After debates, food is probably the second to most important thing here at Worlds – making sure that no participant goes hungry. This is not an easy task, in the face of the diverse dietary requirements that participants have due to cultural, religious, personal or health reasons.

Reuben Thomas is a catering volunteer at the WUDC.

With a tight budget and no dining hall available, the catering team has had to find creative solutions. “First of all, we try to handle questions, problems and crises with care as soon as they arise”, says Christian Zimpelmann, head of the catering team. “And we have great volunteer team that serves food with love.”

One of these volunteers is Reuben Thomas from India who will be responsible for food and beverages at Chennai Worlds next year. “It gives me immense pleasure to serve food and to ensure debaters are satisfied.”

So far, things have gone well despite difficult circumstances at the TU: “Debaters seem to appreciate our hard work and have been very encouraging. Waiting lines are not too long, and everyone is getting enough foodg time for food.” This is good news, as we all know that hungry debaters can become annoyed quite fast.

Only at the beginning, the system had to be adjusted at bit. “We would have loved to have some more volunteers in our team to make everything faster”, says Christian. “But I think we found a system that works quite well nevertheless.”

So what willReuben take home from his experience here in Germany? “We need a lot of coffee machines. Because when it comes to beverages, everyone knows what they want.”