Having been openly trans for a while, at the beginning of this year I abandoned my old name and started dressing more unambiguously femininely. When I went to debating competitions it was obvious that there were some practical things that needed to do be done to make debating an enjoyable experience for transgender people. In particular, I argued that the debating circuit should implement pronoun introductions at the start of debates. Since then I’ve been really pleased with the UK debating circuit’s openness to pronoun introductions, and numerous competitions have used them successfully. For reference, I use the words trans and ...

The Erasmus Debating Society (EDS) of Rotterdam hosted a public debate on the question: “Should we always put ecology before economic growth?” on the 14th of May, a week before the Netherlands will go to the voting booths for the European Parliament elections. Partij van de Arbeid (Labour) candidate for the European Parliament Gerard Oosterwijk and EDS member Sezen de Bruijn presented the proposition case, while the d’66 (Liberal) candidate Paul Breitbarth and EDS member Daniel Fayoyin argued for the opposition side. The newly built Paviljoen Theatre on the Erasmus campus was filled with 52 enthusiastic audience members. Marike ...

The Berlin IV – European Debates Conference 2014 has its winners: Emilia Carlqvist and Peer Klüßendorf from Lund Debate Society won the final in a three-to-two split decision. Peer and Emilia debated in Opening Government as the team "Dixendorf". The motion of the final read: "This House believes that the EU should force member states to adopt socially progressive legislation (e. g. same-sex marriage, abortion rights, ethnic and religious minority rights)." [caption id="attachment_22737" align="alignright" width="400"] Participants during the public debate on Friday (c) Matthias Carcasona[/caption] "REC Truth Department", another team from Sweden consisting of Olivia Sundberg and Martin Devenney, spoke in Closing ...

Update: Registration is open until April 19th, 4 am. The registration form can be found here. The organisation committee (Org-Com) of the World Universities Debating Championships 2015 in Malaysia announced that the Registration for Malaysia Words (WUDC or Worlds) will open on Wednesday April 16th 2014 at 10am (UTC/GMT + 8, which is 4am CET). The following e-mail was sent: “To the global debating community, Malaysia Worlds 2015 will officially open registration on 16 April 2014 (Wednesday) at 10am (UTC/GMT +8). Overview The Malaysia Worlds 2015 team is happy to affirm (as was promised at Chennai Worlds 2014) that our tournament team cap will be expanded to 440 teams in total. ...

Under the impression of experiences at Vienna IV, professor of rhetoric and debating coach Steve Llano advocates for an "ethical adjudication". This article was first published on his blog, Progymnasmata. The Vienna IV seems like a competition that time forgot. It's a competition that reaches back to European debate the way it was long before I got involved in it, to a time when the more weird or inside-joke funny the motion was, the better the tournament. These are examples of motions and procedures that operated debate societies before the current trend of making competitions tied at least somewhat to the ...

On the 19th of April 2014, the society "Aberdeen University Debater" will host the "Debater: University of Aberdeen Open". The one-day tournament in the Scottish city of Aberdeen features 4 preliminary rounds and a direct break to the finale and will be CAed by Joe Dyer and Heather Whiteside. The organisers promise that the registration fee will be 20 pounds or less. It includes food, accomodation, and a social. Registration is possible until the 17th of April via this registration link or by emailing Finia Kuhlmann, who is from Hanover, at finia.kuhlmann@googlemail.com. Those who have any further questions or are interested in ...

The Organisation Committee of Zagreb EUDC 2014 has now announced the tab team of the tournament: It consists of Bob Nimmo, Richard Coates and Calum Wor. On the EUDC 2014 website, the members of the team are introduced as follows: "Bob Nimmo - Bob has worked on the tab teams of a huge number of competitions over the last decade, including assistant tab director of EUDC 2004, tab director of EUDC 2008, 2009 and 2012, tab director of WUDC 2009 and 2012. In addition, he has tabbed over 80 University and Schools level tournaments throughout the UK and Ireland. He has competed ...

