EUDC 2009 announcements (EUDC 2009)

WUDC registration update - full in minutes!!!

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:55:50 +0000

Dear debaters,
We are currently working through the masses
of data that fell out of registration half an hour ago. The system worked fine
but there was unprecedented interest in attending Worlds this year. There are a
few things we want to say on lists so that you can set your minds at rest:{mosloadposition user9}
1) Those who registered within the
first 90 seconds or so should be receiving confirmation mails in the next
minutes. Can you check your spam boxes as well?
2) In two hours, confirmation
mails will be sent out again, including to those who get in once we have
removed duplicate registrations from the system. Again, check your spam box as
well.
3) We will publish a list later
today of the first 300 teams to register and the first 24 to register from
nations with slow internet access.
You can continue to get in touch with us
today by mail, facebook, skype or phone. Details are in the last mail we sent
out.
Regards,
Koc Worlds

WUDC 2010 Registration day is tommorow, 22.6

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:07:11 +0000

Please do not forget, you need to register your teams tomorrow, monday, the 22nd of June, at 9am Turkey time, 8am Berlin, Ljubljana or 7am London. Go to http://www.kocworlds2010.com/ and register your teams. Then you will have approx 10 days for the prepaiment!{mosloadposition user9}

Direct link to the registration is HERE

IDAS introduction

Tue, 26 May 2009 03:10:31 +0000

Webmaster: This is a not so short introduction of the International debate academy Slovenia (short IDAS), a debate training, that has grown in the past, and is still growing. I attended the first one, the last one and all of them in the middle, and I would still go, if I would have the time. As last year, I will have to work that week, but for sure I'll be there for the arrivals and goodbye's weekends. Hope to see you there!

The International Debate Academy is a training program for college and university students who are interested in the arts and skills of debating. It takes place in Slovenia each November and has been held for six consecutive years. This November it will hold its seventh session.

The program is sponsored by Za in Proti, the national debate program of Slovenia directed by Bojana Skrt, and the World Debate Institute of the University of Vermont in the USA directed by Alfred Snider. Skrt directs the program and Snider is the director of training.

The program was originated because there was a high level of interest in debating in Europe, especially in the former communist nations, but very little expertise for training. There were no university faculty members who specialized in speech communication, argumentation and debate, and so students were basically on their own in terms of training. The idea was to create a low-cost one-week program for these students and to try and attract the best possible trainers from other countries, especially those with a more established debate tradition.

All except for two years the program has been held in Ormoz, a small town in eastern Slovenia. It has a good rail connection and the Hotel Ormoz (two star) has been willing to rent out its entire space for the dormitories, classrooms and practice space required. Hotel Ormoz now as additional housing nearby. Hotel Ormoz serves three adequate meals a day to all attendees.

The program has attracted some of the finest trainers from around the world, from places like the USA, UK, Australia, Singapore, Germany and many other nations. The presidents of the World Debate Council and the European Debate Council have been faculty. Former British and American champions have trained here. The program has also been used to prepare a new generation of trainers from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Former students, who have become European champions, have returned to serve as trainers. Trainers have included professors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and public officials.

It is important to remember that IDAS trainers are never paid, their travel expenses are never covered and all they receive is room and board while at the academy. They do it because they love the program and they are dedicated to debating.

The program consists of five full days of training followed by a three-day tournament. Training lasts from breakfast until after a late dinner, and involves lectures, drills, exercises, elective courses and two full practice debates each day. After these training days the entire contingent boards buses and heads to a university campus or a full tournament of three days, with housing in high school dormitories.

During its history IDAS has had attendees from many nations, including:

Afghanistan
Albania
Australia
Austria
Bosnia
Bulgaria
Byelorussia
Canada
Croatia
Czech Republic
Estonia
Germany
India
Kazakhstan
Lithuania
Macedonia
Malaysia
Mongolia
Poland
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Ukraine
United Kingdom
USA
Venezuela

The evaluations of the program have been universally positive. Students have treasured the opportunity to work with so many notable international debate experts. They have gone on to achieve remarkable competitive success in heir own countries and internationally. More importantly, many of them have returned to their homes to become important, dynamic and successful leaders in creating larger and more diverse debate communities of their own. Ultimately, the goal of the academy is to bring debate and its inherent civic engagement potentials to broader populations. Whether on looks at this standard or the standard of competitive success, the academy has been a success. As the years go by even more and more will be seen from the academy graduates. The best from them still lies in the future.

