Per motions passed at the Fall 2016 Coaches Meeting (see minutes), a ballot was distributed to the member coaches of the Maine Forensic Association. Twenty schools voted. For each proposal that passed, the secretary will update documentation accordingly with respective moderators.

Below are the proposals and results:

Proposal 1: I approve adding the proposed language to the State Championship Handbook to formalize Speech challenges.

PASS (19 in favor, 1 abstaining)

The members of the District Committee present shall have full power to adjudicate any protest, dispute, or interpretation of the rules. Protests must be filed in writing and must include:

• Name of coach filing protest (a coach of record must file the protest) and school, city, state.
• Code of person/team being protested.
• Round being protested.
• Section/room and speaker number of person/team being protested.
• Specific infraction being protested described with supporting detail.
• Signature of protesting coach.

After the infraction has been observed/discovered, the protest must be filed in a timely manner. A timely manner is defined as within one hour of the end of the round in which the infraction occurred, unless a specific rule specifies otherwise.

Proposal 2: I approve adding the proposed language to the State Championship Handbook to clarify Speech judge requirements.

PASS (19 in favor, 1 abstaining)

1. Each participating school at a speech event shall be responsible to provide one judge for every five speech entries.
2. Every third, fifth, and seventh judge shall be unaffiliated with any participating school.
3. Judges shall be qualified having completed judge training in an MFA instructional event or other training provided by a local MFA speech coach AND fall into one of the following categories:
   1. Judges who have at least two tournaments of speech judging experience at MFA tournament events may participate in any speech event.
   2. Post-secondary students from any district or state with high school and/or collegiate speech experience.
4. Judges shall be limited in judging per the qualifications below:
   1. MFA alumni students judge Novice events only until their second year post high school graduation.
   2. Judges shall not judge speech rounds that include a competitor to whom they are affiliated. Affiliation includes:
      1. Coaches, school staff, and parents/guardians are affiliated with the team’s school.
      2. Alumni who graduated from the school within the last three years are affiliated with the school.
      3. Parents/guardians and other close relatives are affiliated with the individual competitor and shall not judge speech events in which their relations participate.
         1. At the coach’s discretion relatives who do not live or actively participate in their students community may not necessarily be affiliated with the whole school.
5. Judges shall not judge any speech participant in the same Speech event more than once at the State Tournament.
   1. It shall be the participating school responsibility to identify speech judge qualifications.
   2. Judge qualifications shall be submitted with tournament event entry registration.
6. Any judging conflicts shall be identified with the event tournament entry registration.
7. In order to count towards a school’s judge burden, a judge must be eligible to judge at least two rounds of competition.

Proposal 3: I approve adding the proposed language to the State Championship Handbook to define a Public Forum team.

PASS (17 in favor, 3 abstaining)

An entry in Public Forum Debate is defined as a two-person team whose members are from the same school.

Proposal 4: In the State Championship Handbook, I approve combining Novice Prose Reading and Novice Poetry Reading into Novice Oral Interpretation of Literature (alternating rounds of prose and poetry) in alignment with NCFL events.

FAIL (8 in favor, 8 opposed, 4 abstaining)

Proposal 5: In the State Championship Handbook, I approve combining Prose Reading and Poetry Reading into Oral Interpretation of Literature (alternating rounds of prose and poetry) in alignment with NCFL events.

PASS (9 in favor, 7 opposed, 4 abstaining)

Proposal 6: In the State Championship Handbook, I approve limiting Oratorical Declamation to only freshmen and sophomore standing competitors in alignment with NCFL events.

PASS (11 in favor, 6 opposed, 3 abstaining)

Proposal 7: In the State Championship Handbook, I approve adding Informative Speaking based on NSDA guidelines.

PASS (10 in favor, 5 opposed, 5 abstaining)

Proposal 8: In the State Championship Handbook, I approve adding Program Oral Interpretation based on NSDA guidelines.

PASS (11 in favor, 4 opposed, 5 abstaining)

Proposal 9: In the State Championship Handbook, I approve removing Ensemble.

PASS (10 in favor, 6 opposed, 4 abstaining)