Thanks to Colm Flynn, we receiced the following information: "While details are a little limited at this early stage a group of Chinese universities have come together to bid to host the 2016 World Universities Debating Championships. The Beijing University Debate Association are the host organisation and the championships would be held in Tsinghua University.  They are supported by: Beijing Foreign Studies University Beijing Language and Culture University China Agricultural University Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics China University of Petroleum - Beijing Convenor of the tournament would be former BUDA President Chanel Chan Choyi. Beijing are the first to announce their intention to bid for WUDC 2016 and there may ...

The Lund Debate Society invites all debaters to the Lund IV 2013. As a perfect preparation for Chennai Worlds, they will provide you with a great CA team, 5 rounds, 7 minutes speeches, break to Quarterfinals, Novice Finals, Swedish sittning and fika and a tour of Lund and Copenhagen, if you like! After the Finals on Saturday evening, there will a traditional Sittning dinner which is a three course gourmet dinner, with dancing and booze! Team cap: 40 teams (n-1 rule for adjudicators) Co-CA: Pam Cohn (Worlds 2012 Best Speaker), Harish Natarajan (Chief Adjudicator of Chennai Worlds 2014) Crash can be provided with ...

The Org Com of the Red Sea Open 2013 has opend the registration for the tournament. The fourth installment of this tournament comes with "Alcohol that flows like a river, Sun that leaves you slightly toasted, An amazing adjudication team, and Debaters from all over the world" and will, according to sources, offer "5 days of Pure Enjoyment!". Teams and judges can register here for the tournament that will will be held in Eilat, Israel from September 9th-September - 12th 2013. Michael Shapira will serve as CA, Harish Natatajan, Pam Cohn and Monica Forman are going to be his DCAs. For more information like the Facebook-Event. fpu/ ak

DKWien invites all newcomers to debating to its novice* tournament in Vienna from 8th - 9th November 2013. The organizers state: "Are you new to debating? Can you feel the urge to take the bird off the runway and kiss the sky? Take some flying lessons and spread your wings at the second edition of Vienna Freshers'! This tourney will get start your debating life in a nice and circumspect way."   Chief adjudicators (CA) a.k.a Chief Aviators: Senna Maatoug and Melanie Sindelar Format: British Parliamentary Style (BPS), English language, 5 min speeches, extra long prep-time 25 min Reg fee: 25 € per person Team cap: 24 N-1 ...

The UTU Debating Club announced the Turku Open, that will take place in Finland from 25th to 27th October 2013. 5 Preliminary Rounds with Break to the Semi-Finals Chief Adjudicator: Manos Moschopoulos Team Cap: 32 teams (no limitation to the number of teams each institution can send) First come-first serve criteria n-1 rule apply Registration Fee is 50€/debater with accommodation and 35€/debater without Registration Fee is 40€/adjudicator with accommodation and 25€/adjudicator without. Registration Deadline: 30th of September or when the Team Cap is reached The organizers give three reasons, why debaters should come: " Because you love debate and we promise you amazing motions, a well-known CA, great judges and ...

The Debattierklub Wien announced another tournement. Achte Minute copy-pasted  the invitation.  You expect those Vienna People to come up with something really big and massive, when they announce a summer tournament and all what you get is something called 'Mini'? Like, seriously? My dear friend, life should have taught you that size is not all that matters. Sometimes the pleasure sprouts from the tiny things, just look what Vienna Mini does for you: If you've been focussing too much on your exams recently, Vienna Mini cleans off the rust from your debating skills. If debating is your staff of life,these four rounds ...

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="400"] ( Photo by Anne Valkering)[/caption] Achte Minute reported about the Debate Changing Europe programm. Now the winners and organisers of the six tournemantes, including ZEIT Debatte Aaachen and Vienna IVs went on a trip to Maastricht and Brussels. Anne Valkering went with them.  Thirty students from several European countries convened in Maastricht under the banner of Debate changing Europe from June 2 to 6. The Common European Event aimed to increase their understanding of the inner workings of the European Union. They met up with people working on the ground in Brussels and discussed the topic of youth employment and how ...

