This Blog has now moved to idebate.org/worlddebating - all future posts will be made there!

4 June 2008

CEDA 2008 reuslts

USA Cross Examination Debate Association end of year results

Speaker of the Year
Donna Shalala Miami, FL
Johnston Martin Osborn Missouri State

Public Debate
1st University of Miami
2nd KCKCC
3rd James Madison

Outstanding Novice Max Adler New School University
Outstanding Alum Chris Carey Portland State University
Outstanding Grad Coach Marissa Silber Florida
Scholastic All-American Andrew Jennings Kansas

CEDA Nationals 2009 will be hosted by Idaho State University

For more details please visit Global Debate

UP Pre-Australs 2008

The UP Debate Society is hosting Pre-Australs on June 28-30, 2008 at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Campus. Pre-Australs will provide an excellent tournament experience as a preparation for the upcoming Australasians 2008, which will be held in Manila just two days after this.

Please visit http://preaustrals.updebatesociety.org/ for more details.

Source: e-mail

HWS/IDEA advisory committee

The HWS/IDEA Round Robin is assembling an advisory committee to help direct its tournament in future years. We are seeking nominations (or self-nominations) to fill the two remaining places on this committee, which are reserved for people with substantial knowledge of debating in either Africa or Australia. Current members of the committee include:

Name (Background)
Rory Gillis (Canada & APDA)
Neill Harvey-Smith (Western Europe)
Jason Jarvis (Asia)
Ian Lising (NPDA & Southeast Asia)
Helina Loor (Eastern Europe)
???????? (Africa)
???????? (Australia)

The tournament is now preparing for its 3rd year in April 2009. Advisory committee members do not have an extensive workload. They provide advice regarding:
1) criteria for granting invitations to teams;
2) who to invite as adjudicators;
3) some questions regarding tournament policies; and,
4) which team to accept from a pool of at-large applications (in some difficult cases).
Committee members serve 2-year terms on the committee, but may step down at any time if necessary.

HWS/IDEA Round Robin Vision Statement
The International Debate Education Association and Hobart and William Smith Colleges aim to bring together an elite and internationally diverse group of debaters and adjudicators each year for a weekend of debate at the highest level. The tournament will be held each year at HWS in New York State. The debates will be in the WUDC format, set up in a unique pre-paired round robin, ensuring that every team debates against every other team exactly once in the preliminary rounds.
Our goal is to facilitate great debating with international diversity and to recognize the skills and accomplishments of great debaters and adjudicators by treating them to a weekend of satisfying debate and superb hospitality. We will endeavor to ensure that all qualifying teams are able to attend.

Historical results
2007: Winning Team – Yale (Adam Chilton & David Denton)
Top Speaker – Adam Chilton (Yale)
2008: Winning Team – Harvard (Cormac Early & Lewis Bollard)
Top Speaker – Lewis Turner (Oxford)

CONTACT INFORMATION: Eric Barnes (barnes@hws.edu)

3 June 2008

Tabbie Developers Wanted

Tabbie, the World's Tab program is looking for developers. Tabbie is Debating Tabbing Software that is being used in the Worlds (WUDC) and many other tournaments. It was used in Singapore (2004), Vancouver (2007) and Bangkok (2008). It will be used at the Tallinn Euros and Cork 2009.

Tabbie is Open Source. This means anyone can download it for free edit the sourcecode for their own purpose, or help out in its development. We're currently looking for people. This may include the project maintainer.

If you know how, you've already thought about making, or made, your own Tab program. Consider the benefits of joining the Tabbie project instead:

* Many customers, including Worlds. 750 downloads past year. You'll get feedback, thanks and respect.
* Joint effort, other developers to talk to.
* Here to stay, since 2004. Your efforts won't be in vain.
* Most of the work is done, pick anything that you need or that's fun to do and do that.

There's an additional benifit for people other then you:
* Transparancy. A fair tournament reveals how it's pairing up it teams. It would be nice if
Tabbie is the only program around that provides this option.

Yes, I know you think you're smarter than any of us and would much rather start off with a clean sheet. So did all the others whose programs were tossed out when they left the uni. So... consider.