WUDC 2010 Koc prepaiment information

Wed, 20 May 2009 20:25:52 +0000

Webmaster: Well we could have seen this one comming. A lot of institutions first register all th eslots that are available to them and later on decide who is going and how many teams are going. This means that the registration gets messed up, and people can't apply just because others have registered "safety" slots. Well, we have done it before and I know a number of other institutions that did it in the past. Now you will have to pay 100€ of prepaiment, non-refundable. Read on the original letter from Koc: {mosloadposition user9}

Important Notification on Prepayment Policy

We have received a number of enquiries about the prepayment system we have introduced this year. The prepayment will be 100 EUR per person you wish to attend Worlds 2010 and will be paid in Phase 2 of registration between 6th July and 17 July 2009. If you subsequently do not pay the full amount in Phase 3, you will not receive your 100 EUR back. Similarly, if you register and prepay for 8 people but subsequently send 5, we cannot refund the three unused prepayments and will still expect 290 EUR for the five people you wish to send.

It is worth reiterating why we have introduced the prepayment system. It is to ensure that everyone makes an accurate assessment of how many people they will actually send to Worlds. Last year, registration filled in seven minutes but many institutions just said “3 teams, 2 judges” and then did not send that number of teams. This meant that teams on the waiting list had to buy flights much later and thus paid far more.

When you register, we will take that as firm interest on your part to send the number of people for whom you register. If you have any queries about any issues with registration, please do not hesitate to contact Hasan Sadık Arik at h.s.arik@kocworlds2010.com.

WUDC 2010 Koc Website and announcements

Wed, 20 May 2009 02:28:02 +0000

To the global debating community,{mosloadposition user9}

It gives us pleasure to launch the website of the Vehbi Koc World Universities Championships 2010 at http://www.kocworlds2010.com/ to the entire global debating community. We have gone through a second period of testing in which we have solved most technical issues. Before we highlight some of the most important aspects of ongoing work, we want to take this opportunity to ask every member of our debating community to go to the website and ensure that you can access the page. Different countries around the world have different access issues and we need to solve this before registration kicks off in June. If you do have problems, can you send a mail to our Registration Officer, Hasan, at h.s.arik@kocworlds2010.com. Now to some important announcements.

Registration
You will notice that the timings of the different phases of registration remain in line with previous rounds of the Championships. One major change, and something we flagged at Council, is the introduction of a compulsory pre-payment at Phase 2 of registration. This is a direct response to challenges faced by Cork last year where demand for places at Phase 1 massively exceeded supply, only for over 100 teams to drop out when payment was demanded. This meant that many teams were only able to purchase flights one month in advance of the tournament, massively increasing their costs. We have decided to follow the model set by Monash for Australs and will expect institutions that register to make a financial promise to us. If they do not, we can pass on their places to others in good time for them to buy flights. We realise after some discussion with debating clubs that some institutions can only pay for tournaments in single installments and so will offer such clubs the opportunity to pay their entire balance in Phase 2 of registration if they so wish.

One further note is that the exact time of Phase 1 of registration on 22nd June 2009 has changed by one hour due to concerns raised from the East Coast of North America that they will need to stay up until 3am in the morning. This will mean that IONA registrations need to be made at 7am. These changes will be made to the website as soon as possible.

Transport
Although Antalya is served by many direct flights from Europe, it is likely that most of you will need to purchase flights that route through Istanbul or Ankara. We would advise that you compare flight prices for Istanbul or Ankara returns with Antalya transfers bought separately with transit flights for both price and suitability. We have a comprehensive list of companies that fly or drive to Antalya on our website so that you can make your plans well in advance. We will pick everyone up from the airport and coach station in Antalya but this will be dependent on your filling in your personal details at Phase Four of registration.

Budget and Accommodation
Those of you in Council will remember that we had some budgetary problems at the time of our ratification. We are pleased to announce that we have renegotiated with many of our suppliers and that our budget is now in far better shape. We will be staying in the hotel outlined in our original bid delivered at Council in Thailand, 2008. However, as indicated in Council in Ireland, 2009 we will need to charge registration at 390€ per person to cement our budgetary position.

Adjudication
We have set aside funds, as promised in both 2008 and 2009, to offer registration waivers and some flights for independent adjudicators. Our Deputy Chief Adjudicators will be in charge of this process for each of their regions and will be allocated a budget to organise judges from their region. If you are an independent judge, we would ask that you get in touch with your regional DCA. We should note that decisions regarding funding will reside with the DCAs and will be based on assessment of your CVs and suitability to Chair at the tournament. Our aim is to have 120 outstanding chairs through both the n-1 and independent pools so that we have flexibility in judge allocation and regional representation. We are currently solving a couple of spam related issues with our DCA's e-mails and will post them to the website.

