The Lafayette Forensics Society had an amazing weekend this past week! We had half the team travel to Poughkeepsie, New York, for the Dutchess Community College Invitational Tournament while the other half volunteered to judge at the Phillipsburg Spooktacular High School Tournament. Both events went swimmingly.

The Dutchess tournament is the 3rd tournament that we have gone to this semester. We took almost entirely novices (plus Natalia) and had a great time in Poughkeepsie. The students did amazing and performed well, evident by the ranks the team had at the end of the weekend. Results (and pictures) are below!

ADS, Penelope, 3rd 
Rhetorical Criticism, Natalia, 3rd place
Persuasion, Natalia, 5th place
Poetry, 5th, Alex place
Prose, 2nd, Alex place
Impromptu, Natalia, 1st place Champion 

For IPDA debate, Juan and Matt both made it to semi finals! This means that out of the 14 debaters who competed, the two of them were the 2nd and 3rd top competitors. (They both also went 4-0 in preliminary rounds – impressive!) There were two outrounds, a semifinal round and a final round. Because Matt and Juan were slated to hit each other in semi finals, Juan automatically advanced being that he was 2nd seed. Ultimately, Matt was 3rd in IPDA and 3rd for IPDA speaker, while Juan was 2nd in IPDA and IPDA speaker!

This fantastic team also won a few team sweepstakes awards! For the speech portion of the tournament, they were 3rd place overall

For the debate portion, the team was 1st place and won the tournament!

For the combined sweepstakes (speech + debate portion) the team was 3rd place overall!

 

As a team, we attempt to have at least 2 community service events a year as a means of giving back to the forensics community. This semester we had 3 of our returners go to a local high school tournament to help volunteer to judge.  They judged every round of parliamentary debate and congress, including finals! Of the experience, co-president Will says,

“Forensics is such a big part of my life and it’s brought me so much joy and purpose — there’s no greater feeling for me than to be able to give back to this community I love so much and help make it possible for the next generation of competitors to compete. They have incredible potential and I feel more confident about our future knowing it is in their hands.”
🎃👻

(pictures of the 3 of them are below!)