Welcome to the home page for the 2017 L.A. County Orator's Cup IV (3rd-12th Grade) tournament hosted by Cal Lu Univ. 60 W Olsen Road, 91360 on Jun 11, 2017 for Various students.

Status: Tournament Completed

<h2><strong>[UPDATED 7/26/17]: Ballots from all divisions have been scanned &amp; uploaded to this link:&nbsp;</strong></h2> <h2><br /> <strong><a href=\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EtGAa6Zw8RCPtfM6XlPxlB62ospj-Ia6?usp=sharing\">drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EtGAa6Zw8RCPtfM6XlPxlB62ospj-Ia6?usp=sharing</a></strong></h2> <p>For a time, the Elementary&nbsp;ballots can also&nbsp;be viewed&nbsp;by clicking on the Results tab above</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>[PARAGRAPH UPDATED 6/14/17 12:30PM] Results links have been posted &amp; Top Speaker Awards below and in a blog post. Ballots to be posted once an automatic scanner is found/lent.</p> <p>[PARAGRAPH UPDATED 6/11/17 2:45AM] Page will only be updated from this point on through the Blog posts at the bottom. Please check those and the postings &amp; results tabs for added information.</p> <p>[PARAGRAPH UPDATED 6/5/17 9PM] *Entries for June 11 are now frozen. Fines will apply to any further changes/drops which are e-mailed to us, as well as on Sunday. The tournament owes a tremndous debt to Coach Melan Jaich of La Reina HS, who stepped in to secure use 38 rooms when that no longer seemed available at an affordable price.&nbsp;Our heartfelt apologies are extended to anyone whose ability to compete at OC4 was precluded by the change in date and venue to June 11th at Cal Lutheran University. This choice was not made happily nor haphazardly. It became a matter of accepting the safety valve&nbsp;offered to us by Mr. Jaich or miss Tabroom Master Iain Lampert&#39;s last&nbsp;free weekend before Nats.&nbsp;In honor of the children who&#39;d benefit through training &amp; competition, we switched to save OC4.</p> <h1><a href=\"http://www.velasquezacademy.com/results\">Velasquez Academy</a>&nbsp;hosts Orator&#39;s Cup 4 @Cal Lu Univ.</h1> <p>[PARAGRAPH UPDATED 5/31/17 6PM]&nbsp;Welcome to the 4th Annual Orator&#39;s Cup 3rd-12th Grade&nbsp;Fundraising Tournament, hereinafter referred to as OC4. We will again be offering divisions for elementary, middle &amp; high school competitors, though we may have some divisions compete together if entries&nbsp;are too few. There are no school fees, and the costs for each event is $15 (including Duo), not including the $15 fine per &quot;uncovered &quot; event slot when a team does not maintain a ratio of one judge for every 4 events registered (judges must be juniors in high school or older). Fees are due on June 4th (via Google Wallet to ravelasquezo@gmail.com), so as to allow the purchase of the costly &amp; pretty trophies which we have come to be known for. Failure to pay by the 4th &nbsp;will result either in dropping of all students or the assignment of a fee for every late event. WE WILL NOT BE REGISTERING NOR ACCEPTING PAYMENTS ON THE DAY OF THE CONTEST, so teams new to us need to understand that we use your early payments to pay thousands of dollars worth of&nbsp;trophies.&nbsp;Please also keep in mind that video and audio recording is PERMITTED for (educational and non-commercial&nbsp;uses) for all rounds, so your team&#39;s&nbsp;entry constitutes group acceptance and acknowledgement of this permission to be filmed (do not register a student&nbsp;if filming is opposed). We will close events (and reimburse fees if already paid)&nbsp;if entries are below three or four, so please register early if you have interest in an&nbsp;event which might not survive&nbsp;the &quot;interest threshold.&quot; Students may double-enter in Pattern A&nbsp;and triple-enter in Pattern B.