DAPDI is an international training week for debaters from all over the globe. The world’s finest debaters and trainers (most commonly represented in the same person) from Oxford university come to Rotterdam to teach eager debaters the skills that are necessary to become debating champions. The last two days of DAPDI consist of a tournament, organized and judged by these tutors. The registration for DAPDI 2013 is now open. More Information can be found on there website. When? The date for DAPDI this year is from the 5th until the 9th of August. Therefore it is one of the last opportunities to train for the European ...

The Leiden IV 2013, from the 22nd to the 23rd of March brought together 53 teams (including teams from DK Wien, Berlin Debating Union and Tilbury House), competing against one another in a pleasant atmosphere, which can be attributed to the formidable organizational effort of the convenors, as well as the social and open-minded attitude of the mostly Dutch contestants. The location of Leiden certainly also played a part though. It can justly be described as an idyllic small university town, perpetuating Dutch stereotypes, concerning their generally friendly and tolerant attitude and a heavy, widespread use of bicycles. The tournament consisted of ...

DKWien, the Viennese debating societey, announced their intention to set up a bid for the ‘craziest WUDC 2016 ever’ on 1st April 2013, apparently because the K in DKWien stands for “krazy”. Exact details have not been released yet, but according to verified sources the bid is dead set ridgy didgy sure. The organising team claims they are sure they will be able to supply 500 teams and an equal number of  judges with so much Red Bull over 8 days that participants at Vienna WUDC could easily do twice as many rounds as at a normal WUDC. Yet, this ...

The Debating Society of the School of African and Oriental Studies in London has anounced the SOAS Open 2013 which will take place on August 3rd. Just two weeks prior to Manchester Euros four rounds with a berak to a Final will be offerd for a Reg-Fee of £35 per person.  Rebecca Meredith is the CA, Ben Adams and James Wood have been anounced as DCAs. You can check the Facebook-Event for updates. fpu

Human rights and peaceful conflict resolution, that´s what the Kyiv Open is all about. The OrgCom promises: „The participants will be offered exhibitions, master-classes, discussions and interactive workshops on the general subject area of the event. As usually practised during the last years, there will be invited the representatives of the UN and Human Rights NGOs to hold introductory lectures and share info-slides on the problematic area of the tournament.“ The 5th Kiyv Open take place  3rd-5th may. Judges don´t have to pay a reg fee. If you have any questions you can contact the OrgCom (KyivOpen@gmail.com) or check out the Facebook Group. Date: ...

[caption id="attachment_15088" align="alignleft" width="280"] Patrick Ehmann (Photo: Henrik Mädler)[/caption] Achte Minute was able to catch up with Patrick Ehmann, convener of the WUDC Berlin 2013, to talk about the challenges faced in hosting WUDC Berlin 2013, the legacy of the tournament, the general perspective of world debating and his personal evaluation. Achte Minute: Patrick, now that two months have passed after the WUDC Berlin 2013, how do you feel? Patrick Ehmann: Well, immediately after the tournament I wanted to have nothing to do with the WUDC Berlin 2013 ever again. I was physically and emotionally drained. Now, from a distance I can see ...

Teresa Widlok participated for the second time in the Budapest Open and would like to see more German Teams there the next time. Read her report, that will hopefully create a desire to go there. Whoever said that sequels are always worse than the original was obviously wrong! The second edition of the BP Open, held in Budapest from 1st to 4th March 2013, was an outstandingly well organized tournament which in many ways even superseded its predecessor. You can spot a very comfortable feature about the BP Open right when you look at the timetable: the tournament starts at a Friday with only ...

Last weekend the Glasgow Ancients Final took place. A sexist incident happened where an all female team was discriminated against at the finals in which male Glasgow debaters in the audience were involved. Below, you can read the conversation and the moral outrages that evolved around this incident and were published mainly in social media channels. We, the Achte Minute, feel committed to offer you an overview of the published comments and posts from facebook, twitter and the Internet. We did not redact any of the material. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any updates, requests or further information. We will update this article ...

