Big Manchester Wants You!

MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA, Mass. — Registration for the 30th Annual Tim Averill “Big Manchester” Invitational Debate Tournament has officially opened.

“Thanks to many wonderful suggestions from you, my friends in coaching, and the experience of having completed my first year at MERHS, I am excited to announce another round of improvements to our tournament,” noted Jonathan Peele in an e-mail this morning. This year’s tournament will bestow beautiful awards upon top competitors in Lincoln-Douglas, Public Forum, policy, and congressional debate. The full text of Peele’s e-mail is available here on VBD.

The text of Jonathan Peele’s e-mail to the debate community follows.

Fellow Coaches,

Now that registration for the 30th Annual Tim Averill “Big Manchester” Invitational Debate Tournament has officially opened at http://www.joyoftournaments.com/ma/merhs/, I wanted to take a moment again to personally invite you to this year’s event. Thanks to many wonderful suggestions from you, my friends in coaching, and the experience of having completed my first year at MERHS, I am excited to announce another round of improvements to our tournament. Though I am unable yet to release the school names, I am excited by the conversations I have had with several coaches about the new programs that have added “Big Manchester” to their schedule for this fall.

This year’s Averill Invitational will feature a repertoire of events to serve the changing needs of your program. This year we introduce open competition Congressional Debate, joining our offerings in Open Public Forum Debate, Varsity Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Novice Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Varsity Policy Debate, and Novice Policy Debate. We will provide the best judging possible in all divisions, hiring from the many former debaters in the Boston area. The tournament tab room, under the administration of NFL Hall of Fame member Tim Averill, Jon Cruz of the Bronx HS of Science, Jim Menick of Hendrick Hudson HS, and Paul Wexler of Needham HS, promises administrative accuracy and on-time performance.

Manchester Essex students and parents are also pleased to offer you our hospitality during your visit. Our team will provide student housing for Friday night on a first requested, first served basis. Special housing accommodations may be made for a limited number of students who require housing Saturday night as well. All host families will be CORI background checked. Requests for housing must be received by 5:00pm Thursday, October 16th. We regret that we cannot house coaches or adult chaperones. Our team parents will provide delicious meals for dinner Friday night, and breakfast and lunch Saturday at no additional cost. This year we also announce the addition of a judges’ lounge stocked with home cooked goodies from our team’s parents. To celebrate our 30th anniversary, we will begin a new tradition by presenting the champions of each varsity/open division a beautiful Waterford® crystal gavel. We will also add gorgeous sweepstakes awards to this year’s event to reward programs excelling in all divisions.

We are delighted to announce that this year, the National Tournament of Champions has designated Manchester Essex’s Tim Averill Invitational as a qualifier in Public Forum at the quarterfinal level, Congressional Debate at the top six level, and Lincoln-Douglas at the semifinal level. Based on past experience, we will attract debaters from New England, New York, and across the nation. The tournament offers five preliminary rounds for Lincoln-Douglas using the November/December topic, clearing to octafinals, with an option for double-octafinals should more than 90 debaters enter. Public Forum features five preliminary rounds on the November topic, clearing to octafinals.

Registration is now open and will close once building capacity is reached or on 5:00pm on Thursday, October 23rd. Each school is guaranteed six entries in each division, though teams wishing to enter more than six debaters in each division will be allowed to do so until capacity is reached. Given that registration may become limited as our deadline nears, you are strongly encouraged to register early. Please carefully read the enclosed rules that will govern the events offered at our tournament. Feel free to call or e-mail me if you have any questions or concerns. Our debate and speech community looks forward to welcoming you for a beautiful fall weekend in Manchester-by-the-Sea on October 31-November 1, 2008 as we battle for the crystal gavels!

Sincerely,

Jonathan

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 12:50 pm and is filed under Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Policy Debate, Public Forum Debate, Student Congress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.