The GSDC, or Germans – both stands for the German Schools Debating Championship -will be stagedat schools in Stuttgart from June 2 to 5. As Achte Minute reported earlier, university student debaters are more than welcome as judges. Now, the venue of the grand final has been announced: It will be hosted by the Patch High School in Stuttgart-Vaihingen. That school is part of the US-American military facilities and hence de iure located on American soil. This is why special rules apply, as David Whitehead, chair of the Debating Society Germany (DSG), pointed out.

In order to have easy access to the venue of the grand final, Virginia Dugan, the one in charge at Patch HS, needs the following information of every participant and visitor in advance: Name, date of birth, place of birth, country of origin, ID number (passport or personalausweis). David emphasised that there will be no access to the facilities if these details are not handed in before May 7. Please send an e-mail containing that information to the registration officer, Jan Ohmstedt, via ohmstedt [at] schoolsdebate [dot] de. This applies to debaters, judges as well as to visitors of the grand final at GSDC.

Registration for debaters and judges is open until April 25 (for those who need accommodation) or until May 2 (for those who don’t need help with accommodation). More details may be found on the DSG homepage or may be asked from David and his fellow chair Chris Sanchez via info [at] schoolsdebate [dot] de.

The Debating Society Germany (DSG) was founded in the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg in 1996 and spread from there all over Germany. Today, “schools debating”, English language debating at schools, may be found in Bavaria, Hessen, Saxony, Berlin, Brandenburg and Hamburg. German schools debaters have been taking part at numerous international competitions such as the World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC or Worlds). In 2004, Worlds have been staged by DSG at Stuttgart. On top of that, DSG hosts an annual open for national schools teams from all over the world. This tournament was renamed EurOpen in 2010. David Whitehead and Christopher Sanchez form the DSG executive board. Together with Jana Gilke (president of Debattierclub Mannheim and former schools debater) and VDCH vice-president Marcus Ewald the promoted a cooperation between VDCH and DSG. School students shall be informed about university debating to help them find or found a debating society at their later universities. Moreover, cooperation on a local level between university deb societies and schools debating is more than welcome, for instance with judges helping out at schools tournaments.

apf / glx