Point of Information

The Tournament of Champions for the California Cup

The California Cup is set for Saturday, April 21 to Sunday, April 22, 2012.

The tournament will be held at the Bishop O’Dowd High School, 9500 Stearns Avenue, Oakland, CA.

16 teams will be in competition. Teams with 19+ POI points are fully qualified for the cup.

Santa Clara Spring will be the final tournament to be included in the POI rankings prior to the cup.

Any team listed in the POI rankings that does not have 19 POI points by the April 4 application deadline may submit an at-large bid.

Non-California teams are encouraged to submit at-large bids.

Teams are invited to indicate they are interested in serving as an alternate.

Application

Application: http://forensictournament.net/californiacup/12/home/

Deadline for Applications (For Both Fully-Qualified and At-Large Teams): By 11:59 p.m., April 4, 2012

The field will be announced April 6, 2012. No team is guaranteed entry until this date.

Fees

$110 per team. Fees should be received before April 14, 2012.

There will be a $75 drop-fee assessed to teams that drop after April 6, 2012. Teams that drop after April 7 will still be required to pay entry fees and judge fees in addition to the drop-fee.

Please makes checks payable to: “Bishop O’Dowd Debate Team.” Please write in account #1265 in the memo section of the check.

Please mail your check to: O’Dowd Debate, Attention: Jon Thorpe, Bishop O’Dowd High School, 9500 Stearns Avenue, Oakland, California, 94605.

Judging

A qualified judge must be provided for each entry. A qualified judge is a Head Coach, an assistant parliamentary debate coach, a former high school debater who previously qualified to California Cup or the State Tournament in parli, or a current or former college debater. Exceptions can be made by the tournament director.

The fee for not providing a judge is $125

Judges must submit their judging philosophies by 04/16. The fee for not submitting a philosophy by the deadline is $50.

Assistance
We will try to help attending schools if there are any financial or logistical difficulties.

Schedule

Saturday, April 21

1:30 – 2:00 p.m. – Registration
2:00 – 3:30 p.m. – Round 1
3:30 – 5:00 p.m. – Round 2
5:00 – 6:30 p.m. – Round 3
6:30 – 8:00 p.m. – Round 4

Sunday, April 22

8:30 – 10:00 a.m. – Round 5
10:00 – 11:30 a.m. – Round 6
11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. – Round 7
1:00 – 2:00 p.m. – Lunch
2:00 – 3:30 p.m. – Semifinals
3:30 – 5:00 p.m. – Finals

All teams are encouraged to attend the final round to participate in the floor vote.

Rules
CHSSA rules will be used as a guideline with the following exceptions:

1. Points of Information are allowed in all speeches at all time. There is no protected time.

2. Points of Order are allowed in rebuttals. Points of Order can be made if the opposing side brings up a new argument in the rebuttal with the exceptions of examples illustrating previous arguments and PMR responses to new arguments made in the MOC. Points of Order are not included in speech times.

3. During preparation time, debaters are not allowed to consult with anyone except their respective partners. They are, however, allowed to access any printed material that was prepared before the start of preparation time, as long as this material is not used in round. Laptops are allowed. All debaters will be able to log-on to the O’Dowd network.

4. Judges are encouraged, but not required, to disclose and explain their decisions after the round, as long as this does not jeopardize the time efficiency of the tournament.

5. A 0-10 speaker point scale will be used. A speaker point score in a regular 0-30 scale is converted into this by subtracting 20. Judges are asked to average at around 6.5 and reserve scores of 8.5 or higher for debaters who, given their performance in the particular round, deserve to clear.

6. There are no walkovers in this tournament. Effort will be made to keep teams from the same school from hitting one another in preliminary rounds. However if two teams from the same school are paired against one another in either preliminary rounds or the elimination rounds, the schools must debate.

7. All rounds are open to the public. Teams may not refuse entry to spectators. However, judges have the discretion to ask spectators to be removed from the room if their behavior is disruptive to the round.

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