The Debattierklub Wien (DK Wien) has opened an online nomination process for Deputy Chief Adjudicators (DCAs) for the European University Debating Championship (EUDC) 2015 in Vienna. From now on, every debater can nominate somebody he deems suitable to be part of the Chief Adjudicator team for the EUDC using this online form. However, as the Chief Adjudicators Christine Simpson and Michael Shapira emphasise, a nomination neither is necessary nor sufficient to be selected as DCA. The nomination process serves the only purpose of calling attention to apt candidates who do not apply on their own. The actual application process starts on ...

A VDCH*-team was the winner of the Manchester IV 2014: Lukas Thiel and Moritz Justen of Tilbury House Debating Society won the tournament in the category English as a Second Language (ESL). After four preliminary rounds, the team from Cologne was pitted against teams from Glasgow, Lund, and Dalarna in the position of Closing Opposition. The motion of the ESL-final was "This House would support a strict disciplinarian educational system, as long as it makes students perform better". The team from Dalarna, Sweden, consisting of Siri Nylund and Alva Winsa, also participated in and won the Novice final against teams from ...

[caption id="attachment_21882" align="alignright" width="379"] Jonas Huggins (l.) and Nikos Bosse (c) private[/caption] The editorial board of the Achte Minute is complete again. The publishers of the online-magazine, the Association of German Speaking University Debating Societies (VDCH) and the German Debating Society (DDG), have filled two posts: Taking effect immediately, Jonas Huggins (Berlin Debating Union e.V.) is Editor-in-chief; Assistant Editor-in-chief is Nikos Bosse (Streitkultur e.V. Tübingen). This has been announced by Florian Umscheid, President of VDCH, in a mail to all member clubs. For the first time since 2006 the editorial board now comprises of three persons. Together with Editor-in-chief Sarah Kempf, Jonas ...

Achte Minute features today an article by Tuqa Khalid on Debating in the United Arab Emirates. After Ary Ferreira da Cunha's article about the "(Hi)story of Debate in Portugal", this is the second time that an international debater reports on debating in a different country. First and foremost: What is the UAE, you might ask? Well, you probably have heard of Dubai – it has the world’s largest shopping mall, the world’s tallest tower, and recently won the 2020 Expo bid. It is one of the seven cities of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). [caption id="attachment_21844" align="alignright" width="400"] A debate at ...

British Parliamentary Style in the German capital: From 11th to 13th April 2011 this year’s Berlin IV will be held. Chief adjudicators (CA) are Sally Rooney (EUDC 2013 Top-Speaker and Finalist, CA Moscow Open and UKDC 2013), Tomas Beerthuis (Deputy Chief Adjudicator of Zagreb EUDC) and Kai Dittmann (WUDC 2014 ESL-Champion). Registration will open on Febuary 1st, 6:00 pm. Reg fee will be 35 € per person. As Convener Alexander Hans states, the teamcap of 40 can be expanded if demand is high. Institution cap is 3 teams. The contact information if you have any questions is alexander.hans.mail@gmail.com.  As a special, Alex ...

On the website of DKWien, host of the European Universities Debating Championships 2015, convenor Stefan Zweiker has published a contemplation of the past year. In his article "2013 Retrospect – The Starting Position for 2014", he points out what DKWien has done in the past few months to organise a successful tournament. Already in the beginning he underlines that the text was written before Chennai Worlds 2014 and therefore cannot be seen as a reaction to the problems that occured there. Achte Minute publishes extracts from Stefan's article. The entire text can be read on the website of Vienna EUDC  2015. "What ...

The Org Com of Zagreb EUDC 2014 has announced the date for the registration and the registration policy. On their website they say: "Dear European Debating Community,Registration for all institutions that wish to participate in Zagreb EUDC 2014 will open on Sunday, March the 2nd, at 12:00 CET (Central European time). That is 11:00 London/Dublin/Lisbon, 12:00Belgrade/Paris/Amsterdam/Berlin, 13:00 Athens/Ankara/Tallinn and 14:00Moscow/Doha time. Registration policy Registration will stay opened for 24 hours. Every institution will be able to register a maximum of 3 teams. We will be following the registration policy set up by Manchester EUDC and similar to one used at WUDC. All registered ...

This letter has been written by Dessislava Kirova, Deputy Chief Adjudicator for the South Africa bid, WUDC ESL finalist and DCA of Manchester Euros. Dear Debaters of Germany, Thank you very much for the opportunity to directly address you on behalf of the South Africa WUDC 2016 Bid. We have published our extensive and detailed Bid Document for all to read and check after the aspects that are most important for them . In this brief article we would like to take the opportunity and talk about the aspects of inclusiveness and development that are at the heart of both the OrgComm and ...

On January 1st, the members of the Worlds Universities Debating Council will make many decisions – but the most important one is certainly determining the host of the worlds debating championship 2016. Two cities are bidding to host the most prestigious debating tournament in the world: Thessaloniki and Johannesburg. To make the comparison easier for the delegates, the conveners have agreed to fill out a comparative list where the core facts can be assessed and that the country delegation can form an opinion. For everyone who’s interested: Here is the link to the document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TZQYznLelA-DWSp8aTD9F3IhYaLDj4u1gTt8bLqIeLU/edit?usp=sharing Marcus Ewald/ ak

In March 2008, I sat with a few friends at the University of Porto, Faculty of Law, and we decided to create “the debate society”. That made some sense at the time since we felt like we were completely alone: there was no other debate society in Portugal, international tournaments sounded like something completely out of reach, and we didn’t know any other debaters. Many didn’t even know what debate was: professors and students were afraid we would be a façade for some political party and the idea that debate could have a place outside partisan politics sounded weird to ...

Are you ready? Because this February Leiden Debating Union is bringing you the biggest Dutch tournament since Amsterdam EUDC 2010. Leiden Debating Union was founded in 2004, so this will be their tenth year anniversary. To celebrate that with you, they bring you an English-spoken BP-tournament with five preliminary rounds, seven-minute speeches and break to semis and novice final. Registration is open. Details: Team cap: 68 teams, institutional team cap is five. Reg fee: €30 euro per speaker, judges free. (judge funding possibilities are available) N-1 will apply only for domestic institutions CA Team: CA: Leela Koenig, honorary life member of LDU, her list of speaking and judging ...

One of the biggest IVs on the UK debating circuit is back:  The Manchester Debating Union invites you to Manchester on the 22nd and 23rd of February 2014.  There will be four rounds of seven minute speeches, an open break to quarters, an ESL break to semis and a novice break to finals.  Registration is now open. CA team:  Michael Barton - Top breaking team and 2nd on speaker tab at Manchester EUDC 2013, Winner and Top Speaker at UCD IV 2013 and Multiple IV finalist Emilia Carlqvist, ESL Champion of Manchester Euros 2013, Winner of the Jacobs Open 2013 Imogen Parkes - Worlds & Euros Quarter Finalist, ...

When on Saturday a teaser video poped up in Facebook, promising that a "debate related event will take place in 2016" accompany by Syrtaki music, rumours araised that Greece will bid for World Universities Debating Championship 2016. The Debating Society of Greece and the Open Communication Debating Network then proudly presented the University of Macedonia bid for WUDC 2016 at the Cambridge IV. The Championship are to be held 27 December 2015 - 4 January 2016 in Thessaloniki, Greece. The host city of Thessaloniki has been a metropolis of international standing since the Roman times, being an important trade ...

Unless you were exiled to some sort of cave of Debateland, if you’re an European novice debater you probably heard about the Vienna Freshers’ that happened last week. True to the motto “Take off to your debating life” 32 teams from 9 countries were introduced to the debate tournament atmosphere, departing from Vienna, to… well, anywhere you want, or so I’ve heard. I’m looking forward to finding out how far the debating life can take someone. Friday afternoon we gathered at the WU campus, mentally thanking the one who came up with the great idea of getting free energy drinks for ...

The International Debate Academy Slovenia (IDAS) will be held from November 23rd to December 1st. You can attend the instructional week and the British Parliamentary debate tournament. The weeks consists of a full program for trainers, teachers, coaches, club leaders, judges at any level in any debate format. If not interested in the whole programme, you may apply for the tournament only. The application deadline is the 30th of October. The whole event costs 340 euros, the tournament-only option 80 euros. Facilities As displayed by the picture above, participants will be accommodated in Hotel Špik, in the impressive ambient of Kranjska Gora. Results IDAS is mainly ...

Shafiq Bazari and Jonathan Leader Maynard (Chief Adjudicators, Malaysia Worlds 2015)  are pleased to inform the World Debating Community that applications for the positions of Deputy Chief Adjudicator (DCA) at Malaysia Worlds 2015 is now open. The submission Deadline is 31st October 2013. They hope to select the DCAs from a large pool of applications, and therefore strongly encourage applications from all who believe they would be able to fill the role of a Worlds DCA with excellence. In general, candidates should: Be able to commit to being at the tournament, and to travel to Malaysia shortly before its formal start date. Have excellent ...

The registration for Moscow Open 2013 is now open!  The Org Com says that the will provide food, crash and alcohol (“pretty decent socials sponsored by our business consulting friends") . Additionally they will help with the visa: “So just put on a big fur coat, google Navalny and practice your vodka drinking. Russia can't wait to have you!” Details: 5 rounds, break to semifinals There is no registration fee for international teams & judges. Please note that n-1 rule applies to Moscow teams. Deadline for registration is November 11. CA - Sally Rooney (EUDC 2013 Top Speaker, EUDC 2013 Finalist, EUDC 2012 Semi-finalist, winner of the International Mace and ...

The World Universities Debating Championship 2014 will take place in Chennai, India. The tournament starts on december 26th and lasts until january 3rd. It will be hosted by Rajalakshmi Institutions, a the group of educational institutes founded in 1997. This group of institutes provide higher education and school level educations to students in and around India. It is one of the top and largest educational institutions in India. Each year the event is hosted by a different university, selected by the World Universities Debating Council at the World Championship taking place. This follows a bidding process conducted at the World Championships ...

Between September 8 and 11 2013 BGU carried out the Red Sea Open for the fourth time. Convened by Mor Zoran and Noa Golan hyper-funded by the Ben Gurion University the rounds took place on the Eilat Campus of BGU. 32 teams, an outstanding Chief Adjudication team and an all round board combined an intimate debate atmosphere with a party holiday mood.  And the debate community has a new contender that wants to host EUDC 2016. Eilat, a rather Unconventional Debate Scenery From around a dozen tournaments yearly generated on the Israeli circuit the Red Sea Open is the only one truly ...

This years SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) IV will be held from october 19th to october 20th. The organiser promise a "veritable "fun fest" of five competitive rounds, of 7 minute speeches, breaking to quarters and esl quarters, with excellent feedback guaranteed and two fantastic socials. We are expecting more than 100 teams." Adjudication team: CA: Amanda Moorghen (Euros Final judge, WUDC Quarter Finalist) DCA Elise Trewick (Euros Semi-Finalist) DCA: Andrea Bos (Euros Quarter Finalist) The event takes place at SOAS Vernon Square and Russell Square Campus, with the final held in the Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre. Registration is now open. Please follow the ...

On August 23 EUDC Council assembled in Manchester. Amongst other things the decisions on who will host Euros in 2014 and 2015 were made, with bids by Durham and Zagreb for EUDC 2014 and a bid by Vienna for EUDC 2015. Zagreb took the win over Durham and will host Euros next year. Vienna’s bid was confirmed, which makes them the hosts for Euros the year after next. Teresa Widlok was present in Council in her capacity as International Officer of the Association of German Speaking University Debating Societies and German delegate to Council. The following article describes her impressions ...

After Florian Umscheid has run the Achte Minute along with Annette Kirste since January 2013, he will assume a new task now: The representatives of german-speaking debating clubs elected him the president of VDCH (Verband der Debattierclubs an Hochschulen), the umbrella organisation of over 70 mostly German and Austrian debating clubs at universities. Along with Annette, Sarah Kempf will now run the Achte Minute as editor-in-chief. She has been Chief Convenor of the German Universities Debating Championship 2009 and the Gutenberg-Cup 2009 and 2010. Since 2010, she reports on local affairs and culture for the daily newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung in Mainz. ...

The 4th UCU Open will be held in Utrecht, Netherlands on the 29th and 30th of November 2013. The registration for the BPS tournament will open on the 1st of September, the fee is 30€ per participant, judges are free (N-1 rule applies). There will be 5 preliminary rounds with a break to semi finals. Sam Block will serve as CA (DCAs: TBA) For more information visit the Facebook group or the homepage Franziska Städter/ak