The general assembly of VDCH (Verband der Debattierclubs an Hochschulen), the umbrella organisation of over 70 german-speaking debating clubs at universities, has elected a new executive board on August 31. Florian Umscheid (Berlin/Bamberg) was elected president by the representatives; vice presidents are Tobias Kube (Marburg), Jennifer Holm (Heidelberg) and Alexander Labinsky (Dresden).   The Achte Minute congratulates the new board and wishes them best of success for their term of office! kem

Last weekend a dream that many debaters dream came true for Peer Klüßendorf and Emilia Carlqvist: They became European Debating Champions in English as a second language. Peer started debating in highschool when he attended "Jugend debattiert" and advanced to its national and international final in 2007. One year ago, he resumed debating when he moved to Lund. Emilia just moved to Lund in 2011 and tried debating at a local tournament. Despite liking it, she was too busy and did not debate again until 2012 when she decided to run for the board of Lund Debate Society. Achte Minute ...

The Tilbury House Debating Society has announced that the Tilbury House IV 2013 will be staged on December 13th to December 15th. There will be 5 preliminary rounds plus the semi-finals and the grand final. CA will be Henk van Zuilen (Finalist of EUDC 2013). The registration will prospectively close Friday at 6 pm, the final will be done on Sunday at approximately 4 pm. To get more information visit the societies homepage where it shall be postet asap. You may also join the Facebook event to find out more. Quick Facts: Tilbury House IV 2013 December 13 to 15 Cologne, Germany BPS, English CAs: Henk van Zuilen, ...

On thursday and friday the outrounds and the final of the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC) took place in Manchester. Via Twitter and Facebook the results were announced already on Friday evening. Here is an overview of the motions and finalists. English as a Foreign Language: ESL Quarter-Finals: THBT men should consistently 'call out' and correct chauvinistic claims made by friends and coworkers ESL Semi-Finals: THBT environmentalists should start a campaign of sabotage and property damage aimed at major polluting companies ESL Final: THB the state should not fund works of art/ performance that average citizens would not recognize as having artistic merit OG: Berlin ...

The Debating society of the European Business School (EBS), EBS Communicate,will host their fist tournament this year. The EBS Open 2013 will be held in Wiesbaden October 11th - 13th. The Team-Cap is 36 teams, with an insitution-cap of three teams per institution. N-1 will apply, though EBS Communicate encourages aditional judges. The Reg-Fee is 15 Euro and covers meals, socials and a workshop. Crash will be provided if required. The tournament has four preliminary rounds with break to semis. Michael Shapira and Marietta Gädeke will be serving as CAs. Teams can register here, adjudicators find the registration form here. Please check ...

The hosts of EUDC 2015, the Debattierklub Wien, has announced the Vienna IV 2014. To celebrate DKWien's 10th anniversary the DK is hosting the largest Vienna IV so far from March 7th-9th 2014. Team Cap is 100 Teams, the debating Venues are on the brand-new campus where Vienna's EUDC 2015 are going to take place. There will be 3-star accommodation, socials and plenty of activities, the DK promises an "outstanding debating and sightseeing experience". You can watch their Tailer online and join the Facebook-Event for further updates. Registration starts early November 2013, n-1 rule will apply. The DK Wien has asked Christine Simpson, Nicole Loiter and Stefan Zweiker to serve as ...

The Break of the EUDC Manchester 2013 has just been announced. It has been quite a wait. https://twitter.com/TheHist/status/370309338704785408 Open Break 1. TCD Hist A 2. Cambridge A 3. Sheffield A 4. Bristol A 5. GUU A 6. Cambridge B 7. TCD Phil A 8. Edinburgh A 9. UCC Phil A 10. Oxford A 11. St Andrews A 12. Nottingham A 13. Warwick A 14. Durham B 15. KCL A 16. Birmingham A ESL-Break 1. Tel Aviv 2. BDU A (Niels Schröter and Hauke Blume) 3. Belgrade A 4. Groningen B 5. Roosevelt A 6. Lund A 7. IDC A 8. Vienna A (Stefan Zweiker and Christoph Jäger) 9. Munich A (Marco Witzmann and Wladi Jachtchenko) 10. BBU A 11. RRIS A 12. Belgrade B 13. Stuttgart A (Nils Haneklaus and Andreas Lazar) 14. ...

[caption id="attachment_17792" align="alignleft" width="256"] The University Place - the main debating venue[/caption] Since sunday 214 teams from Europe , 19 of which are from VDCH- Clubs, are competing in the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC). The Manchester Debating Unions is hosting the biggest event in the european debating circuit this year at the University of Manchester. Here are some insights into the tournament, the debates and how the German teams did. The locations The teams live in cosy small apartments with single and double bed rooms around the campus. The distance to the debate rooms is very short - it takes teams 5-10minutes. ...

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="324"] Front page of the report[/caption] During the Glasgow Ancients Final the Team of Opening Government, defending the motion "This House Regrets the Centralization of Religion", was booed and "shame"-d by male debaters in the audience, adding to the list of problematic remarks on women in the Glasgow Debating Union observed during the weekend. Achte Minute documented parts of the debate in an article. Now one of the victims of this incident, Rebecca Meredith published together with Matt Hezell and Clara Spera a report, that shows the spread of misogyny and sexisim within debating. The report collects contributions from a survey started after the final of the Glasgow Ancients 2013 in ...

Achte Minute features today a online post by Daan Welling that can also be found on his blog. He says, that as he is now part of the “old crowd” on the Dutch debating scene, he thinks it ought to be time for him to sit down on the sofa of self-appointed wisdom, and give some general suggestions, ideas and inspirations for the coming debating season. We are excited to see what you think about his ideas. I think our circuit is incredibly fun and inclusive, and serves as a great addition to one’s (student) life. Nonetheless, there are always ...

The CA team at EUDC Manchester has introduced changes to the way POIs are treated; in particular, they have introduced a compulsory POI requirement, and have asked judges to more stringently enforce the allowance for 15 seconds of speaking time during a POI. Michael Shapira wrote a constructive criticism about those new rules. Now Shengwu Li, writing on behalf of the CA team, explains the thought process behind these rulings. He says that they were happy and thankful for the lively debate on this important issue, but he feels, that there need to be some clarifications as to theire reasons ...

The recent briefing and later clarification released by the adjudication core of the upcoming EUDC Manchester 2013 has included some changes in the way we are to treat Points of Information (POI). These changes consist of two major elements. The first is, that being allowed to offer a POI has changed to become 15 seconds of "protected time", in which the POI giver may do as he or she pleases. The second change is an introduction of a "Mandatory POI" under which a speaker must take a POI during their speech. Failing to do so, the speaker is then required ...

This article is only avaiable in German.

This article is only available in German.

Fred Cowell and Danique van Koppenhagen, the CAs of Durham EUDC 2014 have openned the application process for Deputy Chief  Adjudicators. All infromations about where to apply can be found on the EUDC Druham website. The requirements for future DACs are outlined here.  Applicants need to fill in the form by 11.59pm 30th of August. fpu

This article is only available in German.

This article is only available in German.