New York State Forensic League
September/October 2008
Welcome Back
We hope your new year has begun well. Now that the year is in full swing, we would like to inform you of some important points:
1) 2008 State Championship Tournament
Once again, our tournament was a great success. Thanks to all involved. Special thanks to Mr. Jeff Weltz and the entire Albany School district for their hospitality.
2) 2009 State Championship Tournament
The 2009 State Championship Tournament will be held on April 24-25 at Albany High School and Livingston Middle School.
3) Qualifications
As we stated last year, this will be the last year for a single qualification to States in Congress, Public Forum, and Policy Debate. In 2010, all events will go to a double-qualification system.
4) Registration
Please register at www.nysfl.org. On that page, you will find a link to registration. We will send an invoice to the coach's email address. Dues for the year are $30 before Dec. 1st and $130 after that date. Schools must be registered and paid one week in advance to enter the Regional Qualifying Tournament. Regional Directors will be given updates on the status of their member schools. You may check your school's status at our website.
5) Prequalifications
As with year, in order to simplify our registration process, we have opened registration at www.tabroom.com now. When you register, you must list the two tournaments at which your students received half-qualifications. The Regional Directors will be able to monitor this throughout the year. Therefore, we will not need to send out prequalification sheets to all coaches in February.
6) Elections
This year, the offices of State Coordinators and Tournament Director are up for reelection. You may nominate anyone for the job by giving his or her name to either the State Coordinators, Trounament Director, or your local Regional Director. All names will be collected for an election this April. Self-nominations are acceptable.
7) 2010
As you may know, we have been attempting to secure SUNY Albany as our tournament site for some time now. After many negotiations, we seem to have secured the the campus for 2010. Over the course of the next year, we will be working with the Adminitration of SUNY Albany to make this a reality. While there are no promises, the prospects look good.
While we are grateful to Jeff Weltz and the entire Albany School District for their hard work and hospitality, the League has wanted to hold the entire tournament at one site, so as to minimize the problems of schools with students at 2 different sites. SUNY Albany seems to take care of this. As we get further information, we will keep everyone informed.
8) Finances
Our league is secure financially. However, last year, we took in about $11,000 in tournament registration and school registrations. However, we paid out over $11,800 for trophies, program booklets, stipends, website hosting, school registration website fees, etc. Because we have a surplus, we are able to absorb these costs, however, with the price of gasoline going up, we can expect a price jump in the deilivery cost of the trophies this year. We have also been fortunate to use Albany High School at a very low costs. SUNY Albany will not be so inexpensive. Therefore, in order to meet our costs for the year, and to prepare for the 2010 tournament, the following will be the prices for the upcoming year:
2009 State Championship Tournament: $15 per student
2010 School Registration fees: $40 per school, going up to $140 after the deadline
2010 State Championship Tournament: TBD based upon the cost of SUNY to the League
We hope you understand the need for these prices. While we do have a surplus, we need to meet most of our costs from this year's fees. Otherwise, we run the risk of depleting our surplus and then implementing a massive fee increase in one year. We believe that a gradual increase over a few years is preferable to a large increase in one year.
We look forward to an excellent year. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need any information.
Alicia Slavis
Bro. John McGrory