Consular Assistance and Invitation Letters
We realize that many of you need to get funding from your universities before the July recess. If you need letters of invitation or have questions regarding visas or other consular issues, please get in touch with Cem Hot at i.hot@kocworlds2010.com. You will need to send such mails from university addresses so that we can ensure that we are sending letters to bonafide and eligible people. A letter of invitation does not mean that you will definitely be accepted to debate at Worlds - this will be dependent on your registration. If you need a letter of invitation to be sent by post, you will need to cover the associated cost and allow 15 working days for arrival. Otherwise, faxes and e-mail scans will take five days. We can only address letters to institutions rather than people as we cannot take the risk of formally inviting individuals about whom we have no certain information.

For now, that is everything that we would like to announce. We look forward to welcoming you in Turkey this December. Letters of welcome, from us as convenors and from Neill Harvey Smith as Chair of Worlds Council, will go onto our website in the next week.
Please get in touch about anything that concerns or excites you.

Warm regards,

Fatih Mehmet Inal and Suleyman Onay
Co-Convenors of the Vehbi Koc Worlds Universities Debating Championships 2010

Non European teams can apply to EUDC

Mon, 18 May 2009 13:20:26 +0000

Webmaster:For all those, that would like to apply to the EUDC (European Universities debating championship) 2009 in Newcastle, and you do not live in the European countries, now its your time to apply! Read on: {mosloadposition user9}

We are Oskar A. Avery and Russell A. Haswell and we have the great honour to be the Co-Convenors of the European Universities Debating Championship to be held at the University and Union Society of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK from the 1st to the 5th of August 2009.

We have the great pleasure to be able to announce that we will be accepting registrations from non-European institutions wishing to send non-breaking teams.

We have received several enquiries from teams outside Europe about their eligibility to take part. The constitution and Chair of EUDC council confirm that this is both permitted and precedented at recent EUDCs as a matter of course where spare capacity has existed. They will not, of course, be able to break in either the Open break or the ESL break (though we are likely to run a non-European final for non-European teams depending on numbers).

Therefore non-European teams are invited to register for EUDC Newcastle 2009 (1st August 2009 until 5th August 2009) here.
Registration for this will be open until June 1st 2009, the N-1 rule will apply, as for all teams and there is an institutional cap of 6.

Dates
1st August - 5th August

Format
British Parliamentary (worlds style)
8 Rounds, breaking to Quarter Finals and English as a Second Language (ESL) Quarter Finals, plus probable non-european finals (depending on numbers).
7 Minute speeches

Adjudication / Tabbing
Chief Adjudicator Sam Block (EUDC 2007 Champion)
Deputy Chief Adjudicator / Tabmaster Bob Nimmo (WUDC 2007 Finalist)
Deputy Chief Adjudicators: Alex Ward (Newcastle Debating founder & multiple IV winner) James Dray (WUDC 2009 & EUDC 2008 Champion) Leela Koenig (WUDC 2009 ESL best speaker) Uve Poom (EUDC 2007 ESL Champion)

Accommodation / Food
Single rooms in University accomodation for 5 nights
Breakfast, lunch and evening meal provided.
Kosher, Halal, Vegan and allergies catered for.

Final
The Finals (both Open and ESL) will be held in the Auditorium 1 at the Sage Music Centre Gateshead. It has the best acoustics in the world and is Europe's newest opera house.

Cost per Head
Accommodated £221.25 Non-Accommodation £154.88

More details may be found at our facebook group or our minisite at www.unionsociety.co.uk/eudc09

Or you can contact us at eudc.union@... or find us on facebook yourself, you can also call me on +44 79 0069 8116 (Though Please only 10:00 to 22:00 UTC).

Yours,
Russell & Oskar

EUDC Newcastle 2009 update

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:25:18 +0000

Dear Debaters,

We've had some feedback from our last communication about registration
so here is an FAQ:{mosloadposition user9}

1) What are the dates? 1st – 5th August, 2009. A draft provisional
schedule us provided for your reading pleasure below.

2) What is the cost? 250 Euro per person payable in pounds sterling
equivalent. If you do not require accommodation, the cost is 175 Euros
per person.

3) When will you confirm our registration? All places will be manually
confirmed to screen out duplicate and illegible registrations. All
registrants will be confirmed or placed on the waiting list within 24
hours.

CHANGE TO PAYMENT SCHEDULE
4) When do I need to pay? In response to concerns raised by some
countries we have decided to introduce greater flexibility into our
payment schedule. All payments must be received by 30th March or 2
weeks after your confirmation of a place, whichever is later. We would
like to stress our reasons for having a short window in the first
place. Namely that the longer people delay in paying the greater the
chance the places remain unfilled until such a time they cannot be
filled. We are eager that as many people get the opportunity to come
to Newcastle as possible. We would request that people pay as soon as
you can or cancel as soon as you know you will not be able to attend.