&nbsp;<br /> <br /> [PARAGRAPH UPDATED 5/15/17 8PM]&nbsp;Rules: High School events will generally follow NSDA rules (with the exception of Congress, which cannot be allowed to run three hours per prelim), unless they only exist in CA, at which point we turn to CHSSA rules. Middle School events will follow NSDA rules (with the exception of Congress length again). Elementary School events rules will be generally lax, due to&nbsp;so many leagues/organizations imposing different time limits. We will generally allow a 5-10 minute time limit, except for certain events: ES Storytelling will be 5 minutes maximum, with a grace period of 30 seconds. ES &amp; MS Impromptu will use a running time of 7 minutes (student may choose to start speaking at any time during the 7&nbsp;minutes) with a single, blank index card allowed and no referencing to pre-written notes during the prep period.&nbsp;HS Impromptu is the same but loses access to the index card when speaking.&nbsp;SpAr will be 1 min prep, 1 min 1st Aff, 1 min 1st Neg, 3 min mutual Q&amp;A, 1 min Neg Summary, 1 min Aff Summary. Congress will have four resolutions, one for each prelim and a&nbsp;Final, if necessary. These single sentence resolutions will be released no later than two weeks before the contest date, attached in a PDF below. If you enter SpAr, do that event first, then go on to your other events. If entering Congress, do your other event FIRST, then go on to do Congress. Triple-entering with Congress is NOT recommended, as even those who merely double-entered last time indicated regret over that decision.</p> <p>More postings and files to follow with maps, rule and event updates..</p> <p><strong>Orator&#39;s Cup Top Spealer Award</strong>: each division will feature one winner of the prestigious (and heavy) Orator&#39;s Cup (see examples in picture links below). In order to vie for the award, one must enter at least three events plus enter &quot;Cup Candidate&quot; in&nbsp;&quot;Pattern C&quot;. We will calculate the points from your top three events only, even if you compete&nbsp;in five events. Since OC Finalists will also win trophies, it is theoretically conceivable to take home six trophies if excelling in 5 events and placing highly&nbsp;for the Orators&#39; Cup. Points for determining OC4 overall champions&nbsp;will follow this formula (in the best three events of each candidate): 1st Place: 5 points, 2nd Place: 4 points, 3rd Place: 3 points, 4th Place: 2 points, 5th or 6th Place: 1 point. Students will earn 50% more points if their event had a Final Round (e.g. 7.5 points for 1st Place, 6 points for 2nd, 4.5 points for 3rd etc...). The 50% bonus will additionally be earned from students from a younger division placing against students from an older division. For&nbsp;example, an MS or ES student placing in a mixed&nbsp;event with older students which also was large enough to require&nbsp;a Finals Round could conceivably earn 10 points for 1st Place, 8 points for 2nd and 6 points for 3rd etc...</p> <p>The winners of the <strong>Best Overall Speaker&#39;s Cup</strong> to this point have been:</p> <p><strong>Elementary School Division</strong> (Year, Name, Team):<br /> <br /> 2017 <strong>Elizabeth Vassantachart</strong> (Velasquez Academy)<br /> 2016 <strong>Kana Park </strong>(Perfect Score Academy)<br /> 2015 <strong>Priya Agarwal</strong> (Nova 42 Academy)<br /> 2014 <strong>Aidan Chavez</strong> (Nova 42 Academy)<br /> <br /> <strong>Middle School Division</strong> (Year, Name, Team):<br /> <br /> 2017&nbsp;<strong>River Simard</strong> (iLEAD)<br /> 2016 <strong>Cara Wilson</strong> (Nova 42 Academy)<br /> 2015 <strong>Rachel Kho</strong> (Velasquez Academy)<br /> 2014 <strong>Aidan Shev</strong> (New West Charter)<br /> <br /> <strong>High School Division</strong> (Year, Name, Team):<br /> <br /> 2017 <strong>A.J. Moore</strong> (iLEAD )<br /> 2016 <strong>Kate Farwell</strong> (iLEAD North Hollywood)<br /> 2015 <strong>Chad Gasman</strong> (V.I.P. North Hollywood)<br /> 2014 <strong>Jane Irons</strong> (Marlborough High School)</p> <p>Here are this year&#39;s Best Overall Speaker results:</p> <p><strong>Elementary School Division</strong> (Rank, Name, Team, Points):<br /> 1. Elizabeth Vassantachart (Velasquez Academy) - 24<br /> 2. Alex Lee (Wilshire Academy) - 19<br /> 3. Eleanor Murphy (ACLA) - 14<br /> 4. Giuseppe Dimessa (Nova 42) - 13.5<br /> 5. Richard