The days are getting shorter and the pleasant anticipation of Christmas is creeping in. It’s the time of the year when families reunite to celebrate and catch up on what has happened during the year. The remote brothers and sisters fly in or take the train to unite around the table, after a busy year. This is very much the context for Cork IV, the last reunion of the Irish debating circuit before the World Championship. As the Rec Sec* rightly pointed out at the final, the Irish debaters are very much like a family indeed. They share the same customs ...

As we already reportet, Thessaloniki bids for WUDC 2013. With the lauch of their Website some more information are now available. Tournament Team Cap: 420 teams, Cap of 3 teams per institution Registration Fee: Maximum €400, to be reduced according to sponsorship Adjudication: Chief Adjudicator:Manos Moschopoulos Deputy Chief Adjudicators: Chris Bisset, Tasneem Elias  Policy Highlights 3 DCAs to be chosen after an application process in 2014 We are committed to ensuring that the adjudication core represents the diversity of regions, language statuses and genders that attend WUDC. We also recognise that appointing the best candidate may require a second person from a particular region €50000 in our worst-case scenario budget ...

Shafiq Bazari and Jonathan Leader Maynard (Chief Adjudicators, Malaysia Worlds 2015) are pleased to announce that fourteen people have applied to be considered for the position of Deputy Chief Adjudicator at Malaysia Worlds 2015. Among the candidates is our very own Dessislava Kirova from Berlin (ESL-Finalist at Manila Worlds, DCA at Manchester Euros and senior member of the OrgComm of Berlin Worlds). The Americas: Sarah Balakrishnan, Brett Frazer, Paul Gross, Buzz Klinger, Romeo Maione, Arlán A. Narváez-Vaz R. Middle East/Africa: Engin Arikan, Ngcwele Khumalo , Paidamwoyo Mangondo Australasis: Paul Karp, Madeline Jennifer Schultz, Sebastian Templeton Continental Europe: Dessislava Kirova, Danique van Koppenhagen The Chief Adjudicators are now asking the world debating community to submit feedback, regarding the suitability ...

The 15th SSE Riga Inter-Varsity Debate Tournament is one of the biggest and oldest debate tournaments in Eastern Europe. It will take place in November 30 – December 1. This far already teams from 9 different countries have confirmed their participation. Deadline for registration & payments is due 12th of November; see details below. Chief Adjudicator of this tournament will be Stephanie Bell, who is a distinguished debater and adjudicator; you may recognize her as the CA of Oxford IV of 2013. Her achievements include: Grand-finalist at the WUDC 2012 and 2nd best speaker, quarter-finalist at WUDC 2011. Location: Stockholm School ...

Warsaw Open is the first international tournament in Poland. The team promises "Amazing people, lots of fun, delicious food and many many attractions!" Some general tournament details: - Chief Adjudicator: Manos Moschopoulos - 7 min speeches - 4 preliminary rounds, break to semi-finals - team cap of 40 - costs are 25 euros per debater, judges 15 euros (covers food, accomodation and alcohol) - n-1 rule applies To registration go to the Google form.  You can contact the team at klubdebat@gmail.com, find more information on their Facebook site and watch the promo video on Youtube. ak

On October 11 and 12 the Roosevelt Debating Society hosted the second edition of the Roosevelt Open. The tournament was held in lovely Middelburg, all the way in the south-west corner of the Netherlands. Among the VDCH-speaker were Stefan Torges, Madlen Stottmeyer, Leonard Muenstermann, Moritz Justen, Kai Dittmann, Jan-Dirk Capelle and Christopher Kroesmann. The tournament was won by Anne Valkering and Rogier Baart. Unfortuantly no VDCH-teams were in the break rounds, but the individual results of the teams and speaker can be found in the individual Speaker Tab and Team Tab. Motions R1: This House would no longer arrest or prosecute ...

