Queens Tournament

Queen’s Debating Union International High School Debating Championship

Dear Debate community member,

I am very excited to invite you to the 2015 Queen’s International High School Debating Championships held at Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario from Friday January 9th until Sunday January 11th 2015. The Queen’s Debating Union is the oldest debate club in Canada and is currently in its 171st session. Our club has a strong record of competitive success, including currently holding both the title of national champions and as well as national novice champions, both won last year at Dalhousie University. The Queen’s High School tournament is one of the premier Canadian Parliamentary events of the high school debate circuit and is always well attended. You don’t want to miss it!

Tournament Information

This year’s tournament will consist of 6 rounds of preliminary debate (2 on Friday and 4 on Saturday) all in Canadian parliamentary style. As introduced last year (And we are excited to bring back again!) the top 16 teams will then break to octo finals on Sunday with the winners of that round advancing to quarters, semis, and finally we will end the event with the grand final between the top 2 teams. There will also be a U16 finals for all competitors under the age of 16 as of September 1st 2014. The first 4 rounds of debate will all be open adjudication, meaning that the debaters will be told which team has won the round and then given helpful and constructive feedback from their judge. All motions will be straight motions with squirrelling, or changing the motion, strictly prohibited.

Awards

We will be recognizing the top 10 speakers as well as the top 3 under 16 speakers. Awards will also be given to all quarter finalists, semi finalists, and finalists with recognition given to all teams that make octo finals. The top 3 U16 teams will be invited to represent Canada at the International Competition for young debaters (ICYD) at Cambridge University. Be aware that to qualify for ICYD both debaters must be from the same school and both be under the age of 16 as of September 1st 2014. If you have question about ICYD please contact Frankie Cena at frankiecena@gmail.com.

Adjudication

The Chief Adjudicator for the tournament this year will be Holly Kallmeyer and Tavish Logan. Holly is a former Ontario High School provincial champion in 2009 and finalist in 2010. With the Queen’s Debating Union Holly has both debated and judged at the world university championships in Berlin and India, and will once again represent the club this year in Malaysia. She was also a finalist at the Hart House invitational 2014 and has won numerous speaking awards including being the top speaker and at the McMaster ProAm championships 2013. Tavish comes to Queen’s all the way from Alaska. His judging credentials include being the deputy chief adjudicator for the Queen’s National High School championships in 2014, as well as being a finals judge at the Guindon IV at the university of Ottawa, the Colgate IV in the United States, and will be judging the world university debate championships this year in Malaysia. Tavish is also the 2 time Luebke cup champion, Ithica IV champion, and a top 10 speaker at the Yale debate championships 2014.

Tabs Director

We are very excited that Chris George will once again be tabbing our tournament. Chris has an immense amount of experience tabbing in the debate community including tabbing the 2013 and 2014 Queen’s High School Championships as well as past national championships.

Mentoring

The Queen’s High School Debate Championships also offers mentoring so that experienced members of the QDU can give high school students tips about debating or answer question about university life. Running our mentoring program this year is the current national champion Michelle Polster. Michelle currently runs the training programs for the university debaters in our club and looks forward to planning out this year’s mentoring sessions.

Accommodations

The QDU has a group rates for two hotels this year! The first is the Delta Kingston Waterfront Hotel. The room rates there are 139$ a night for quad occupancy in a room with two queens beds. The second is the Four Points Sheraton Kingston. The room rates there are also 139$ a night for quad occupancy in either a room with 2 queen beds, or a junior suite with a queen bed and pull out couch. To access the deal call either hotel and tell them you are with the Queens debating union, but act quickly as rooms are limited and the deal ends December 9th! Both places are within a block of each other and 15 minutes from the tournament GA. They offer great services as well, like free wireless Internet and even an indoor pool. You are not obligated to stay at either of the hotels, but it is very expensive to find a place to stay in Kingston, and these are both really great deals at two great hotels.

Registration

Registration will cost 200$ per team. This includes 6 rounds of debate dinner on Friday, breakfast on Saturday and Sunday, lunch on Saturday and Sunday, as well as a Banquet Saturday night at the Delta Kingston Waterfront Hotel. While we encourage everyone to attend the banquet since it is a nice social event for debaters, it can be opted out of for 30$ a debater. Without the banquet registration in 140$ Coaches may also come to the banquet for 30$.

A non-refundable deposit of 120$ is due by December 5th. The deposit will be 90$ if one debater is not attending the banquet, and 60$ if neither debater plans to attend the banquet. You are welcome to pay in full immediately, the remainder of the 200$ must be paid in person at start of the tournament.

You may pay by cash or cheque, with cheques made out to the “Queen’s Debating Union”. Please mail cheques to:

Mitchell Dorbyk Queen’s Debating Union 98a Collingwood Street Kingston, Ontario K7L 3X5

Be sure to include the tournament registration form in the envelope. You can reserve spots by submitting the form electronically to highschools@queensdebatingunion.org . Please note however that teams are not registered until the deposit is received. Right now each school may resister 5 teams but after the registration deadline on December 5th teams that have not registered will have their spots reallocated possibly allowing schools to receive more than 5 teams. Please include on your registration form if you are interested in receiving additional teams, and if so how many.

Here at the QDU we are looking forward to another great weekend of debate. You can expect further emails from me as the tournament date approaches. Please contact me if you can any questions or concerns.

Best regards,

Mitchell Dorbyk

Tournament Director

Queen’s International High school Debate Championships 2015 highschools@queensdebatingunion.org