The general assembly of VDCH (Verband der Debattierclubs an Hochschulen), the umbrella organisation of over 70 german-speaking debating clubs at universities, has elected a new executive board on August 31. Florian Umscheid (Berlin/Bamberg) was elected president by the representatives; vice presidents are Tobias Kube (Marburg), Jennifer Holm (Heidelberg) and Alexander Labinsky (Dresden).   The Achte Minute congratulates the new board and wishes them best of success for their term of office! kem

Tobias Kube was awarded for being the most promising debater new on the German language deating circuit at the German Language Debating Championship in Vienna in June this year. Deutsche Debattiergesellschaft, the alumni debating society of Germany, grants this award every year to one of the up-and-coming debaters. Read here the interview of a first year who will soon be debating with and against old stagers at the Masters’ Cup in Eisenach. Read the complete interview in German.

Executive board in Marburg elected: Tobias Kube is the old and new president of the Brüder Grimm Debattierclub Marburg. He is joined by Ruben Brandhofer, Tobias Kappey and Benedikt Kunz from hisold team. New on the board is Sabrina Göpel who follows Hannah Söffing. Good luck! apf

Tobias Kube from Marburg was awarded best junior speaker at this year's German language debating championship (Meisterschaft im deutschsprachigen Debattieren or MDD) in Vienna. This award is a cup engraved with the names of all former laureates. It is assigned by the German alumni debating society DDG (short for Deutsche Debattiergesellschaft) since 2004. Please learn more about DDG's committment in the MDD in the German version of this article. apf

Heidelberg Debating A (Sven Hirschfeld, Daniel Sommer and Franzi Kriegelstein) won the final of the renown Streitkultur Cup 2011 in Tübingen. They defeated Streitkultur Pheme from Tübingen (Peter Croonenbroeck, Anne Suffel and Jonathan Spanos).Free speakers were Philipp Stiel, Lukas Windhager and Dominic Hildebrand. The final was judged by Vanessa Schilling, Tobias Kube, Oliver Hörtensteiner, Sarah Kempf and Leo Vogel. Mario Dießner functioned as president of the final debate. The audience chose Peter Croonenbroeck as best speaker of the final who was awarded with a traditional cactus. [caption id="attachment_11479" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The winners of the Streitkultur Cup 2011: Sven Hirschfeld, Franzi Kriegelstein ...