This is the Tournament Portal for our 2024 Fall West Tournament which will be held in Blagoevgrad on November 9-10th.
Registration
Registration is currently closed.
Host Site
The tournament will take place in FLHS Lyudmil Stoyanov in Blagoevgrad.
Accommodations
BEST reserves up to two nights of accommodation for all participants. BEST commits to negotiating accommodation costs at or under 40 BGN per student per night. Participants have to pay for their own accommodation costs while BEST covers the costs of all judges for up to one night in a hotel and up to one chaperone.
Hotels
Judges and Team Coaches will receive emails with their hotel allocation for the weekend. Please refrain from communicating with the hotels directly and contact BEST instead if you have questions or concerns.
Travel
All teams are required to bring a chaperone who will be legally responsible for their team’s safety when traveling to and competing at the venue. Chaperones are required to be aged 18 or over and to be fluent in Bulgarian.
Teams are encouraged to apply for a travel scholarship. Coaches can fill out the scholarship application form by clicking here. Teams allocated scholarships will be reimbursed after arriving at the tournament venue. Please read our scholarship terms and conditions for further information BEFORE applying for a scholarship.
The school is close to both the train and the bus station and the most convenient way of getting there is by walking:
Route from the train station to the school
Route from the bus station to the school
If needed you can use taxi as the Blagoevgrad taxi’s prices are max 5-6 leva, only if you travel to more distant destination:
Taxi numbers:
OK taxi- 073 88 21 21
Mega shans taxi- 073 88 22 22
Tip top taxi- 073 88 88 88
For any information or concerns regarding transport in Blagoevgrad, contact studentleader@bestfoundation.bg.
Press Releases
English pre-tournament press release.
Bulgarian pre-tournament press release.
Tournament Schedule
Novice and Varsity Original Oratory are merged
Saturday, Nov 9, 2024
08:45 - Team Check-in
09:00 - Speech Judge Q+A // SL Meeting
10:00 - Opening Ceremony
11:00 - Round 1 Flight A: Oratory, Prose, and Duo
11:00 - Debate Judge Q+A
12:30 - Round 1 Flight B: Poetry and Debate (Prepared)
14:00 - Lunch
14:45 - Round 2 Flight A: Oratory, Prose, and Duo
15:30 - Reimbursement for Team Scholarships and Travel Chaperones (1 hour)
16:00 - Round 2 Flight B: Poetry and Impromptu Debate Motion Released (45 min. of prep)
16:45 - Round 2 Debate start time
18:15 - Round 3: Novice Prose
Quarterfinals: Oratory
Semifinals: Duo, Varsity Prose
19:30 - Round 3: Debate (Prepared)
Semifinals: Poetry
Sunday, Nov 10, 2024
08:30 - Judge report time
08:45 - Semifinals: Original Oratory
09:00 - Check-in for Debaters
09:30 - Round 4: Impromptu Debate Motion Released (45 min. of prep)
10:15 - Round 4: Debate start time
10:00 - Reimbursement for Judges (1 hour)
11:15 - Finals Flight A: Oratory, Prose, and Duo
12:15 - Finals Flight B: Poetry and Debate (Prepared)
14:15 - Closing Ceremony
15:30 - Departures
Judging
We welcome all high school graduates or above with C1 or higher English to judge at our tournaments. If you are new to BEST and our tournaments, visit our Judging Basics page!
Coaches, you must register if you are judging, too, and don’t forget to include your judges when you fill out your team roster spreadsheet (see below).
Our Judge sign up form could be accessed by following this link.
We will reimburse all judges for their transport if they use trains or buses, but we strongly encourage taking the most affordable option when possible (usually trains). Please purchase your ticket back from the tournament location as well, as we cannot reimburse you without being presented with tickets. We will provide food at the tournament site, and we will also cover one night of hotel accommodations for regional tournaments. In exceptional circumstances when a judge can’t make it to the tournament site before 11:00 AM on Saturday, we will cover two nights of hotel accommodation.
Coaching
BEST Coaches should download our Coaches’ Checklist and make sure their teams are up to date.
Debate motions
Prepared Motions
THR the rise of Therapy-Tok.
*Infoslide: Therapy TikTok is people providing education or tools around mental health. This includes information about anxiety, depression, attachment styles, dating and relationships, personality disorders, trauma, etc.
THBT the demonization of far-right politics has done more harm than good.
THW let private companies run sights of cultural significance.
*Infoslide: Governments can grant companies the ability to run cultural sights like parks, monuments, cultural heritage sights. Those companies are obligated to preserve the sights and can profit by selling tickets and other services.
Impromptu Hints
Social movements
Sports, Social