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15 February 2007

3rd BDC-TRBS Pre-World Schools Debating Championships Bangladesh 2007

Championship Schedule

Day One, Thursday

01/03/07 Registration Desk 15:00
Opening Ceremony 15:30
Debaters and Adjudicators Briefings 16:00
Tea 16:30
Side declaration for prepared Round 1 17:00
Debate Round 1 17:30
Motion for Round 2 19:00
Dinner 20:45
Dress Code: School / College Uniform

Day Two, Friday

02/03/07 Side declaration for prepared Round 3 08:00
Debate Round 3 08:30
Motion for Round 4 10:00
Debate Round 4
Lunch 12:00
Prayer Break 13:00
Side declaration for prepared Round 5 13:45
Debate Round 5 14:15
Motion for Round 6 15:45
Debate Round 6 16:15
Pizza Party 17:30
Break Night and Disco 18:00
Break Night Announcement 19:30
Dress Code: Casual / Sporty

Day Three, Saturday

03/03/07 Council meeting and Bidding for next year 09:00
Motion for Round Quarter Finals
Quarter Finals
Lunch 13:00
Motion for Semis 14:00
Semi Finals 14:30
Unplug Musical Session 16:00
Side declaration for prepared for Final
Grand Dinner and prize giving 19:00
Dress Code: Business / Executive / Formal

Registration Policy
Team registration is TK 2000.
Every institution can send maximum of 5 teams.
Team will have 3 debaters and 1 coach for the championships.
Age limits for debaters should be below 19 before July 12, 2007
Institutions can also send maximum of 10 observers.
Registration for observers will be TK 700 each.

Registrations Requirements
Participants full Name
A photocopy of the Passports with first 11 pages or Age Certificates from school.
Participants e-mail and present address with the phone number.
All participants should be a member of the BDC yahoo group before February 27, 2007. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bdcbd/
Before registration, participants should read the code of conduct section of BDC webpage at http://debatebangladesh.tripod.com/id12.html

Motions for Championship Rounds

Round 1 This house would set free all the captives of Guantanamo Bay.
Round 2 Impromptu, before 30 min
Round 3 This house believes that medicine should be available withoutprescription.
Round 4 Impromptu, before 30 min
Round 5 This house supports renewed determination towards the total eliminationof nuclear weapons.
Round 6 Impromptu, before 30 min
Quarter Finals Impromptu, before 30 min
Semi Finals Impromptu, before 30 min
Grand Final This house believes that we should enforce a Ministerial Code of Ethics.

NB. Debaters should prepare on the announced motions for both side (Proposition and Opposition).

For invitation letter and participation please contact:
BDC group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bdcbd/
BDC website: http://debatebangladesh.tripod.com
BDC E-mal: stalinhasan@gmail.com
BDC Cell: +8801715495119, +8801713371366,
+8801819135122, +8801716059382


Rashedul Hasan Stalin
Chief Adjudicator, BDC Pre Worlds 2007
Chair, Bangladesh Debating Council-BDC

14 February 2007

St Andrews win Edinburgh IV

St Andrews (Jason Vit & Doug Cochrane) won the Edinburgh IV

The final line up was

1st Prop - St Andrews (Jason Vit and Doug Cochrane)

1st Opp - Manchester (Dan James and Dan Bradley)

2nd Prop - Durham (Ian Chapman and Siddharth Khajuria)

2nd Opp = Aberdeen (Aissa Watson and Karen Reid)

The final motion was on allowing Catholic adoption agencies to opt out of equality legislation.

13 February 2007

Contributors still required.

As you may have seen I have recently added some contributors to the website to mark its 10 year anniversary. I am very pleased with the people I have on board but I'm still keen to get some more if possible so that the site has a strong flavour of news from around the world.

At the moment the list is as follows (with the areas they can provide strongest cover for)

Chris Bishop – New Zealand AIDA & Australasians
Mark Dowling – Canada/Ireland
Kenneth Flemming – South Korea & All Asians
Colm Flynn – Ireland & IONA
Anat Gelber – Israel & Central Europe
Derek Lande – Ireland, IONA & Worlds 2009
Ian Lising – USA Worlds council
Logan – Malaysia, Asia & Australasians
Manos Moschopoulos – Greece Balkans & East Mediterranean
Justice Motlhabani – Botswana & Southern Africa
Vinay Kumar Mysore – Canada
Rashedul Hasan Stalin – Bangladesh & South Asia

Some obvious gaps at the moment are USA (APDA, NPDA, IPDA etc), England & Scotland, Australia and the Philippines but I'm sure there are others.

