Hart House IV Invitation

On behalf of the Hart House Debates Committee, it is my pleasure to formally invite you to the Hart House IV, taking place on October 15th – 17th, 2010 at the University of Toronto.
Debating
All debates will be in standard British Parliamentary format, using Worlds speaking times (7 minutes per speech). All resolutions will be tight-link, with our very capable CA ensuring a wide variety of topics are debated. There will be a hard cap of 80 teams.

There will be five preliminary rounds, with rounds 1-3 being open adjudication. If there are 80 registered teams, then we will break to quarter-finals. Otherwise, the top 8 teams will break to semis.

Awards will be given to the top 8 teams, top 10 speakers, top novice team, and top novice speaker.
Adjudication
The Chief Adjudicator of this year’s tournament is Richard Lizius. In addition to being selected as the North American DCA for 2010-2011 Botswana Worlds, Richard’s accomplishments include: Koç WUDC 2nd speaker and quarter-finalist, Cork WUDC 9th speaker and octo-finalist, North American Top Speaker, 2 time CUSID national champion and top speaker, and 2009 Yale IV champion and top speaker. Our Assistant Chief Adjudicator will be Steven Penner.

In addition to Richard and Steve, Hart House has access to an incredibly deep judging pool. Between the Hart House debating club, Hart House alumni and other debaters in Toronto, we have multiple National and North American debating champions, as well as numerous members who have broken as judges or adjudicators at previous worlds. We're confident of the quality of judging in every room.

The judging requirement will be n/3, rounded down. If a team is unable to fulfill their judging requirement then this can be waived at the discretion of the Chief Adjudicator. We strongly encourage those teams who feel like they need a waiver to contact us, rather than sending an adjudicator who may be uncomfortable judging.

Equity and Accessibility
The equity officers for this year's tournament are Sima Atri and Ryan Andrade. An equity policy will be posted by October 1st.

Food and Socials
Debaters and judges will be provided with a bag dinner on Friday evening, breakfast and lunch on Saturday, and brunch on Sunday. Our traditional formal banquet will be happening on Saturday evening. If you require special dietary requirements (veggie, vegan, halal, kosher, allergies) then we can make arrangements for you if we're notified by October 9th.

There will be socials on both Friday and Saturday night, as well as an informal social for those arriving on Thursday. Every effort will be made to make the socials underager-friendly.

Accommodation
We will be negotiating a hotel deal in the next week. Details to follow.

For those who wish to billet, billeting is allotted on a first-come, first-serve basis. International teams are given guaranteed billeting.

Registration
Registration is $150 per team, and $70 per adjudicator, all prices in Canadian dollars. Registration begins September 1st, and ends October 5th. All schools must submit their non-refundable deposit by October 8th. The deposit is 50% of the total fees for the school.

You'll receive a confirmation email within 24 hours of emailing. If you don't, please try contacting us again, just to make sure we have all of your information.

Teams who must travel a significant and unusual distance (ie. those outside of North America, or similarly onerous distances) can request that their registration be waived. We will consider these requests on a case-by-case basis. Please indicate your request in your registration email.

Credit card is our preferred form of payment, and due to policy constraints, is unfortunately the only form of payment that we can accept from American and other international participants. The credit card form will be sent out with the confirmation of registration.

We have a receipt book and will issue receipts.

There is an initial school cap of 6 teams, which will be lifted on October 1st.

For Canadian Schools, Cheques should be made out to:
Hart House Debates Committee
7 Hart House Circle
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H3

Please send the following info:
School Name, number of teams, number of judges, names of team members, names of judges, dietary requirements (veggie, vegan, halal, kosher, allergies, etc.) and billeting requirements to harthousedebate@gmail.com

Hope to see lots of you there! And any questions, please send to harthousedebate@gmail.com as well.