Logistics

Registration: 

• Should occur approximately 30 minutes before the briefing, allowing you time to make adjustments for teams or individuals who do not arrive at the event. It is advisable to have a swing team available to debate should an entire team not arrive. In the case of a coordinate debat tournament, you would require up to 3 individual swing debaters. If 2 teams or 4 indivdividual debaters do not arrive at the tournament, you may consider collapsing a room.

• Students should register and receive a tentative schedule for the day. Eventually, a "draw" listing the room and opposing team should be distributed either in print or on a digital document, depending on the techonology reliability of your facility.

• Judges should also register. Asking judges to register ahead of time would permit you to build a draw ahead of time so that there is a mix of experienced and newer judges in the same room. Judges should not judge blood relatives or family friends. In addition, school protection is also recommended so that parents do not judge the peers of their children.

Food: 

• The students appreciate having juice and a snack between rounds. It is best not to put them out before the first round or they will disappear. 

• Adult judges like having coffee/ tea, and are happy to have food as well. 

• It is desirable to have some variety if possible. eg. sweet cookies, healthy fruit/crackers/cheese, granola bars, chips. 

• Please also be aware of providing something for those with allergies or dietary restrictuions if possible. 

• Please avoid all types of nuts.

Medals:  

• In Manitoba we provide 1 medal to the top person from each school that participates, as well as medals for the top several speakers and the top several teams.

• How many  medals you distribute depends on your budget for medals but the more the better as a general rule. 

• In order to spread out the medals, some events don't award more than 1 medal per student at any one tournament. We usually announce their position if they earn any award after their first medal, although that can take longer to calculate. 

• We usually announce up to the tenth spot and medal the top 3 to 5.

• If the tournament has both open and novice categories, novice and open are ranked separately. If a school enters both novice and open debaters, the award for the top student from that school is always presented to the top open student from that school even if a novice student has a higher score. 

• If you are hosting an MSDA event and are stuggling to financially provide medals, please speak with the MSDA president to support your needs.

Scoresheets: The scoresheets are available by following this link:  MSDA Debate Scoresheets

Scripts: Officials scripts are available at this link: MSDA Speaker's Scripts