If you are interested in joining it is still not too late (and to be honest probably never will be too late). Just send me an e-mail with the region you can cover and a little about your debating backround. Contrary to rumour I haven't had to turn anyone away so far and the Debating CV is just a check to make sure I don't give any spammers access.

Anat Gelber joins the Team

The latest addition to the contributors to this site is Anat Gelber. Anat has broken at two Europeans in both the main competition and the ESL. She was also best ESL speaker at Worlds in Dublin. She has broken as a judge at Worlds and Europeans. Anat can provide more updates from Israeli and European competitions and I am very pleased to welcome her to the team.

12 February 2007

TCD Audio Archive

I've just come across the TCD speech archive. They have audio files from a number of IVs

http://www.thehist.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=38&Itemid=347

Hybrid team wins UCG IV

The Hybrid team of Noel McGrath (UCD) and pCiaran Denny (TCD) won the UCG IV for 2007.
In the final they defeated UCC (Derek Lande & Art Ward), TCD (Josephine Curry & Chris Kissane) and another Hybrid team (Will Jones & Jess Harvey-Smith)

Noel McGrath was best speaker in the final and topped the speaker tab

You can hear audio files of the final at
http://www.thehist.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=38&Itemid=347

Registration of debaters under special provisions for WSDC 2007

At the postal ballot held in November 2006, two proposals to temporarily amend certain World Schools Debating Championships rules relating to debater eligibility for the 2007 championship only were passed by the World Schools Debating Council.

The proposals passed by the Council were as follows:
- The WSDC Rules insist that debaters must be aged 14-18 on the day that the championship begins. For 2007 only, this rule is to be changed to allow debaters who are aged 18 on 20th February 2007 (the day the event was originally scheduled to commence before it was postponed) to participate,even if they subsequently turn 19 before the tournament begins, providedthey meet all other eligibility criteria in the WSDC Rules.
- All countries who are planning to use a 19 year-old debater under the provisions of the temporarily amended rules for 2007 shall be required to register the name of that debater with the organizers in Seoul by 20th February 2007, and provide a description of that individual's circumstances. After that date, countries will not be allowed to newly-select debaters under the provisions of the temporarily amended rules. If a debater registered under these provisions subsequently drops out of the team, they may only be replaced with a student who would meet the regular entry requirements under the WSDC Rules.(A third proposal to allow debaters who had already begun tertiary education courses to participate was also voted on at the postal ballot, but was defeated.) The registration deadline for debaters who countries intend to enter underthe temporarily amended rules noted above is 20th February 2007 (Tuesday next week).

Council Executive: Mark Gabriel - mark.gabriel@iname.com
Claire Ryan - tautoru@xtra.co.nz
Norman Leach - norman@normanleach.com
Chris Erskine - cerskine@ozemail.com.au
Trevor Sather - trevor@squareeye.com

Countries will only be allowed to use debaters who are aged 19 in July if they submit the form by 20th February. Submitting this form does not constitute an obligation to have that debater on your team. But if they subsequently drop out of the team, they may only be replaced by debaters aged 14-18 in July and who meet all the other regular WSDC eligibilitycriteria.The existing debater eligibility criteria from the WSDC Rules are: A member of a country's team must:

(i) be ordinarily resident in the country
(ii) have been a full-time student at a secondary school in thecountry within six months of the start of the Championships
(iii) have reached their 14th birthday by the start of theChampionships
(iv) not to have reached their 19th birthday by the start of theChampionships
(v) not be enrolled at a tertiary or post-secondary schoolinstitution[Note: For the purposes of point
(v), the World Council ruled last yearthat debaters will be ineligible if they are enrolled for a tertiary orpost-secondary course at an institution where their first term begins on orbefore the opening day of the championships.]

To clarify, the temporarily amended rules for 2007 also allow debaters whomeet the following criteria to be eligible:

(a) They are aged 19 in July 2007, but were aged 18 on 20th February2007;
(b) They are not registered for a tertiary or post-secondary educationcourse at an institution where their first term will begin before thechampionships begin in July;
(c) If they graduate from secondary school before the championshipsbegin, their last day of school must not be more than six month prior tostart of the competition in July;
(d) Their country must register their intention to send the debater tothe championships before 20th February 2007; and
(e) The debater meets all other eligibility criteria as outlined in theWSDC Rules.

Please feel free to e-mail me if you are unsure about anything I've writtenhere. And please ensure you submit the attached form by Tuesday next week ifyour country intends to send any debaters to WSDC 2007 under the provisionsof the temporarily amended rules.

