The University Place – the main debating venue

Since sunday 214 teams from Europe , 19 of which are from VDCH- Clubs, are competing in the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC). The Manchester Debating Unions is hosting the biggest event in the european debating circuit this year at the University of Manchester. Here are some insights into the tournament, the debates and how the German teams did.

The locations
The teams live in cosy small apartments with single and double bed rooms around the campus. The distance to the debate rooms is very short – it takes teams 5-10minutes. The tournament is generally well organised with lots of volunteers everywhere that guide you to the rooms. Unfortunatly there is  free wifi only in the debating venues that are only accessible during the day. Institutions and countries are allocated in roughly the same area.

The atmosphere
The Org Com puts lots of effort on making the tournament as pleasant as possible. On the help desk, participants get not only information but also condoms, lube and dental dams. They use extensivly electronic devices in order to keep track of how the debates are running. Feedback on Adjudicators, Wings and Chairs can be handed in online. Org Com posted pictures of day 1  and day 2 on Facebook. They also showed a comey video yesterday that can be found here.

Food @Manchester University

The food
On behalf of food one can say that it is British, but not too British: All dorms had cereals and milk in the fridge that serves as breakfast. For lunch there is a wide range of choices from the cafeteria (Pizza, Burger, Salad, Jacket Potatoes and choices of vegetarian und meat meals). Dinner is then served where the social takes place afterwards: Jabez Clegg Beerhall. Since there is only one counter for each vegetarian and meat, the queue became quiet long in the last two days.

On the Motions
R1: THW ban video games in which the player engages in brutal and inmoral violence in a realistic setting.
R2: THW require international development aid budgets to be approved by popular referenda.
R3: TH as the Muslim Brotherhood would sincerely offer to cease resistance, participate in elections and respect a liberal constitution.
R4: THW allow goverment agencies to conduct automated surveillance without court authorisation.
R5: THB that Israel should allow members of the Jewish Diaspora to vote in its election.
R 6: TH applauds the rise of songs by female pop artists that glorify assertive female sexuality. (plus short songtext)
R7: THBT it is in China’s strat. int. to cease all non-humanitarian assistance to North Korea until it ends its nuclear programme.*
R8: THB that Barack Obama should not have granted legal immunity to officials who ordered the use of torture.* (+infoslide)
R9: THW provide welfare in the form of basic goods and services rather than cash payments.

The German delegations

On the VDCH teams
Todays rounds (7-9) are all closed, here is an overview of how the teams from Germany, Austria and Italy are doing so far (after round 6):

BDU A (N. Schröter/Blume): 12
Vienna A (Jäger/ Zweiker): 11
RWTH Aachen (Schulz/ Brandhofer): 10
Tilbury B (Böhne/ Justen): 10
Vienna B (Stottmeyer/ Etzel): 10
Tilbury A (Haffert/ Münstermann): 10
Stuttgart A (Haneklaus/Lazar): 9
Tübingen (Gütschow/ Bosse): 9
Karlsruhe (Vogel/ Zimpelmann): 9
Freiburg (Limperg/ Keiner): 8
BDU C (Kirste/ De Causemaker) : 8
Vienna C (Prischl/ Sindelar): 8
München A (Witzmann/ Jachtchenko): 8
Stuttgart B (Hein/ Beismann): 8
Münster A (Widlok/ Röpke): 8
München B (Siegel/ Scharle): 7
Kiel (Abagela/ Markovic): 6
Bozen (Friedrich/ Erber): 5
BDU B (F. Schröter/ Wischalla): 3

Annette Kirste