Li (Rosemont) - 13.5<br /> 6. Jackie Lee (Wilshire Academy) - 11<br /> 7. Marilyn Amaya (Velasquez Academy) - 11<br /> <br /> <strong>Middle School Division</strong> (Rank, Name, Team, Points):<br /> 1. River Simard (iLEAD) - 19.5<br /> 2. Christine Lee (Wilshire Academy), 18.5<br /> 3. Amanda Li (Rosemont) - 15<br /> 4. Ishan Saxena (Velasquez Academy) - 14.5<br /> 5. Melissa Qin (ModernBrain)- 14.5<br /> 6. Carly Granda (Velasquez Academy) - 12<br /> 7. Judah Feig (iLEAD) - 12<br /> 8. Callie LaVanway (iLEAD) - 12<br /> <br /> <strong>High School Division</strong> (Rank, Name, Team, Points):<br /> 1. AJ Moore (iLEAD ) - 16<br /> 2. Sienna Horvath (iLEAD) - 14.5<br /> 3. Jackson Paluck (iLEAD) - 10.5<br /> 4. Dorothy Vassantachart (Velasquez Academy) - 8.5<br /> 5. Daniel Timor (iLEAD) - 7.5</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>OC4 Schedule - Sunday, June 11, 2017</strong></p> <p>07:30 - 07:45&nbsp; &nbsp;Judge Orientation<br /> 07:45&nbsp;- 07:55&nbsp; &nbsp;Round 1 Judging Assignments<br /> <strong>08:00 - 09:15 &nbsp; Round 1 - Pattern A&nbsp;events<br /> 09:30 - 10:45 &nbsp; Round 1 - Pattern B&nbsp;events</strong><br /> 11:00 - 11:30 &nbsp; &nbsp;Brunch Break<br /> 11:30 - 11:40 &nbsp; &nbsp;Round 2 Judging Assignments<br /> <strong>11:45 - 01:00 &nbsp;&nbsp;Round 2 - Pattern A<br /> 01:15 - 02:30 &nbsp;&nbsp;Round 2 - Pattern B</strong><br /> 02:40 - 02:55 &nbsp; Round 3 Judging Assignments<br /> 0<strong>3:00 - 04:10 &nbsp; Round 3&nbsp;-&nbsp;Pattern A<br /> 04:20 - 05:30 &nbsp; Round 3&nbsp;- Pattern B</strong><br /> 05:40 - 05::50 &nbsp;Final Round Judging Assignments<br /> <strong>06:00 - 07:15 &nbsp; Finals - all events over 14&nbsp;entries (Pattern A &amp; B)</strong><br /> <strong>07:45&nbsp;- 08:30&nbsp; &nbsp;Awards Assembly (elementary first, so that they may leave earlier)</strong></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>2017&nbsp;Congress Docket (all divisions):</strong></p> <p>Round 1) Given SAT scores&#39; direct correlation to family income, the SAT should&nbsp;no longer be&nbsp;required by any public college as a condition of admissions.</p> <p>Round 2)&nbsp;California&nbsp;should become a sanctuary state immediately.</p> <p>Round 3) Bail should be principally based on the net worth of the accused.</p> <p>FINALS) &quot;Bullet Control&quot;&nbsp;should be immediately adopted&nbsp;to eventually trigger the precipitous&nbsp;drops in homicides &amp; mass shootings&nbsp;secured through&nbsp;&quot;Gun Control&quot; in other countries.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>About Orator&#39;s Cup</strong>: for four years, the core duo of Ricardo Velasquez &amp; Iain Lampert, in conjuction with enlightened staff &amp;&nbsp;administrators at host schools, has proudly brought to the SoCal speech community an imaginative &amp; historic contest, the first to offer: on time rounds &amp; award ceremonies, knowledge of your rooms &amp; room competitors the day before the tournament, multiple judges (even in prelims&nbsp;when&nbsp;numbers allow), the local commute&nbsp;and free participation of students from underserved elementary schools in the Northeast San Fernando Valley, the mass permission&nbsp;for parents and siblings to film any and all rounds&nbsp;for the purposes of memory-keeping and future trainings, the prettiest &amp; costliest trophies for a non-nationals/state level contest (including the black marble Orator&#39;s Cup for each division, whereon the name of each year&#39;s winner is affixed and the award is announced&nbsp;in his/her own name the following year) and the historic first of hosting all three grade divisions (ES, MS &amp; HS) at one site on one day. We thank you for your interest and&nbsp;the honor of your talent &amp; funding to help us find and promote speech &amp; debate prodigies in the severely underserved communities of the Northeast San Fernando Valley. Only through such affirmative outreach and funding can the world of competitive speech&nbsp;lurch towards the key inclusion of minority students from public schools in non-affluent areas.</p>