Regards,
Mark Gabriel
Secretary
World Schools Debating Council Executive Committee

Former Irish president to Chair Irish Times Debate

-- Mary Robinson to preside over debate on Irish neutrality The former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, is set to chair the final of this year's Irish Times Debate, the country's largest and most prestigious debating competition. Mrs Robinson is currently based in New York but has agreed to fly into Dublin in advance of the final, which takes place in Trinity College, Dublin on Saturday 17, February. The motion for the final is: "This house believes that a neutral Ireland cannot fulfil its global responsibilities in the 21st century." A former finalist of the The Irish Debate, Mrs Robinson is currently chair of Realising Rights, a US lobby group established to promote ethical globalisation. She is also a former UN High Commissioner of Human Rights. Twelve third level students have qualified for this final of this year's debating competition, which was the largest in the 48 year history of the event. The students are from University College Dublin, King's Inns and Trinity College, Dublin. The final consists of four teams of two speakers and four individual speakers. One team and one individual will then be selected as overall winners by the adjudication panel, which will be chaired by the editor of the Irish Times, Geraldine Kennedy. The winners of the debate will then represent Ireland on a three-week debating tour of the United States. More than 148 teams from 18 third-level institutions entered the event this year, according to Michael Moriarty, the convener of the Irish Times Debate, 2006-2007. Moriarty, a former winner of the competition, said that a number of teams had entered from colleges in the North this year. This is the first time that this had happened in a number of decades, he said. "There were over 40 people adjudicating the various rounds of the competition this year, most of whom are former winners or former finalists of the competition," said Moriarty. First run in 1958, the Irish Times Debate is the premier debating competition on the island. Former winners include members of the judiciary such as Adrian Hardiman and Kevin O'Higgins and former Attorney General Dermot Gleeson. Media personalities such as Derek Davis, Marian Finucane and Dara O'Briain have also won the competition. In addition to Ms Kennedy, this year's final will be judged by Professor Brent Northup of Carroll College in the US; Professor David McConnell, a Trinity College academic and a former winner of the competition; Dr Elizabeth Barrett, a former winner; and Ian Kehoe, journalist and former winner. The event will be hosted by the College Historical Society of Trinity College. 1st Proposition TeamUCD Law UCD L&H (1) Eoin Martin (9) Shane Cranley 1st Opposition Team
(2) Louisa Ni Eidean
(10) Marguerite Carter

2nd Proposition TeamUCD Law (3) Ross Kelly (11) Susan Connolly
2nd Opposition Team
TCD Hist
(4) David Boughton
(12) Ciaran Denny

1st Proposition IndTCD Hist (5) Andrea Mulligan

1st Opposition Ind
Kings Inns
(6) David Quinn
2nd Proposition IndTCD Hist (7) Christopher Kissane

2nd Opposition Ind
Kings Inns
(8) Declan Bruton

CUSID Leger - Central Championship

CUSID Leger Central Canadian Championship

Winner: Queens - Jeremy Opolsky and Danny Saposnik
Finalists: Hart House - Nick Shkordoff and Adrienne Lipsey

Top Speaker: Hart House - Nick Shkordoff

Public Speaking: Hart House - Adam Lazier

11 February 2007

Nominated for a Blog Award.


I've just found out that this site has been nominated for an award in the "Irish Blog Awards". The nomination is as "Best Specialist Blog". It is a bit of a surprise but a nice one so thanks to who ever nominated the site.


If you would like to vote for this site to win (or get the members of your society to all submit a vote....) then visit http://www.awards.ie/vote/ and you'll see a long list of categories each with a drop down menu. The "Best Specialist Blog - Sponsored by iQ Content Ltd" is about 2/3rds of the way down the list and "World Debate Website" is last in the alphabetical list of nominees. You don't need to be Irish to vote you just need to enter your name and e-mail address (which will only be used to verify that the vote isn't rigged by the same person submitting multiple votes. If you vote more than once all your votes are disgarded). Voting will close on February 16th at 5pm.

World Council Equity Policy Subcommittee

Hello all,

Hope February is treating you well! Just a quick reminder that applications for the equity subcommittee close tomorrow. So far we have applications from IONA, Oceania and North America. I'd really love some applications from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Carribean and Europe. Please let me know if you are interested by sending an email to: Katherine.Price at Student.uts.edu.au Please note also that even if you are not on the committee you will be able to make submissions. I will let you know when you are able to make those.

Thanks,
Katie Price