This Blog has now moved to idebate.org/worlddebating - all future posts will be made there!

7 May 2011

Victoria wins NZ Universities' Impromptu Champs

The NZ Universities' Impromptu Debating Champs (Easters) was held a few weeks ago in Auckland, New Zealand.

Winners: Victoria University of Wellington 2 (Paul Smith & Asher Emanuel)

Runners-Up: Auckland University 3 (Ben Milsom & Gretta Schumacher)

Best Speaker: Asher Emanuel

Members of the NZU Impromptu Team: Asher Emanuel & Paul Smith

Reserves to the NZU Impromptu Team: Ella Edginton & Udayan Mukherjee (Victoria University of Wellington)

Most Promising Speaker: Hamish Saunders (Auckland University)

Best Adjudicator: Stephen Whittington (Victoria University of Wellington)

6 May 2011

ULV Summer Debate Training / Individuals Tournament‏

Dear All,
The University of La Verne would like to invite you all to sunny southern California for a week of intense debate training followed by a uniquely formatted individuals tournament. This guarantees anyone who attends excellent instruction and guidance from some of the most experienced trainers in the country, and in fact the world. Between them, they have racked up over 30 visits to the World Universities Debating Championships. In addition, the University of La Verne’s debate team promises to assist in any way possible including transportation to and from airports and, if necessary, from lodging to the school. Of course, they will also be providing assistance in their specialty, making sure that everyone has a great time outside of the training!

We are looking to make this event as accessible as possible to participants outside of the state of California, so we are only charging a $75 registration fee per individual or a $250 fee for any team with 4 or more participants (with no upwards limit), inclusive of the entire week of training and the tournament. Waivers will be considered for teams dealing with extreme travel expenses or suffering other financial hardships. Also, we have secured affordable housing in the University’s dorms for participants who would like to take advantage of this. This event will run from July 19th - July 23rd, 2011. We will also be accommodating individuals who would like to attend only the training, or only the tournament. We would ask that anyone interested will have registered by July 1st. For more information see below.

Cheers,
Josh Martin



ULV Summer Training Camp / Tournament 2011


Training:
The goal of our training is to provide as individualized of an experience to each debater as possible. Our trainers have worked with all levels of debaters, from coaching World Finalists and National Champions, to teaching new students who have never even seen a debate before. We will be covering virtually every aspect of debate, including basic format, advanced strategy, manner, research techniques, case construction, and argumentation theory. With a strong emphasis on drilling and participation to put this material into practice, participants are sure to come out as much more complete debaters ready to excel in competition.

Main Trainers:

Ian Lising:
6 years as Chair of World Council
6 time World Grand Final Adjudicator
10 time Oxford International IV Final Adjudicator

Justin Jones Rodriguez:
2000 World Grand Finalist
Oxford & Cambridge IVs Finalist
2001 Worlds Breaking Judge

Josh Martin:
Worlds Breaking Judge: Cork ’09, Koc ’10, Bots ‘11
Oxford & Cambridge IVs Breaking Judge
Top Judge 2009 US National Championships
2007 US National Champion
Individuals Tournament:
The tournament will consist of 5 preliminary rounds, breaking either to semis or finals. This BP formatted tournament is designed to accompany the training and highlight the chance to be exposed to different schools of thought and approaches to debate, as debaters will be changing partners every round. Partners for the first round will be randomly assigned, and for every subsequent round power matching will be done based on team points and then within each room, partners will be reallocated based on speaker points. The highest two speakers will be paired together, then 3rd and 4th, etc. giving everyone the chance to work with individuals from different institutions, around their same skill and experience level, throughout the tournament. At the University of La Verne we have had the tradition of running a tournament in this format every year, and it has always been hugely successful.

Socials:
We have a team at La Verne that is almost as (or maybe more) committed to having a good time as they are to debate. Add to that our being located in the middle of Southern California and you have the chance to take part in virtually any kind of social you can think of. We will be letting the participants choose what the socials can be, ranging from beach trips, clubbing, cultural downtown Los Angeles, or anything else you can suggest.

