Paris is very, very beautiful. Plus, it is the political, economic and social center of the French nation. It is de facto impossible to get the full impression in just one weekend. But the convenors of Louisa Leila Zhang’s team helped us get a good first glimpse on the first weekend of April. The about 150 participants of the Paris IV were offered hospitality and French cuisine, impressive technology and the art of partying plus a city tour – and all that in just under 45 hours. The debaters – from the Wordls finalist John Ashbourne from the London School ...

In a city, already used by Romans to relax from their exhausting attempts to conquer the British isles, an equally relaxing debating tournament was held. The Bath IV 2011 lured teams from cities of the farther vicinity into the almost mediterranean spot near Bristol: Teams from that very Bristol, Cardiff, Oxford, London, Manchester, Mainz and more came to compete against each other. Comfortable pubs and an amazingly warm weather of almost twenty degrees that led every second student of Bath to dress in short trousers and t-shirts were greeting the debaters. Near the university lake with many ducks the Bathonians ...

VDCH proudly presents: debatING. from Technische Universität Kaiserslautern! The Association of Debating Societies at Universities (VDCH) is growing ever more which makes Marcus Ewald, vice-president of the association, happy: “VDCH is growing into a strong network that covers most universities – debating is becoming more and more renowned in Germany and neighboring countries.” debatING. is member number 71 of VDCH. ...

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Judging the up-and-coming and be wowed by them and wow them with university debating? Well then, let’s go to the German Schools Debating Championships (GSDC or Germans) in Stuttgart. This is where schools debaters from all over Germany will be competing for the title of German champion from June 2 to 5. Judges from university debating are more than welcome, David Whitehead, president of the Debating Society Germany (DSG) told Achten Minute. He intends to build on the newly made up cooperation between VDCH and DSG. Language of debate is English while the format of the Germans will be that of ...

The regional championships will take place from 16 to 17 April 2011 with exception of the South German Championship which will be held one week earlier.The Northern regionals will be hosted by Debattierclub Osnabrück, a society still not much older than a year. Convener of the Southern regionals is going to be Debattierclub Bayreuth which is located in Franconia. Host of the Eastern regionals will be Klartext Halle, acting Eastern regional champion and German debating champion of 2008. Stage to the Western regionals will be Frankfurt by the river Main, hosted by Debattierclub ...

VDCH, the Association of Debating Societies at Universities, stages the second adjudication workshop of the current season 2010/2011 from 7 to 8 May 2011. The venue is to be decided by the participants. The trainers are not known yet. Debaters from all VDCH clubs are welcome to inform VDCH vice-president Esther Reinert via esther.reinert@vdch.de whether and with how many debaters they would like to participate at the adjudication workshop.

The final is over! Team Colgate Extra White, Austin Schwartz and Travis Steele, have won the Vienna IV 2011 from the position of Opening Government. The final motion read: "This house believes that parties' electoral campaigns should only be funded by the state." Their opponents were the following: ...

This is an article about the German Senior League in Schools Debating. This league is annually staged by the Debating Society Germany (DSG) in Würzburg. Marcus Ewald travelled to the Franconian town where he presented the Association of Debating Societies at Universities (VDCH). In the end, the two umbrella associations have come to the conclusion that they must work together. Read more on the tourny and the coop in the German version of this article. Unfortunately, the piece is not yet available in English.

We're very, very sorry this text is not available English. Please read the German version of this article to learn more about poetry among debaters and the final debate on two formats widely spread in Germany: BPS vs. OPD. apf / sol

Isabelle Loewe (DC Bonn), Benedikt Nufer (DC Hamburg) and Daniel Grotzky (DC München) as team Die Zwillinge vom Zillertal won the Rheingötter-Debattierwettstreit. This article is not yet available in English, please check back later or read the German version.

The World Universities Debate Championships (WUDC or Worlds)have been held for the 31st time in a row. The first Worlds were staged in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1981. Back then, 43 teams from seven countriescompeted for the title, the registration fee was ten British Pound. The first WUDC winners back in 1981 were Steve Coughlan and Andrew Taylor from University of Toronto, Canada. Many English schools did not take part – they found Glasgow was too far away as is reported. Nota bene: The distance between London and Glasgow is 405 miles, or 650 kilometers. By the way, it was not ...

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. ...

The term "Worlds" is used in its plural form because numerous winners have been awarded at Gaborone, Botswana last night. Foremost, the three best teams have to be mentioned who prevailed over the course of nine prelims. It is three best teams as there are three categories: "Open Break", "English as a Second Language" (ESL) and "English as a Foreign Language" (EFL). And the winners are ... Monash A from Australia, Haifa A from Israel and Tokyo B from Japan. There were about 300 teams from all over the globe competing for the title, 32 of which made it to ...

One quarter of the teams of the ESL break are from Germany! That would make one German team in each room, one could think. But in final rounds, the tab is folded. That means that for instance room one assembles teams ranking on 1, 7, 8 and 16. Thanks to this folding, room three of the ESL qurter finals will see two German teams: Stuttgart A (Andreas Lazar and Michael Saliba) and Berlin B (Patrick Ehmann and Bastian Laubner). Other German teams in the quarters are Berlin B (Florian Umscheid and Dessislava Kirova) and Gutenberg A (Marcus Ewald and Marietta ...

That sure is a good start into the new year for VDCH country: Four German teams broke to ESL quarter finals of the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC or Worlds) in Gaborone. Here are the lucky ones: Stuttgart A, Michael Saliba, Andreas Lazar, 15 points Berlin B, Dessislava Kirova, Florian Umscheid, 14 points Gutenberg A (Mainz), Marcus Ewald, Marietta Gädeke, 14 points Berlin A, Bastian Laubner, Patrick Ehmann, 13 points Jens Henning Fischer and Isabelle Loewe broke as judges. The complete break was compiled by Stephen M. Llano on his Blog. The draws for the main break are available on Colm Flynn's  World Debating Website. Congratulations to ...

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? ...

Six preliminary rounds are over, night has fallen over Botswana. Tomorrow will bring three more pre-rounds at Worlds 2011. These are going to be closed rounds – no feedback and no info on the ranking will leak from the judges. Socials tonight feature a “culture night”. No more complaints about waiting and queuing are to be heard in Gaborone, but speculations on the ranking of teams and institutions. The teams of Debattierclub Stuttgart feel fine with their performance, Andreas C. Lazar reported this morning: “Gaborone, 32 degrees Celsius. Both Michael [Saliba] and I (Stuttgart A) as well as Jana [Gilke] and ...

Marcus Ewald, VDCH vice president, published the 3rd VDCH Newsletter 2010/2011. Der VDCH Newsletter No 3 is now available online (in German).

Read more on Tübingen's Streitkultur Cup in the German version of this article and find out how Marcus Ewald won the audience, how Natalie Wieseotte won a version of "Who wants to be a millionaire" on OPD (the German format of open parliamentary debate) and how Pauline Leopold won in a competition on the rules of OPD but still felt ashamed. ...

Marc Lenzke, Marcus Ewald and Isabelle Loewe (DC Bonn) won the prestigious Streitkultur Cup in Tübingen. They defeated as team for Debattierclub Johannes Gutenberg Mainz (DCJG) another DCJG team consisting of Sina Strupp, Jan Papsch and Nicolas Eberle. The final was completed by the three Free Speakers Lea Weitekamp (Bonn), Hauke Blume (Berlin) and Wladi Jachtschenko (München). Judges of the final were Mario Dießner, Jenny Bachmann (Karlsruhe) and Daniel Grotzky (München/Zürich), president was Gudrun Lux (Mainz/Bonn). The motions were: Round 1:  Sollen Volksentscheide bei Großprojekten verpflichtend werden? Round 2: Soll die Pressefreiheit bei Terrorgefahr eingeschränkt werden? Round 3:  Brauchen wir wieder Militärparaden in Deutschland? Final: ...

Marcus Ewald, VDCH vice president, published the 2st VDCH Newsletter 2010/2011. Der VDCH Newsletter No 2 is now available online (in German). ...

Please read the German version of this article if you want to learn more on the requirements for the qualification of judges for the German debating championship (DDM) of 2011. The German debating Championship will be staged in Heidelberg from 9 to 12 June 2011. Format will be OPD, the open parliamentary debate widely spread on the German speaking debating circuit. The Debating Club Heidelberg (DCH), then German debating champion in 2004, will now be host to Germany’s largest tournament where at least 45 teams will participate. The ZEIT DEBATTEN series is convened by VDCH in ...

Please read the German version of this article on the adjudication workshop held in Wiesbaden from 26 to 28 November hosted by the Association of Debating Societies at Universities (VDCH).

The Debating Club Heidelberg announced the German Debating Championship's complete CA team.  Former VDCH-president and Western German Champion of 2008 Tim Richter from the Debattierclub Bonn will join the already announced Chief adjudicators Gudrun Lux (Debattierclub Bonn), Jan Lüken (WFI Debattierclub Ingolstadt) and Marcus Ewald (DCJG Mainz). The German debating Championship will be staged in Heidelberg from 9 to 12 June 2011. Format will be OPD, the open parliamentary debate widely spread in the German speaking debating circuit. The Debating Club Heidelberg, then German debating champion in 2004, will now be host to Germany’s largest tournament. The ZEIT ...

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Stuss stands for nonsense: The first show debate in the comedy format STUSS will be held on 17 November at 8 p.m. at Kulturcafé on the campus of the University of Mainz. STUSS is an acronym and stands for "Stramme Thesen und studentischer Streit", but stuss itself means “nonsense”, which is way more important, explains Thore Woijke, one of the founders of STUSS. He and Nicolas Eberle, Marcus Ewald, Carsten Knittler and Clemens Fucker will be performing next Wednesday. STUSS consists of some short debates with teams of two on each side. Speeches should be between three and six minutes. One ...

The European Debating League (EDL) was created by the representatives of ten European countries at a meeting in Split, Croatia. Teams from all over Europe are invited to compete at EDL tournaments that will be held in the British Parliamentary Style (BPS). The first official season will start in the academic year 2011/2012. But already in the current academic year 2010/2011 a test season will be run. The countries present via Sykpe or physically were Austria (Rosi Halmi), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Vedran Arapovic), Croatia (Julia Mikic), Germany (Marcus Ewald), Greece (Manos Moschopoulos) Latvia (Robert Bernans), Macedonia (Georgi Velkoski), Serbia (Milan Vignevic), ...

VDCH, the Association of Debating Societies at Universities, stages the first adjudication workshop of the current season 2010/2011 from 26 to 28 November 2010, the venue will be Wiesbaden by the river Rhine. Participants will be taught adjudication by Marcel Giersdorf (Mainz), Lukas Haffert (Cologne) and Torsten Rössing (Halle). Set on the schedule are OPD, BPS and giving feedback which will be practiced through exercises. Fees for participants are 10 Euros including the workshop, accommodation and meals. In addition, a guided tour through Wiesbaden is offered on Friday night. Saturday comes with a surprise in Mainz, just across the river. Debaters from ...