Last weekend, the first EBS Open organized by Bhavesh Agarval took place in Wiesbaden. There were only 16 teams due to the fact that a lot of teams canceled only a few days before the tournament. However, all participants were happy with the small EBS Open! Chief Adjudicators were Marietta Gädeke and Michael Shapira. Motions: R1: THW make EU voting compulsory. R2: You are a 19 year old boy who just finished his Abitur. As this boy, THW join the Bundeswehr (an infoslide was provided). R3: THW ban private Universities. R4: THW grant all Ethnic Germans a full Right of Return (an infoslide was provided as ...

The OrgComm of Zagreb EUDC 2014 has announced that they opened the DCA application process to the feedback stage. They would like to invite all members of the international debating community to provide feedback on the applicants based on their personal experience of working with them either as debaters, judges, CAs or DCAs. They are interested in feedback regarding judging ability and motion setting. In addition, they welcome any feedback on how well applicants work in teams and their other personal attributes. In alphabetical order, the applicants are: Alon van Dam (Israel, RRIS) Andreas Lazar (Germany, University of Stuttgart) Ashish Kumar (IONA, Cambridge University) Ben ...

On October 11 and 12 the Roosevelt Debating Society will host the second edition of the Roosevelt Open. The tournament will be held in lovely Middelburg, all the way in the south-west corner of the Netherlands. Last year's Open was a great success, and this year the Org Comm promise a well-organized and fun tournament. Through collaboration with the Nationale Jeugdraad (NJR), they strive to make this tournament environmentally friendly. Concise info: British Parliamentary 7-minute speeches 5 rounds & break to semis Max €25 per speaker Domestic team cap of 5 Total team cap of 40 N-1 Adjudication Rule Registration Chief Adjudicators: Daan Welling: EUDC 2012 ESL Champion, WUDC 2013 ...

The University of Birmingham Debating Society is delighted to invite you all to the Birmingham IV 2013! It will take place from December 20th untill 22th. Both convenors (Jamie Batchelor and David Irvine) have just finished an Erasmus year in Berlin. Jamies says: " Having seen what you guys can do we are aiming to extend participation in the Birmingham IV to institutions throughout continental Europe. We have a fantastic CA team lined up, and we’ll be running 5 rounds of 7 minute speeches, breaking to Open semi-finals as well as an ESL final. The weekend before Christmas, it promises ...

The Europen Universities Debating Championship 2014 will take place from 18th - 24th August 2014 in the capital of Croatia Zagreb. The championsships will be organised by joint efforts of the Zagreb Deebating Union, Open Communication and Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Nika Jelaska, Prospective Convener of Zagreb EUDC 2014, said: "Zagreb’s EUDC bid was motivated by a desire to bring debating back to the Balkans. Debating is an important and integral activity - its plays a role in how we engage, communicate and persuade. While in some societies debating is recognized and valued as an activity that should be ...

Nika Jelaska, Convenor of Zagreb EUDC 2014 has announced that the Deputy Chief Adjudicator process has just started. The application form can be downloaded from the webpage. Selection Criteria: Zagreb EUDC plans to appoint five Deputy Chief Adjudicators. The Org Comm says, that they have a strong preference for a geographically diverse adjudication team, with DCA’s that come from all over the continent. The team will ideally have members from developed and developing circuits, as well as a mix of those with extensive adjudication experience and those with less experience on adjudication teams. They are looking for candidates that have experience, perspectives and ...

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 ...

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 ...

[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. ...

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 ...

Debattierklub Wien announced its bid for EUDC 2015. They uploaded a Bid-Video and a Website. Here you will find all information that were just published in the first newsletter: Org-Com The five people you can see on the picture (Andreas Prischl, Jakob Reiter, Elisabeth Vikydal, Stefan Zweiker and Anika Nussgraber at the scene of the Summer 2015 Teaser) are part of the DKWien crowd that will invest their time into making Vienna EUDC 2015 the Euros you do not want to miss. Our Orga is built around Stefan who takes up the role of convener and Jakob who is in charge of funding and relations to external stakeholders. Yet, there are so many more ...

