Contrary to the saying "The devil takes the hindmost" John Engle and Declan Meehan from Trinity College Dublin won the final debate of the SSE Riga IV 2010. John and Declan only made it to the bottomof the speakers' tab because their flight was late to arrive in the Latvian capital which is why they missed the first two prelims on Friday. But the chief adjudicators were indulgent enough to let them have the chance of one extra round after lunch on Saturday. A team from London who had missed a prelim, too, was also allowed in. Tricky: It was the ...

The Berlin Debating Union (BDU) has made a decision: They want to bring the Worlds to Germany! On Saturday, Patrick Ehmann, John Eltringham and Cloud Ramasendaran are going to present their bid for convening the World Universities Debating Championships at the Oxford IV. The support of VDCH, the Association of Debating Societies at Universities, facilitated the decision of Berlin Debating Union: “Only because we know we have the German debating circuit to support us we dare to do this,” BDU president Patrick admits. He is even more delighted to have other German debaters at the Oxford IV to back BDU’s presentation ...

Teams with high travel costs to SSE Riga IV 2010 may ask for reduced registration fees. Anyhow, the competition is worth going to the Latvian capital on 10 and 11 December, as Vladimirs Zlotnikovs from the organizational committee reports. The conveners offer a three-star hotel, a standard known to speakers from the German debating circuit but highly unusual in international debating where participants are used to crash. Also included in registration fees are all meals, socials and free drinks. Jens Fischer, EUDC council president from Germany, is going to be CA of this years SSE Riga IV, joined by Will Jones ...

Did you ever debate with colleagues from the Baltics? If you haven´t, then there is a wonderful opportunity in December to change that: the Debating Club of the Stockholm School for Economics in Riga invites you to the Capital of Latvia from 10 to 11 December to enjoy one of the most prestigious debating tournaments in Eastern Europe. Participants will be accommodated in a 3-star-hotel, furthermore you will be part of parties and city tours with your hosts from Riga. Martins Vaivars, who already succeeded in numerous tournaments (3rd best ESL speaker, European Universities Debating Championships, Newcastle, to mention but ...