2025 Carry the TORCH

TORCH (VA) - Mar 29, 2025 | Status: Open | 4:13 PM Eastern

Tournament Time
4:13 PM Eastern

Your participation is what helps us host these tournaments. Without your active involvement, we wouldn't be successful. Because of this need, please review the following parameters and reach out with any issues or questions.

Requirements

1. Competitors must be accompanied by a parent or adult chaperone who is available to judge for the entire tournament. Your student will not be able to check-in at the tournament without an accompanying parent or adult chaperone. Each parent will be responsible for judging at least 3 rounds. We appreciate all parents who are willing to judge more than their requirements as it will allow our tournament to run smoothly and on time.

2. If a parent cannot attend, prior approval and an alternative contribution must be arranged with the tournament director for the student to participate.

3. To meet the tournament's judging needs, each out-of-town chaperone may only cover 2 students. Exception is granted to families with more than two children.

4. Community and alumni judges will be given priority. If there is not a ballot for you when you arrive at Ballot Push, please do not assume that you are not needed for future rounds. You may be needed to judge a round that you did not sign up for due to unexpected circumstances. Parents, please remain in the ballot push area until all ballots have been handed out in case you need to be called on to judge due to unexpected circumstances. Timeliness will help us keep the tournament on schedule.

5. Please be mindful of judging conflicts. Be advised that coaches and parents cannot judge their own students, and they may not judge a debate team (in the same event) twice during the tournament. If you have a close personal relationship/friendship with, are related to, or have coached a competitor, we ask that you do not judge that individual.

6. Please study the Stoa Speech and Debate Judge Training slides for the 2024-2025 season located here:

Tournament Resources | StoaUSA

If a parent is unable to fulfill this duty, please contact the tournament director to explain the circumstances and ask for permission to register without a designated judge. Please email us at (elizabeth.d.bell@gmail.com) (This exception will be given only to a limited number of students, first come, first served.)

Thank you for your commitment to these students. We hope that you have a great tournament!

Sincerely,
TORCH Speech and Debate Club

THANK YOU for your interest in judging at our Carry the TORCH Speech and Debate Tournament!

We rely on community support to help our tournament run smoothly!

This website will allow you to pick the time that works best for you to judge.

Please SCROLL DOWN to the 'Register Now' button at the bottom of this page.

It will walk you through the short registration process. While we would love for you to judge more than one round, please DO NOT sign up for consecutive rounds as you'll need time to complete your ballots and report to ballot push for new ballots.

Tournament Date: SATURDAY March 29, 2025
LOCATION: CAPITAL BAPTIST CHURCH
3504 Gallows Rd
Annandale, VA

SPEECH & DEBATE TRAINING

Judge Orientation Videos:
(click links below):
Speech Judge Orientation
Team Policy (TP) / Lincoln-Douglas (LD) Judge Orientation

You only need training for Speech events and/or Lincoln Douglas Debate (Team Policy is not offered at this tournament).

Please arrive 45 minutes before your selected speech or debate round to receive judge orientation. If you have already watched the judge orientation videos, you don't need to attend judge orientation at the tournament. In this case, you only need to arrive 20-30 minutes prior to the round start. Our trainers will be available for questions you might have.

TIME COMMITMENT FOR JUDGES

2-3 hours which includes 45 minutes for training and a maximum of 1.5 hours of listening to speeches based on 8 students each giving a 5-7 minute speech with a 2 minute break in between speakers to jot down remarks. The remaining 30 minutes to an hour is allotted to completing all the ballots. LD Debate rounds only last 45 minutes so they are much shorter for judging than speech events.

For scheduling purposes please allow an hour to complete the ballots. The students value your comments on the ballots and will learn from them. Some judges can give great feedback in a short amount of time, while others need longer.

Also if you arrive early, stop by Judge Hospitality where you will find a variety of good things to eat and drink. These goodies will also be available while you are completing your ballot.

You will receive an e-mail giving details about check-in, judge orientation, etc. approximately a week prior to the tournament. Please email our judge coordinator, Margery (margerybonafede@gmail.com), if you change the round you signed up to judge. We don't get email alerts when you change your schedule.

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS!