In early February, Andreas Lazar (Debattierclub Stuttgart) shed some light on international debating for those interested of Debattierclub Aachen (DCA). Earlier this year, Andreas was top speaker at Worlds in Botswana in the category “English as a Foreign Language” (EFL) and made it to semis together with his team mate Michael Saliba. In the two-day workshop, the focus was on the basics of the internationally wide-spread format of British Parliamentary Style (BPS). Andreas told the 30 debaters from Aachen about tools to find, order and present arguments.

Andreas was supported by Dutch debaters from Amsterdam University College: Roelant Stegmann, Louis Klamroth, Tein de Vries and Monique Spijkers. Marc-André Schulz, president of DCA, is still deligted: “We’re quite a young deb soc and were shown great external competence. Especially those with a little experience among us found that an outstanding occasion to benefit from these experienced debaters that we can’t provide so far.” He is also very grateful to Thomas Netz who organized the workshop. Marc-André revealed to Achte Minute that DCA is planning to participate at this year’s Athens Open in the Greek capital.

During the workshop, participants had the chance to debate in two training debates and three prelims and a final in a mini tournament. All motions of the weekend:

• Round 1 training debate: This house would ban wikileaks.
• Round 2 training debate: The coaches picked motions with their respective groups.
• Round 1 mini tournament: This house would allow assisted suicide.
• Round 2 mini tournament: This house believes the time has come for a homosexual Disney hero.
• Round 3 mini tournament: This house would introduce a quota for women in boardrooms of publicly traded companies.
• Final mini tournament: This house would close down prisons.

The Debattierclub Aachen covers the workshop on their homepage as well as the Dutch debating society AUC Dicta.

apf / glx