We currently have (as for features):
* The world's best draw algorithm (uncontested for a year now, http://tabbie.wikidot.com/silver-line )
* The worlds most fancy adjudicator allocation (though hard to comprehend for non-techies).

Open work
* User interface.
* Easier packaging (it's a webserver)
* Extending to non worlds-style debates
* Extending to non-worlds rules draws and allocations.
* Further discussion on the pros and cons of various power pairing techniques from a more mathematical perspective.
* Anything you deem useful

Contact Klaas (klaas@vanschelven.com) for more info on joining. See also http://tabbie.wikidot.com/.

Launch of the CIMB WUPID 2008 Mini-Site

The UN officials who condemned footages of Amy Winehouse in her sandals with injection marks between her toes, has probably not seen the university debating culture glamorising the “debate high” that debaters got from continuous quality debating and adjudication at the inaugural WUPID last year (2007).

Source: MLYSN (http://mlysn.wordpress.com)


If these teetotal bureaucrats think that this singer’s fan will follow her on crack, they are far more naive than Hollywood. Most of my generation (in debating) thinks of the debate drug as much as our parents think of getting their children a bloody degree. Amy Winehouse, if the rumours are true, was just joining in the mainstream. Whereas people like Praba Ganesan has clearly gone beyond - as being awarded the only Asian to be the best speaker in Asia Pacific will testify.

The most powerful role models are debaters, not celebrities. Teachers and parents talk about how hard is it to convince their kids to get an education when they can have a career with a debate certificate and aspire to make MYR250-00 an hour.

The only way to make our streets safe from crack or cocaine is to get our generation feel the high from continuous quality debating. And where best to get it from, if not at the prestigious CIMB WUPID 2008.

To have a go, visit our mini-site at http://mlysn.wordpress,com/cimb-wupid-2008/ as our official website would only be available in August - apparently wupid.com is a domain that belongs to an alien that expires this August [sigh]. But not to worry, the links are all there (accommodation, registration, etc) but if you can’t find them, the links are also available in the second column under “departments”.

And just in cases, feel free to email me at yunus@hngsc.com or mlysn@hngsc.com

Source: MLYSN http://mlysn.wordpress.com

Registration is now open for Istanbul 2008!

Registration for Istanbul2008 is now open! In order to register, visit our website www.istanbul08.com .

As we announced before registration per participant (including judges) is €90. Deadline for registration is July 15th.

If you have experienced the glorious Euros 2007 and want to experience something similar again; or if you haven’t experienced it and want to see what it is like to be in a top-quality summer tournament; or if you are just curious about what the prospective hosts of Worlds 2010 are preparing for you in their last debating tournament before the Christmas of 2009, you should definitely come to ISTANBUL 2008!!!

Don't hesitate to contact us for any querries.

Cemil Dinmezpinar
Convenor
cemildinmezpinar@gmail.com

Source: EUDC mailing list

Teach Debate and Business at Chung Ang University, Seoul!

Greetings!

This is not tournament related but definitely debate related.

For the past year and a half I have been teaching debate and communication related subjects at the College of Business in Chung Ang University (CAU), Seoul, Korea. It has been a wonderful experience and I'm overjoyed to be able to invite more people to share it.

Debate is now compulsory course for all freshmen at the College of Business at CAU. Debate is also taught as part of other courses, used to teach other subjects and is being offered as general university wide course next semester. There is a lot of support for debate in this school, and if you are someone who enjoys teaching debate irregardless of the backgrounds, skills and language proficiency of your students, this job is a dream.

If you are interested in teaching debate, have a business background and would like to live in Korea for a couple of years, please email me. There are more details in the document I attached, but here is some brief information:
- no Korean is required for teaching, all courses you teach will be in English
- the English proficiency of the students is generally poor. Debate is used as a platform to practice English and develop all other skills associated with debate. However, you are not an English teacher.
- pay is good. Housing subsidies and health insurance included.
- you don't have to fly in for an interview. This can be done by phone.
- the university is in central Seoul
- Seoul is one of the safest places I know. The social life here is also very, very vibrant.

The deadline for application is very close (in 7 days). If you are interested, whip up a quick resume and email it to me. Feel free to email if you have any questions about the job or life in Seoul.

Thanks for your time,

Cheers
Logan
loganimal@gmail.com

Source: WUDC mailing list