[caption id="attachment_30238" align="alignright" width="400"] The winning team of this year's Munich Open: Calyxx Peucker & Philipp Müller - © Jan-Gunther Gosselke[/caption] From October 28th till October 30th, the first Munich Open took place after substantial preparations by conveners Katharina Heinrich and Christian Rausch. CAed by Monica Forman, Ben Shaw and Melda Eren, it extended the former trio of important international tournaments in the German circuit (Berlin IV, Tilbury IV, Vienna IV) by a fourth. Following five preliminary rounds, 'Berlin B' (Stefan Torges & Julian Stastny) , 'Clash and Burn' (Friedrichshafen/Munich, Calyxx Peucker & Philipp Müller), 'Heidelberg Rennehardt' (Benedikt Rennekamp & Martin Reinhardt), 'My minority ...

Debaters from all over the world are flocking in to Manila, Philippines. From 27 December 2011 to 4 January 2012, they assemble at De La Salle University (DLSU) to compete for the title of the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC or Worlds). From under the roof of VDCH there will be the following debating society competing with around 400 teams from about 70 countries - all in a peaceful competition, the WUDC 2012 or DLSU Worlds: Berlin Debating Union: John Eltringham, Narendran Ramasendaran, Dessislava Kirova, Juliane Mendelsohn, Kai Dittmann, Matthias Winkelmann S.A.E.C.L.O. Greifswald: Rafael Heinisch, Ida Heidecker Debattierclub Mannheim: Jana Gilke, Katrin Sadroschinski Debattierclub Johannes ...

Rain, rain, rain - all over Germany! But the brave debaters of the Boddencup never gave in and even did their BBQ in Greifswald. A short lesson on German geography: "Bodden are brackish bodies of water along the southwestern shores of the Baltic Sea, primarily in Germany's state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern around the island of Rügen," as Wikipedia has it. This year's Boddencup was staged by Greifwald's debating society for the third time in a row. It was also the final of the first season of Freie Debattierliga, or free debating league (FDL). Read more on a rainy weekend by the ...

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News concerning the Boddencup 2011: The president of the Debattierclub Greifswald, Rafael Heinisch, announced the CAs for the BPS tournament that is to be held from July 22 to 24. Besides Rafael himself, Julian Schneider (Debattierclub Münster) and Markus Dankerl (Debattierclub München) are in charge of the motions. The reg fees for the Boddencup are 15 Euros for speakers and 10 Euros for judges, registration is possible until July 11 under heinischr@googlemail.com. xzy / tr

The debating society of the Bavarian capital, Munich, organizes on Saturday, April 2nd, a "mini-cup". The debates will be held in BPS. The tournament actually is "mini" because there are provided spots for eight teams in two rooms. After three preliminary rounds, a direct break is planned into the final, the winning team prize beckons as a surprise. tr

On his blog, Manos Moschopoulos compiled unofficial tabs for ESL and EFL respectively for the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC or Worlds). He did so based on data provided by Leela Koenig, judge at Botswana Worlds, and the competition's language committee. So far, official ESL and EFL tabs have not yet been published by the adjudication team of CA Logandran Balavijendran. According to Manos’ compilation, a correction of the Top Five EFL Speakers has to be noted: “Simon Belak (Ljubljana C) and Andreas Lazar (Stuttgart A) are joint top EFL speakers (initially, they were announced as 2nd and 1st respectively),” Manos ...

The full tab of the World Universities Debating Championships 2011 has been made available online already! The CA team put it on the homepage of Botswana Worlds. Naturally, Achte Minute does have a focus on the results of  VDCH teams and speakers. Hence, to lighten the burden for you, our loyal readers, we compiled their results. ...

Breaking news from Botswana: Results of our VDCH teams after round 6 leaked from Gabs and we have it all here for our loyal readers. Colm Flynn provided photographs of the tab on his World Debating Website. So how are our German and Austrian teams doing in Gaborone? ...

And the evening and the morning were the third day of Botswana Worlds 2011. A delay usual for events of this size collided with today’s schedule. But after all, today brought on what all those hundreds of debaters came to Botswana for: The first three of a total of nine preliminary rounds were held today. But most of the day meant waiting for speakers as well as for judges – waiting for registration, waiting for debates to commence, waiting for meals. However, the atmosphere is still great, thanks to good weather and friendly supporters. Even those at home had to wait. ...

Sarah Jaglitz und Rafael Heinisch vom Debattierclub Greifswald haben die erste ZEIT DEBATTE des Jahres 2010 gewonnen. Im Stuttgarter Wilhelmspalais konnten sich die beiden am Sonntagnachmittag aus der Eröffnenden Regierung heraus gegen Tim Richter und Gudrun Lux vom Debattierclub Bonn (Eröffnende Opposition), Moritz Niehaus und Clemens Lechner von der Debattiergesellschaft Jena (Schließende Regierung) und Patrick Ehmann und Farid Schwuchow von der Berlin Debating Union (Schließende Opposition) durchsetzen. Zum besten Redner kürte die Ehrenjury Clemens Lechner. Ausgezeichnet: Rafael, Clemens und Sarah (v.l., Foto Kun Yin, DCS) Das Finalthema lautete "Dieses Haus würde Parteispenden verbieten"; juriert wurde das Finale von Isabelle Loewe (DC Bonn), ...