Hey everyone,

Sorry I am late getting this blog up. It has been a busy week and now is the only time I have had to post.

Anyway, last weekend was our speech/debate team retreat and it was so much fun, but a little overwhelming…

It started Friday (Sept. 6) afternoon. The whole team got to introduce themselves to everyone and we started to learn some of our warm-ups for the year. Such as songs and team exercises. It was a little boring though as we went though the standards and policies book shortly after.

We then ate and started learning about all the individuals events (IEs). We learned about events such as After Diner Speaking, Poetry Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, and Impromptu Speaking.

Soon we had a visit from some of our coaches friends who spoke about how to pick events, topic ideas, and their experiences in forensics.

Saturday was a long, full day. We met more team alumni, spoke more about events, and got some work time. We also did a warm-up called “Big Booty” it was a team favorite and I think it will stick around for a while.

After a long days work we did some team building exercises that night. We played charades, Scattergories, and built some towers out of paper. It was a lot of fun.

After that we got emotional. We all went around the room and got a chance to tell people what they have meant to us, or just say nice things about them. Eventually, we got into small groups and shared some of our most personal stories and feelings.

It was a long and emotional day, but I think the bonds we made that night will carry over for a life time.

Sunday was a little more relaxed. We had time to work on events and then had a crash course on Debate theory ( I had never done debate so it all went over my head).

We ended the night bowling as a team. It was a lot of fun and got really competitive.

All in all it was a great weekend and I would recommend all teams do an event like this.

Our first tournament is the first weekend in October and if I don’t write by then, than I’ll write about our first tournament of the year.