this time will not reduce your fees nor your judging requirement.
• PLEASE submit a roster with your registration.  This should list the names of your students in each category. For the Best Novice Award, indicate which of your students are in their first year competing at the high school level.

Important:

Please keep your Tabroom entries updated as soon as you know about changes so that we can best plan for the tournament rooms and judging needs. One student drop might mean an entire section and judge slot can be eliminated.

Tournament day drops MUST be called in on Saturday morning before your team departs for North. If you have valuable information about which students are missing that morning, we need to know prior to your arrival so that the schedules can be adjusted to balance round sizes and make the tournament run smoothly. Schools whose students are not transported as a team are exempt from this request. (i.e. nearby schools like EC Memorial, Regis, etc.)  REPORT ANY KNOWN CHANGES to 608 345-4556.