2025 Silicon Valley Speech Tournament

Legacy (CA) - Feb 1, 2025 | Status: Preview | 4:56 PM Pacific

Tournament Time
4:56 PM Pacific

Thank you so much for volunteering as a Community Judge! Your investment of time for these students is MUCH appreciated! They value your feedback about their speeches.

Sign-up form: https://stoahub.org/tournament/silicon-valley-speech-tournament-2025/communityjudgeregistration

The sign up form is here

First Time Judging?

Here are some things you can expect. All of the following will take approximately three hours total.

1. Training

- NO experience is necessary! REALLY! Judges just need to be 18 or older and a high school graduate.
- You will go to a Judge Orientation room upon arrival; people will be available to answer any questions you might have before the round.
- You can watch a 20-minute orientation video before you come.

2. Getting ballots for the event you will judge

- Most Community Judges are brand new to this and don't have any preference for which event they judge. We will randomly assign judges to speech events on a first-come, first-served basis. If you would like to find out more about the 11 speech events we will offer, you can visit this link to read about them. Please note that we will NOT be offering Impromptu at this tournament.
- There will usually be between 5 and 8 students in the room you will be judging, and you will receive a ballot for each individual.
- You will receive ballots sometime after you arrive--before, after, or during Judge Orientation.

3. Watch the round

- This is the fun part! You get to watch the speakers, take notes on their ballots, and enjoy their presentations!
- You will have 2 minutes in between speakers to make notes on their ballots.

4. Fill out ballots after the round

- You will take your ballots to the Judges’ Lounge to complete your comments to these students and include your ranking.

Notes:
- 3-3.5 hour time commitment
- Some parking spaces reserved for you.
- Coffee, tea, and snacks available for you!
- There'll be some times when you might be waiting to get a ballot or waiting for a student to come to the speech room.
- After you judge, we welcome you to judge another round if you are interested!

Time slots:

When you sign up, the time slots listed are for the competitors. However, you are needed before for training, and after for writing feedback. So here are the actual times when we will need you, as a judge:

Sat 2/1 8:00 am - Pattern A Round 1:	7:30 am - 10:30 am
Sat 2/1 10:00 am - Pattern B Round 1:	9:10 am - 12:30 pm
Sat 2/1 12:00 pm - Pattern A Round 2:	11:10 am - 2:30 pm
Sat 2/1 2:00 pm - Pattern B Round 2:	1:10 pm - 4:30 pm
Sat 2/1 5:00 pm - Finals / Round 3:	4:10 pm - 7:30 pm

Enjoy snacks while you finalize your ballots!

Thank you so much for your consideration and your investment in the next generation of speakers!

Sign up here.

You will need to check in at the same time as your student. After confirming that both competitor and parent judge are present, the student will be able to compete.

Thank you for your understanding and efforts to make this tournament successful! If everyone follows this policy, everyone will have some time when they are not needed and the tournament will run smoothly.

We hope to be blessed by the support of many community judges but parents, you are the people who will make the tournament run well! Your willingness to take ballots is essential. Please go to Ballot Push 40 minutes before rounds to see if you are needed to take a ballot.

Plan on judging at least three rounds. Please judge more, if possible. If we have many community judges, ballot push will let you know whether or not you are needed for that round. You can judge alternating rounds, or consecutive rounds if the round is shorter.

Even though you will select specific rounds on your registration, be flexible at the tournament. We want to prioritize community judges that have taken time out of their day to judge our students!

Greatest Needs for judges--8 am round and Finals!

Check-in is 7:00-7:25 am. Check in with your student on time, then come to Ballot Push so that all ballots can be pushed AND we can start the tournament on time.

Online Judge Orientation is available. Use this form to watch Stoa's 20-minute video before you come to the tournament. The Judge Orientation Team will be available to answer additional questions.

Meals
We do not have a time set aside for lunch. Parents will need to eat when they are not judging, and students will need to squeeze meals in between speeches.

We will have light food in the Judges Lounge, and especially want to feed Community Judges well. Coffee and simple snacks will be available throughout the day. For "real meals," please order meals for yourself and your family members when you register. Meal details will be on the website by December. You can also bring your own delicious food!

Judging Preliminary Rounds:

If necessary, we will allow parents to judge students from their own club if:

The parent has not actively coached that speech,
The parent does not have a personal conflict with the competitor (e.g., the competitor is her son’s best friend), and
The parent is able to be impartial in judging the round

It is our desire to ballot 3 judges for every prelim round at the tournament. We trust that parents are able to honestly assess their ability to judge impartially.

Final Round:
Parents will not be allowed to judge students from their own club in the FINALS.

Parents should only judge an event once during this tournament. In other words, a parent should only one round of Apol, not more than one.

2025 Silicon Valley Speech Tournament

Apologetics

Dramatic Interpretation

Duo Interpretation

Expository

Extemporaneous

Humorous Interpretation

Mars Hill

Open Interpretation

Original Oratory

Persuasive

Slam Poetry