[caption id="attachment_34887" align="alignright" width="300"] Melda Eren and Jure Hederih - © Gigi Gil[/caption] The 20th edition of the SSE Riga IV was won by the mixed-team Balkans: Dangerously Emotional (Melda Eren, Jure Hederih; Munich/Oxford). They won the final motion "THW prefer a world where wealth is seen as shameful" out of Closing Government against the Opening Government Riga Mortis (Roel Schoenmakers, Nastia Grishkova; Tilburg/KCL), the Opening Opposition The Dark Knife (Meradj Oidermaa, Johan Allen; Stockholm) and the Closing Opposition Tartu A (Erik Haamer, Carl-Martin Keerberg). The final was judged by Tin Puljić, Tom Manor, Rasmuss Filips Geks, Edgars Klētnieks and Assel ...

From Friday, December 9th, to Sunday, December 11th, the 18th SSE Riga IV will be hosted at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. The tournament is international, therefore it will be held under British Parliamentary Style (BPS) rules with English as the spoken language. It consists of 5 preliminary rounds, followed by an open break with partial quarter finals as well as a novice break and completed by semi finals and a final. Mixed-teams are accepted. The CA-Team consists of Monica Forman, Johan Båge, Michael Dunn Goekjian and a yet to be announced member, Stefan Siridzanski will be the equity ...

It is one of the oldest tournaments in Europe: This December, for the 16th time, the SSE Riga IV will take place. Latvia’s capital is European Capital of Culture in 2014.  The British Parliamentary Style-tournament will have five preliminary rounds and a break to quarterfinals as well as a novice final. On Saturday night, a spiritual debate will take place. Steven Ramesh Rajavinothan and Gediminas Užkuraitis are Chief Adjudicators. Both the Tabmaster and the Equity Officer are yet to be announced. Up to 72 teams can participate in the tournament. For more information, see the facebook event. Ruta Gabalina is the ...

From May 30th to June 1st, the SSE Riga Debate Society and the non-governmental organisation QUO tu domā? will host the third Debate Academy. The Debate Academy aims at debaters from different countries who want to learn more about debating and improve their skills. It consists of seven workshops given in four rooms simultaneously to account for different levels of debating proficiency of the participants. Afterwards, a tournament with four rounds and a final will be organsised so that the debaters can apply what they have learned. The trainers for the workshops will be Michael Shapira, Chief Adjudicator (CA) of the ...

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 ...

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 ...