So I get to go to my first MDTA Meeting as the incoming president of the organization.  My first and only concern is how do we make debate more accessible to a larger number of kids in high school.  So outreach is should be our first and only concern.  So here is my list of ideas (some taken from others) on how to "save debate".  We will see.

Regional Debate Leagues

• Split the state up into 5 or 6 geographical areas and each year (or two) focus on building debate in those areas. 
• Create a regional coordinator and give that person money for that job.  Not a huge stipend but a stipend.  Has to have some sort of strings attached in regards to total size, growth of new programs, etc.
• These regional debate leagues will need to focus on the same type of debate so there will be some level of PF/Classic is best conversation will need to occur.

Coaching Incentives

•  Aimed at metro/out-state schools with speech first.  Create an incentive program to show them that PF/Classic debate is easy and great.
• Some sort of stipend for coaching.  Stay for 3 years and attend x number of tournaments you get this.
• Mentoring Programs.  Get large/established programs to buy into a one-to-one mentoring system for new programs.  Pair up the schools to share evidence resources, cases, demo debates, etc, etc.  Ideal would be for established metro school to out-state school but would definitely work metro-to-metro as well.
• More curriculum on how to teach all four types of debate.  I know people who have full LD curriculum we can get with syllabus, power points, text books and assignments.  Just need it for the other activities.
• Research options for giving new coaches CEU’s for license renewal for new coaching workshops.
• Expand and standardize the coaching materials on the MDTA web site.

Program Incentives

• Find ways to create out-state weekends.  Basically create one or two weekends where we get out-state schools to host tournaments.  No metro tournaments!  This could be a massive fundraiser for those out-state schools on these weekends.
• Encourage programs to waive fees for new programs/lower the cost of entry fees.  Can only make suggestions on this one.

Student Incentives

• Create MDTA handbooks.  Hire a few college students under the direction of some coach to write a MDTA handbook for students.  Would include evidence, case ideas/positions, etc.  Make the handbook available to any coach who is a MDTA member.  Most likely for LD and Public Forum.  Is there a need for a policy one with the advent of the open evidence stuff from camps?
• Videotaped practice rounds.  None really exist as a teaching tool.  Instead of bad TOC debate get some high-quality debates on tape/DVD for schools to use as a teaching aid.  Ideally we would produce one in LD, PF and Policy each year on the first topic as a jump-start to programs.
• Scholarships to camps

Judging Incentives

• Put together a good set of how-to-judge documents
• Contact local colleges and community colleges in regards to judging for class projects.  Many colleges have communication classes that require some sort of out-of-class participation.  Get them to judge giving the MDTA a pool a free judges on weekends to spread around.

The last two ideas don’t fit nicely into my categories so I’ll list them here.

1.       Celebrate Minnesota debate.  In an effort to keep kids local – let’s create a system that makes the kids feel good about the accomplishments.  Many people credit websites like Victory Briefs as turning kids into celebrity status and that is one of the reasons for the advent of popularity of the TOC (in particular in LD debate – maybe this is factual wrong in regards to policy).  Regardless, make use of the MDTA web site.  Start posting results to the home page about who won, etc, etc.  In the same regard, create a points system for student achievement from local tournaments resulting in some sort of either uber cool award at the end of the season or something like a MDTA round-robin invite.  I don’t want to make an alternative state tournament or anything like that but something like the Rosemount Round Robin towards the end of the season???  Throwing ideas at the wall on this one.

2.       MDTA Camp.  We want kids and coaches to get more access to information/ideas.  Why not create a camp staffed by MN coaches.  Affordable price in the metro.  Permutation of my idea of trying to keep MN kids debating in state.  Try to keep our coaches in-state for camp.  Again, this one is a bigger, grand idea that would take some serious thought.