It is the first international debating tournament in British Parliamentary Style (BPS) in Macedonia: Skopje Open will take place on the weekend of November 7-9, 2014. Up to 32 teams can register now. The tournament costs €50 per participant, including accommodation in a hotel and three meals per day, organiser Milka Gerovska says. For people arriving early because they directly come from Thessaloniki Open on the preceding weekend, the organisers will provide with crash accommodation or a cheap hostel.

The convener of the tournament is the Youth Educational Forum (YEF), an NGO that has organized many debate competitions before, more than 30 on the national and 8 on the international level. However, this is the first international competition between universities. More information can be found on the facebook event.

There are four Chief Adjudicators confirmed for the tournament:

Steven Ramesh Rajavinothan draws experience from 17 IV finals he judged and has been in the adjudication core of multiple tournaments. As a speaker, he has reached the semi-final of the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC).

Manos Moschopoulos will be CA of the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) in Thessaloniki 2016. In the category English as a Second Language (ESL), he was successful both at WUDC and EUDC, being a finalist in the former and best speaker of the latter.

For Helena Ivanov, this is the first tournament as a CA, having been Deputy CA of the Arandjelovac Open and Turku Open. At the recent WUDC in Chennai, she was the best speaker in the category English as a Foreign Language (EFL), but broke into the ESL final.

Georgi Velkovski was CA of the 2013 Global Youth Forum in Galway, Ireland. At the WUDC Berlin 2013 he was a quarterfinalist. Besides judging, he has been the tabmaster for many tournaments.

Registration is open via Google Docs for teams and adjudicators respectively.

Info in a nutshell:

• Date: Nov 7-9, 2014
• Location: Skopje, Macedonia
• Format: BP
• Registration Fee: €50 per person
• Team cap: 32
• Adjudicators: Steven Ramesh Rajavinothan, Manos Moschopulos, Helena Ivanov, Georgi Velkovski

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