Schedule:
July 19th : Arrival; Introductions; Beginning of training
July 19th – 21st : 8 hour training days, Social events
July 22nd : 4 Preliminary tournament rounds
July 23rd : 1 preliminary round; Elimination rounds; Departure

Registration:
For any other questions regarding the training or tournament feel free to contact Josh Martin at either jmartin@laverne.edu or 909) 263-1112. Registration should be finalized by July 1st.

DCA nominations now open for ANU Easters 2012

For Easters 2012, ANU would like to attract the best adjudication talent out there. Accordingly, we are having an open nomination process for Deputy Chief Adjudicators ('DCAs'). Nominations are open now, and will close on 30 May 2011.

Please go to: http://anueasters.com/adjudication for an online nomination form, and either nominate yourself or someone who you think would do an amazing job. You should receive a confirmation email shortly after submitting your online nomination. If this does not happen, please contact me.

Please remember that we are not necessarily looking for the best debaters - we are looking for great ADJUDICATORS: people who will set good topics, assess debates fairly, and provide teams with outstanding feedback. As such, we really encourage everyone to apply or to nominate a person who fits the bill.

Nominations will remain confidential. After the Easters 2012 Committee has reviewed the nominations we will announce the successful DCAs.

We really look forward to receiving your nominations.

Please do not hesitate to contact me at claudia.newman.martin@... if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

Best wishes
Claudia Newman-Martin
Chief Adjudicator of ANU Easters 2012

5 May 2011

New website resource debateable.org

Samuel Myat San has created a new website featuring debate skills and techniques mainly focused on Schools but with useful elements for all debaters.
You can find the site at http://www.debateable.org/

3 May 2011

Registration is open for the 3rd WODC‏

We are proud to announce that registration is open for the 3rd World Online Debating Championships. Thirty two teams from all over the world will compete in a knockout tournament, debating anything from pre-nuptial agreements, through European tax law, all the way to denying heavy drinkers liver transplants.

Last year (in front of an all-star judging pool) the Czech Republic beat New Zealand in the final. Could your team beat the reigning world champions? Can you impress this year’s top adjudicators? You can team up with anyone: people from the Internet; your school, university or local community; or, for the hard-core, you can compete by yourself.

This year we’ve upgraded our system, tweaked the rules and improved the prizes. We’re expecting all 32 places to be filled by exceptional teams and you could be one of them, with a chance to win the coveted WODC 2011 trophy!

The tournament starts in July and the winners can expect to be involved every two weeks from then until the end of September. This makes it a very tough competition and whoever ends up victorious can take great pride in their achievement.

Entry is $20 per person and capped at $100 per team, though bursaries are available to all deserving applicants.

More information can be found on our site, you can register there too: http://debatewise.org/wodc

We are really looking forward to what will be an exceptional tournament and we hope you can join us.

Nigerian Nationals Universities Debating Championships

Debate and Development Resource Center, Nigeria, the coordinator of Nigerian Debate Movement and University of Calabar are proud to organize Nigeria Universities Debating Championship (The Nigerian Nationals-2011) to be held in University of Calabar, on August 13-19, 2011.


This year edition promises to bring together top debate teams and student public speakers from across the country and other West African neighbors like Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Gambia and offer them all a unique chance to interact with each other and engage in fun and high intensity student tournament. This will also be a wonderful opportunity for all the teams to experience the new styles of international debating and explore the peaceful city of Calabar. We therefore invite university students to apply for this week -long debating hall of fame talent hunt.

We have been seeing private and profit oriented organizations in Nigeria hosting project fame and reality shows e.t.c and all of these programs are geared towards entertainment. None are academic in nature and also contributing to the development of leadership skills among young people . Here is our own version of Nigerian Debate to Fame reality show! This program is designed for emerging leaders in all human endeavors.

The event would also bring top international trainers and adjudicators from Botswana, US and UK.

For more information, please log on to http://debatenigeria.org/?p=196  

Jerry Nwigwe
Director- Debate Nigeria