Fall+Meeting+Minutes+Sept+2011

September 15, 2011 – Fall Meeting for CFL of Erie

__ Roll call and membership update ~ __

New school – General McLane High School will join the league – coach is Lon Jenkins

Greenville High School – no coach at this time

__ Membership dues ~ __

Due to a healthy fund balance the membership dues will be dropped back to $65 this year, payable by Oct. 28, 2011. Be sure to send all checks to Susan’s home address. Dr. Schaaf moved that we accept this change in the dues. Donna Adams seconded and the motion passed.

__ Budget~ __

Susan presented an actual budget from 2010-2011 and a proposed budget for 2011-2012. After discussion, Father Hahn moved that we accept the budgets. Hugh Ringer seconded and the motion carried.

__ Minutes from last year’s meeting~ __

Dr. Schaff moved to accept as presented. Julie seconded and the motion carried.

__ LOCAL CONCERNS: __

__ Judges’ Training~ __

We agree that training is needed and should be available for speech judges at all tournaments. Last year Martha Hubbard provided that training. We have a prepared packet for the training sessions. We need to add to the packet the list of suggestions for judges regarding appropriate and helpful comments and comments to be avoided. Either Susan or Linda will provide that training at tournaments. If training is needed prior to the first tournament, contact Susan. Will may schedule a training session for judges prior to the beginning of the season at McDowell. Father Hahn will provide all training for Debate judges. The judge quota remains 1 judge for every 5 entries in speech, 1 judge for every 10 entries in Congress, and 1 judge for every 2 teams in debate.

__ Plagiarism~ __

Discussion centered on complaints from the students in Congress that some participants were simply printing out fact sheets and reading them word-for-word without citing the source as if they were their own speeches. The question raised was whether we need a statement in our constitution regarding plagiarism and any penalties for such an offense. After much discussion it was decided that our Congress manual should include a statement instructing students that they should not just read printed research information but should paraphrase their interpretation of the information. If short bits are quoted, the student should cite the source. Coaches should instruct their students on the expectations for Congress. Student speeches should be the student’s original interpretation of the research, presented for the purpose of persuading. No changes will be made to the constitution at this time. We also discussed students in speech events using pieces that have been presented in the past by students from their school. This is acceptable.

__ Congress scoring~ __

Discussion centered on whether to continue to use a Base system to score Congress and on how to break ties. The coaches present decided to use a Double Base system as described in the handout provided by Kale. This is intended to make it possible for students who come prepared to speak to make base and to prevent a student from winning simply by giving a large number of mediocre speeches. Recency and precedence will still be recorded and considered by the presiding officer at competitions and the PO will be scored on their handling of those issues. Kevin moved that we use double base and Jack seconded the motion. Before voting on the motion, Jack proposed an amendment to the motion stating that Base will be determined as the number of student participants present in the room, not by the number who choose to speak. Kevin seconded the amendment and that passed. The motion to use double base was then voted on and the motion passed. Kevin moved that we discuss the effectiveness of this system prior to the diocesan qualifier. Will seconded that motion and the motion carried. Tie breakers were discussed. The constitution defines how we break ties when there are two houses. The concern was how to break ties when there is one house and several students tie for scores. Father moved and Kevin seconded that we should have each judge rank all students at the end of the round in addition to totaling their scores. The presiding officer will also rank all participants. If there is a tie, we will use the judges’ ranking to break the tie. If that still presents a tie, the PO’s ranking will break the tie. The motion carried.

__ Congress training~ __

We do not need training at this time. Kale will provide a list of pointers to be distributed to coaches.

__ Speech scoring~ __

In speech events, if there is a run-off held to break a tie, there will always be one more judge that the number of students in the run-off. One of the judges ballots will be randomly selected to be the tie breaker. If there is a tie from the other judge ballots, the tie-breaking judges scores will be used to break the tie.

__ PF judge requirements~ __

Father and Jack will write policies about PF judging and define how it differs from judging LD and other categories.

__ Dress Code~ __

We continue to agree that coaches should encourage their students to dress as well as they can for competitions. Judges will not consider a student’s clothing when judging their performance.

__ Website~ __

With Susan’s computer equipment, the website is not going to work. Susan will develop a wikispace for use instead. The Wikispace address is: http://eriencfl.wikispaces.com

**__ 2011-2012 Schedule __**

__ Date __ __ Location __ __Start time__

Wed Oct 19 Cathedral Prep 3:30 registration 4:00 start

Thurs Nov 10 Fairview 3:30 registration 4:00 start

Wed Nov 30 Lakeview 4:00 registration 4:30 start

Wed Dec 14 Mercer 4:00 registration 4:30 start

Wed Jan 11 McDowell 3:30 registration 4:00 start

Wed Jan 25 Mercyhurst 3:30 registration 4:00 start

Wed Feb 15 Gen. McLane 3:30 registration 4:00 start