Cyber Monday Sale – Buy 2 Coaching Sessions – Get 1 FREE!!!

This offer is only good today! Purchase 2 coaching sessions – get 1 FREE!! Mix and match coaches. Use the coaching for the ultimate tournament prep, or spread it out during the season. Our coaches are excited to help you better prepare- for whatever lies ahead!

Check out our Lasting Impact! Team and Coaches HERE.

Purchase your sessions HERE. Just purchase two, and we will add the third for FREE!!

*Sessions must be used for the 2020-21 Season. Sorry, not valid for Club Coaching.

Expectations From an Online Tournament from Lasting Impact! By: Thaddian Burson

I could say it a thousand times: Adaption to online tournaments will be essential for the upcoming debate season! Raise your hand if you want to try out online debate for the first time at an actual tournament with check marks or at-large points in the balance? No hands? I agree.
The speech and debate world is undergoing a huge shift to try and balance speech and debate while protecting people’s lives. This shift is towards online debate. As students, we can choose to either resist it and just hope that something changes, or embrace it and learn to adapt. I am with most of you in that my initial gut reaction to online debate was: “Yuck!” Yet, after participating in several online tournaments, one of which was hosted by Lasting Impact!, my perspective has entirely changed. I believe that online tournaments provide a more than viable way to continue speech and debate in the Covid era.

Lasting Impact! is offering a chance to prepare for these online tournaments in the form of their Fall Circuit. It starts Sept. 28, 2020. Go to www.impacttournaments.com for more info or to register. In the meantime here are some expectations that you can have for this circuit and future Impact Tournaments…

Continue reading “Expectations From an Online Tournament from Lasting Impact! By: Thaddian Burson”

From Virus to Virtue (The Need For Lifetime Debate) by: Laurie Dawson

Laurie Dawson went from teaching a couple Lincoln Douglas Debate students to 40! This year, she is teaming up with Lasting Impact! to create two LD Clubs for Stoa. She has a passion to help students become life long thinkers. Laurie’s approach as a coach is innovative and heavily focused on personal engagement, aiming far beyond the high school debate realm and into adulthood. Passionate about teaching students to think and reason for themselves, Laurie believes competitive debate catalyzes both intra- and interpersonal development. The skills Laurie refined in business and non-profit leadership are the same skills imparted to her Lincoln Douglas debaters:
– to assess, research, and organize large amounts of information
– to employ traditional logic when constructing and deconstructing arguments
– to reason and persuade whilst maintaining moral and ethical integrity
Laurie coaches toward the mastery of these foundational skills and then builds upon them – line up on line. Her modern approach to classroom learning has resulted in many, even first year debaters, becoming national qualifiers…

Continue reading “From Virus to Virtue (The Need For Lifetime Debate) by: Laurie Dawson”

Online Apprehension For Speech and Debate? By: Stacy Edmond

The concept of online speech & debate clubs, classes and tournaments, were, not too long ago, just about unheard of. Now, they are our new reality. Until recently, I was one of the many that thought the whole notion of any of our beloved speech & debate activities being done online, absolutely absurd and totally impossible. Boy, was I wrong…

Continue reading “Online Apprehension For Speech and Debate? By: Stacy Edmond”

Last Week to Register – Online Clubs, Classes, and Tournament Circuit

It’s been a fantastic summer!! Yet, we are ready to see what God has in store for us NEXT! The question is, are you?!? This fall Lasting Impact! is bigger than ever – online clubs, classes, and tournaments! Classes and Clubs start the week of or after Labor Day. The Online Tournament Circuit starts the end of the September. Be sure you register today! Want to learn more information about these online opportunities – read on…

Continue reading “Last Week to Register – Online Clubs, Classes, and Tournament Circuit”

Imagination by: Denise Montgomery

Denise Montgomery has a passion for literature, speech and debate, and English. Which is why she created Creativity for English and Beyond – one of the CLASSES offered through Lasting Impact! this fall. Did you know Lasting Impact! offers over 20 different opportunities to connect through classes and clubs? Check them all out in the SHOP. I hope you hear Denise’s heart in this article…

Being creative can be duck soup if we allow ourselves to be free. Ah, and therein is placed the stumbling block: free.

