ACORN CUP AND FESTS 2014

 

Buenos Aires, February 26th, 2014

 

Dear Debating friends,

Welcome to 2014 and another debating year which will be as hectic as 2013 at both national and international levels! At national level A.D.A. will continue to organize the Acorn Cup Tournament at junior and senior level, the Spanish Debate Contest at senior level and the traditional Fests in English at junior and senior level and in Spanish at senior level.

Our objective is to encourage students to debate in English and in Spanish, as well as to expand debating to the whole curriculum preparing our students for the challenges of the future. So that schools can organize their outings we are sending you a tentative schedule for this year’s work. We will inform you about all the other activities in due course.

 

MARCH:

24th Deadline for enrolment

27th English Adjudication Workshop

 

APRIL:3rd Spanish Adjudication WorkshopAcorn Cup – Round 1 (2nd week : 7th -11th)

Saturday 26th : 1st Senior Fest

 

MAy: Acorn Cup – Round 2 (2nd week : 5th – 9th)

Saturday 17th : 1st Junior Fest

 

JUNE: Acorn Cup – Round 3 (1st week : 2nd - 6th)

Saturday 14th :

1st Spanish Senior Fest

 

AUGUST: Acorn Cup – Quarter Finals 

2nd Senior Fest

 

SEPTEMBER: Acorn Cup – Semi- Finals

2nd Junior Fest

 

OCTOBER: Acorn Cup – Grand Final

2nd Spanish Senior Fest At international level we are sending a group of students who are already training and 2 judges to participate in the Pan American Debate Championship in English and Spanish in Mexico from 13th to 20th April.

 

We would like to thank the students, their families and their schools for their hard work and support. In addition, this year the Argentine National team has already enrolled to participate in the 26th World Schools Debating Championship to be held in Bangkok, Thailand between 5th and 15th August.

The team will be chosen in May taking into account Round 1, Round 2 and Fest. ACORN CUP Enrolment is now open to participate in the Acorn Cup 2014. Schools can enrol a Junior and/or Senior Team. In order to ensure proper adjudication, all participating schools will be required to present at least one judge for the competition. In addition, to ensure consistency regarding adjudication, all schools are required to send at least two teachers to an A.D.A. Adjudication Workshop.

The workshop will take place at St Catherine's Moorlands Belgrano (Carbajal 3250, Belgrano R), Thursday March 27th at 5:30 pm. Please confirm by Monday March 24th name of school and persons attending the workshop for security reasons to: cadriani@scms.edu.ar .

 

As every year, in order to reduce costly and unsafe trips of teams and coaches from one school to another, to maximize adjudicators and to finish in good time, the A.D.A will hold the Junior and Senior preliminary rounds on three dates at the same place. The same procedure will be followed for quarterfinals, semi-finals and the Grand Final at a university. We invite all schools interested in hosting the rounds to contact us at: arg.debate@gmail.com . Enrolment to the Acorn Cup closes on Monday March 24th and the draw will be held on the 27th at St Catherine's Moorlands Belgrano, after the debate workshop. Coaches are welcome to attend the draw but must confirm attendance for organisational purposes.

Enrolments will be accepted only via e-mail to arg.debate@gmail.com using the enclosed FORM.

The draw will be e-mailed to all participating schools.

 

FESTS

 

In order to improve debating skills and to promote friendship and understanding among all our students, two English Fests per category and two senior Spanish Fests will be held. Fests are held on Saturdays and students must not wear uniforms because they are teamed with students of different schools, as our main purpose is to encourage pupils to integrate and feel part of the same community.

All students will participate in two debates and the 6 best speakers will go on to the Final Round.

Parents are encouraged to attend. We strongly encourage schools to participate in both English and Spanish Fests, for all scores obtained by the students are taken into account for the National Team Pre-Selection.

We invite schools to bid to host the different fests.

 

 

FEES

 

The enrolment fee for this year will be $5000, which covers attendance to our annual March seminar for adjudicators, a Spanish seminar for judges, participation of Senior and/ or Junior teams in the 2014 Acorn Cup, enrolment to all Junior and Senior Fests in English and Spanish, participation in Debate Camp and attendance to the Masters’ Debate which we will inform about in due course.

The seminar fee for those schools that do not enroll is $300 for one teacher, $500 for two.

The deadline for enrolment is March 24th and for payment before the 1st round in April.

 

For further questions or details, please contact us at arg.debate@gmail.com.We look forward to seeing you all this year!

 

Yours sincerely, A.D.A. Executive Committee