There is not much to report from the Patras Open International Debate Championship, that took place in Greece from July 26th to July 29th. But we can give you some impressions: The motion of the Grand Final that took place in the Theater by the Sea in Patras was "TH as Socrates wouldn't have drunk the hemlock". The winning teams came from Turkey: Congratulations to Melda Eren and Ali Avci as well as the best speaker of the Open, Kallina Basli. The CA team consisted of Manos Moschopoulos, Harish Natarajan and Milan Vignjevic. The Motions: R1: THW ban Golden Dawn. R2: THBT the state should not give ...

The Oxford Inter-Varsity 2013 will be held from November 8th and 9th. There is the possibility to visit the legendary Oxford Union Debate on Thursday evening. Also there will be campus tour for international debaters on Friday morning followed by some Debating workshops and the registration that ends at 3pm. Details Five preliminary rounds of 7 minute speeches, breaking to Quarter Finals, ESL Semi Finals and novice Grand Final All Grand Finals hosted in the (in)famous Oxford Union Chamber 140 team cap, n-1 applying to IONA teams Introductory debating workshops Novice Grand Final and Best Novice Speaker prize CA TEAM Stephanie Bell - WUDC 2012 Grand-Finalist and ...

This year's Cambridge Inter-Varsity will be held on November 15th-16th 2013. The organizers state: „The Cambridge IV is one of the largest and most prestigious debating events on the calendar. Hosted and run by the Cambridge Union Society, the IV attracts some of the best teams from universities all over the world. Over three hundred students will be attending and we hope you'll be one of them.“ The Cambridge Union dates from 1815, and has a long history of hosting Presidents, Prime Ministers, Statesmen, Celebrities and Sports Stars. The Unions weekly debates serve to engage and to challenge presumptions and prejudices. ...

Thanks to Colm Flynn, we receiced the following information: "While details are a little limited at this early stage a group of Chinese universities have come together to bid to host the 2016 World Universities Debating Championships. The Beijing University Debate Association are the host organisation and the championships would be held in Tsinghua University.  They are supported by: Beijing Foreign Studies University Beijing Language and Culture University China Agricultural University Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics China University of Petroleum - Beijing Convenor of the tournament would be former BUDA President Chanel Chan Choyi. Beijing are the first to announce their intention to bid for WUDC 2016 and there may ...

The Lund Debate Society invites all debaters to the Lund IV 2013. As a perfect preparation for Chennai Worlds, they will provide you with a great CA team, 5 rounds, 7 minutes speeches, break to Quarterfinals, Novice Finals, Swedish sittning and fika and a tour of Lund and Copenhagen, if you like! After the Finals on Saturday evening, there will a traditional Sittning dinner which is a three course gourmet dinner, with dancing and booze! Team cap: 40 teams (n-1 rule for adjudicators) Co-CA: Pam Cohn (Worlds 2012 Best Speaker), Harish Natarajan (Chief Adjudicator of Chennai Worlds 2014) Crash can be provided with ...

DAPDI is an international training week for debaters from all over the globe. The world’s finest debaters and trainers (most commonly represented in the same person) from Oxford university come to Rotterdam to teach eager debaters the skills that are necessary to become debating champions. The last two days of DAPDI consist of a tournament, organized and judged by these tutors. The registration for DAPDI 2013 is now open. More Information can be found on there website. When? The date for DAPDI this year is from the 5th until the 9th of August. Therefore it is one of the last opportunities to train for the European ...

[caption id="attachment_15088" align="alignleft" width="280"] Patrick Ehmann (Photo: Henrik Mädler)[/caption] Achte Minute was able to catch up with Patrick Ehmann, convener of the WUDC Berlin 2013, to talk about the challenges faced in hosting WUDC Berlin 2013, the legacy of the tournament, the general perspective of world debating and his personal evaluation. Achte Minute: Patrick, now that two months have passed after the WUDC Berlin 2013, how do you feel? Patrick Ehmann: Well, immediately after the tournament I wanted to have nothing to do with the WUDC Berlin 2013 ever again. I was physically and emotionally drained. Now, from a distance I can see ...