Imagine this: you wake up and see the day through a child’s eyes, experiencing everything of the day in the miraculously free way a child can. Wow! Sign me up for that day of days gone by…

Continue reading “Imagination by: Denise Montgomery”

Walking Into Speech and Debate Camp With the Right Mindset

Ahhh- the joys of summer! I truly hope you have had the opportunity for some rejuvenation, or at least some rest and relaxation. This summer has been a bit more unique than summers past. Most speech and debate programs have turned virtual, and perhaps you are not interested. I truly hope that is not the case, because growth is waiting to happen… whether it is IN PERSON or online. Speaking of IN PERSON opportunities… There are a few IN PERSON Camps (listed below) – I’d love to see you there! But whether or not you have signed up for a Speech and/or Debate Camp, make sure you come in the right mindset…

Continue reading “Walking Into Speech and Debate Camp With the Right Mindset”

TP or LD? – A Parent (and Coach and Judge) Perspective by: Stacy Edmond

Arne Duncan, then Secretary of Education, said in 2010, “debate is uniquely suited to build skills required of a modern citizen, including critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.”

Most of us in the world of education would agree that competitive debate is a valuable activity for students of all skill levels, however, the style of debate preferred or which format a student new to debate should begin with, is, well, up for debate…

Continue reading “TP or LD? – A Parent (and Coach and Judge) Perspective by: Stacy Edmond”

The Need for Observation by: Denise Montgomery

Lasting Impact’s fall line up of online clubs and classes is going to be better than ever! All of the classes are listed HERE. One of the classes will be taught by my dear friend, Denise Montgomery. I believe her class will directly influence students, their observations, and of course their journey with speech and debate. After years of teaching (at the collegiate level and at home) Denise aims to fill in the gaps that many English programs leave. To think critically, effectively communicate, problem-solve, and experience life more fully, people must look through a new and wider lens…

Continue reading “The Need for Observation by: Denise Montgomery”

Sign Up NOW for Lasting Impact! Fall Online Classes and Clubs

Are you ready? This is our biggest and best fall line up of online classes and clubs to date. Each year, it seems, the need grows. We are happy to be able to provide such excellent resources to the speech and debate community. This year we will be offering two types of Online Apologetics, four different debate clubs, a variety of options for younger students, plus a whole lot more! Check out all of our Clubs HERE. Check out all of our Classes HERE. And coming soon – news about our Fall Tournament Circuit, as well as our Fall Online Tournament Schedule! Be sure to stay up on the latest- SUBSCRIBE (right hand side of our home page), follow us on Insta or Facebook.

My Experience Online By: Charis Baker

“When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.” -Alexander Graham Bell

While the coronavirus quarantine brought the abrupt end to Stoa’s and NCFCA’s 2019-2020 season, we saw the arrival of a new opportunity: online speech and debate tournaments. Lasting Impact! did an amazing job of recreating the experience of a tournament in an online setting with the Trailblazers tournament in June. For many of us, this was the sparkle in our spring, as we were stuck at home unable to compete in the sport we love.

Continue reading “My Experience Online By: Charis Baker”

Club Planning – How do you inject FUN into Speech and Debate Club?

I know what you are thinking? How do you inject any fun into club if we will be meeting online? What will Speech and Debate look like next season? I am hear to tell you – it CAN be done! I have been teaching, coaching, and leading clubs (and now directing tournaments) ONLINE for four years!! Like everything else – it just takes practice!! Give yourself some time. You Got This – Cuz He’s Got You…

Continue reading “Club Planning – How do you inject FUN into Speech and Debate Club?”