Over the weekend I have been up north, where I heared about a famous debater who could only surpass the fromidable beginning of his speech by his closing remarks. This modus vivendi holds true for the ZEIT DEBATTE Hamburg as well - a tournament which raised a lot of expectations, fullfilled them all and even went far beyond what was expected. This review has not been published in English. Please read more on this in the German version of this article.

Registration for the annual tournament Jacobs Open 2013 in Bremen in Germany is now open. The 2013 tournament is taking place from 26th of April 7 pm till the 28th of April at 3pm on the campus of Jacobs University Bremen with CAs Niels Schroeter (Berlin Debating Union), last year's EUDC ESL-final finalist, and Tomas Beerthuis, last year finalist of the Jacobs Open. By the way: the final of last year's tournament was staffed exclusively from teams from the Netherlands - so may be a good reason for German teams to apply? Registration on a first-come first-serve basis is now open, ...

It took until after midnight that the WUDC 2013 break coul be announced in Berlin. The CA-team took its time to sort out which 100 (!) judges broke into the break knockout rounds. Especially, they had to handel the new 48-team break for the first time which lets 16 teams break into octo-finals directly and sends 32 more teams into mock-octos (read here what that is). In the following we provide you the breaks and tab positions at WUDC 2012 after the nine preliminary rounds. Note that due to the WUDC constitution, unlike as at Euros, there is no double break. ...

This morning, WUDC starting with round 1 - a tiny wee little bit late due to missing teams, but with goose bumbs on our arms when the first motion was announced (which read "Round 1: This house would create public housing for the poor in wealthy areas." - see our Facebook page for all three motions of today.) On twitter, you could also feel the emotions: Due to a delay of more than an hour, some debaters poured out their emotions on twitter, while other defended the tab team for doing a great job in a 100 rooms tournament. We then ...

For the World Universities Debating Championship in Berlin 2013 intercultural affairs plays an important role in ensuring a smooth tournament. There are lots of intercultural bricks to drop: by using inappropriate phrases, serving inadequate dishes or just simply ignoring cultural differences in the daily interaction with participants. The intercultural affairs team headed by Sarah Jaglitz and Tina Reimann works on making the stay for 400 teams from all around the globe as comfortable as possible. Tina studied intercultural communication at the University of Halle where she was a member of Klartext Debating. Today she is working in international affairs in China. ...

First German Ironmans' break: Andreas C. Lazar (8 Punkte) Willy Witthaut Leonid Vogel und Adrian Gombert (je 7 Punkte). Motions: Vorrunde 1: Dieses Haus glaubt, dass separate sportliche Wettbewerbe für Frauen der feministischen Sache schaden. Vorrunde 2: Dieses Haus würde christliche Missionsschulen in Pakistan einrichten. Vorrunde 3: Dieses Haus würde den Personen- und Güterverkehr durch Beamen verbieten. Vorrunde 4: Dieses Haus will kein deutsches Europa.

There is a time for everything. After more than five years working for and with Achte Minute, we, Gudrun and Tim, are going to retire by the end of the year 2012 from editorial work. Since in September 2007 in Hamburg, the first post of a digital Achte Minute went online the magazine - and a lot has changed. Many - an estimated hundred - freelancers, writers and video journalists, whistleblowers and twitterers, designers and graphic across VDCH country, young people wrote about "old warriors" as well as others have written pieces about "baby vegetables". peer-reviewed each others work and published ...

Igor Gilitschenski, Michael Saliba and Nils Haneklaus from Debattierclub Stuttgart won the final of the first ZEIT DEBATTEN of 2012/2013.  They defeated  Friederike Meyer zu Wendischhoff, Jonathan Scholbach and Severin Weingarten from Debattiergesellschaft Jena. Almut Graebsch, Georg Sommerfeld and Jan Ohmstedt broke to the final as Free speekers. The final was judged by Teresa Widlok, Alexander Labinski, Robert Büchle and the three CAs Philipp Stiel, Wiebke Nadler and Leo Vogel. sol

For the first time Debattierklub Wien set up a tournament for Novices only: Vienna Freshers’ on 10-11 November 2012. The small competition was organised by Madlen Stottmeyer, a novice herself and teams were allowed to participate if the speakers have not been debating longer than one year. four rounds of five minute speeches with 25 minutes of prep-time gave fresh debaters an easy entry into British Parliamentary debating. A large international adjudication core lead by CAs Julia Mikić and Stefan Zweiker ensured that every participant got excellent feedback and could make the most of the tournament. ...

Stuttgart (Nils Haneklaus, Michael Saliba, Igor Gilitschenski), Berlin (Annette Kirste, Georg Sommerfeld, Julian Ohm), Jena (Severin Weingarten, Jonathan Scholbach, Friederike Meyer zu Wendischhoff) and Mainz (Marina Freund, Max Fritz, Willy Witthaut) broke to semis. Severin Weingarten topped the tab. As Free Speakers broke Marc-André Schulz  (Aachen), Gabor Stefan, Almut Graebsch (beide München), Barbara Schunicht (Hamburg), Adrian Gombert (Münster) and Jan Ohmstedt (Heidelberg Debating). As adjudicators broke: Hauke Blume (Berlin Debating Union), Daniil Pakhomenko, Andrea Gau (beide Mainz), Teresa Peters (Leipzig), Marion Seiche (Frankfurt), Alexander Karl Postl (Leipzig), Andreas C. Lazar (Stuttgart), Teresa Widlok (Münster), Robert Büchle (Zürich), Alexander Labinsky (Dresden), Tom-Michael ...

The new ZEIT DEBATTEN series begins! This weekend (November 23 to 25), speakers and judges from all over Germany, Switzerland, Austria and even France flock at Tübingen. Language of the tournament, as in the whole series, is German, the ZEIT DEBATTE Tübingen will be held in Offene Parlamentarische Debatte (open parliamentary debate, OPD). Chief adjudicators are Philipp Stiel (German Champion 2010, Tübingen/Berlin) sowie Wiebke Nadler (Leipzig/Heidelberg) and Leonid Vogel (Karlsruhe). The tournament series ZEIT DEBATTEN is organised by VDCH, the Association of Debating Societies at Universities, in cooperation with the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT and German Telekom as well as with the ...

There is enough to say about SOAS IV 2012 itself. The tournament was outstandingly well organised for a British tournament. That is to say that it would still be considered very badly organised if we were to apply continental European standards. However, there was food and hostel accommodation close to the campus. With 140 teams SOAS IV is one of the largest tournaments on the Island. Because it enjoys a friendlier reputation than Oxford or Cambridge with regards to how it treats participants, about 30 ESL teams traveled to London to debate at SOAS IV. 3 of them were sent ...

Would you like to spend a few days in the warm tropics, a cool sea breeze playing in your hair, the sun high in an immaculately blue sky, as a turquoise sea crashes onto a secluded beach? So would we. Nevertheless, you may also be interested in the 2012 Centrale Paris IV taking place on December 14 and 15. It will be staged at the “picturesque campus” of the École Centrale de Paris – only half an hour by public transport from the centre of Paris. Très centrale! Language of debate is English, the format will be British Parliamentary Style (BPS). ...

This weekend a big experiment started. Seven countries, seven capitals, seven tournaments, one league: The Debating League of Europe.  With the DLE, the European debating circuit could get what the circuit has almost become already anyway: A cohesive debating scene where debaters from all over Europe regularly meet and mingle. The League provides a common framework for keeping track of results of chosen tournaments across Europe to find a winner at the end of a season. The rule is simple: The biggest tournament of the capital of a country is eligible. The DLE is open for participation for every debating society ...