5) What is the refunds policy? Once you register and pay there is no
guarantee of a refund. If you drop out after payment, you will only be
refunded if someone else takes up your place and pays for it. These
will only be offered until May 1st. Refunds outside of these
conditions will be only considered dur to cataclysmic unanticipated
events for example, the death of one of your delegation.

6) Why has our convenor's email address been blocked from posting on
the BD topica list? We don't know, and we would dearly love the chap
that administrates BD to unblock it please!

That's all for now,

EUDC Newcastle09 OrgComm

Day Zero – Friday 31st July

All day – Arrivals (extra night accommodation at your cost if required)

Day One – Saturday 1st August
12:00 - Novice Briefing
13:00 – 15:00 ESL Interviews
16:00 – Briefing
17:00 – Judges Test
18:30 – Opening Ceremony
19:00 – Dinner
20:00 – Welcome Event

Day Two - Sunday 2nd August
08:00 – Breakfast
09:00 – Pre-Council
10:30 – Round One Announced
12:45 – Lunch
13:45 – Round Two Announced
16:15 – Round Three Announced
19:15 – Round Four Announced
20:45 – Dinner
22:00 – Social

Day Three – Monday 3rd August
08:00 – Breakfast
09:45 – Round Five Announced
12:00 – Lunch
13:00 – Round Six Announced
15:30 – Round Seven Announced
17:45 – Round Eight Announced
20:00 – Dinner
21:30 – Social – Break Party / European Village

Day Four – Tuesday 4th August
08:00 – Breakfast
09:00 – ESL quarters Announced
11:00 – Open Quarters Announced
13:00 – Lunch
14:00 – ESL Semis Announced
16:00 -- Open Semis Announced
19:30 – Grand Dinner (Black Tie)
21:00 – Final Announced
22:00 – Social

Day Five – Wednesday 5th August
08:00 – Breakfast
09:30 – Trips/EUDC Council/Free time
15:30: Start boarding buses
16:00 – Coach Leaves
16:30 – ESL Final (BT)
17:30 – Break; coffee, champagne & biscuits
18:00 – Open Break Final (BT)
19:00 – Music
19:30 – Begin Leaving Sage
20:00 – Dinner (Buffet)
21:00 – Announce results + prize giving
22:00 – Social / Free Time

Day 6 – Thursday 6th August
All day – Departures or extra days at your expense.

EUDC 2010 Amsterdam bid video

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 06:15:55 +0000

Webmaster: Bidding for the EUDC 2010 has started, and if you really need any other reasons to go to Amsterdam, here is a video for you.

{mosloadposition user9}

WUDC 2011 Botswana bid

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:14:31 +0000

Webmaster:

I know it is kinda early to talk about the 2011 bid, but Botswana is doing a great PR job, so here is their announcement of 3 things, why should you vote on their behalf.{mosloadposition user9}

Dear Worlds Community,

There are many reasons why the University of Botswana should host the World
Universities Debating Championships in 2011, but here are the 3 most
important - Organization, Development & Excitement

*Organization*

This is our 3rd concurrent bid for worlds. We've been preparing for worlds
since May 2006 and we believe this clearly exhibits our desire to host the
tournament, our long term vision and our ability to sustain an organization.
We have an experienced organizing team, with anywhere from 7-15 years debate
and hosting experience.

We recently hosted the biggest tournament in Africa, the first Pan-African
Universities Debating Championships involving 10 African countries, more
than 30 Universities from across the African continent and many debate
trainers.

We have actively participated in the South African Debating Championships
for the past 9 years and are regular breakers in the tournament. Since 1997
we have competed in the World Universities Debating Championship twice in
Stellenbosch (1997, 2003), NTU Singapore (2004), MMU Malaysia (2005), UBC
Vancouver (2007) and in Bangkok Thailand last year.

We have organized the Botswana schools debating tournament for the past four
years and the Botswana inter-college championships. We know that organizing
tournaments can be logistically exhaustive, random and difficult to manage.
We know because we've been part of, planned and executed similar tournaments
and events before and are thus ready for the challenge.

The University of Botswana has a long and impressive track record of hosting
large regional events. The entire tournament will take place on the
University of Botswana campus, which is in the city centre of Gaborone.

We have more than 50 smart classrooms, which will make excellent debate
venues, lectures halls with more than 500 persons seating capacity and
comfortable dining halls. The infrastructure to host large international
conferences is available.

In the last two years alone, UB hosted the BOLESWA games between Botswana
Lesotho Swaziland (which includes debating), a pre CHOGM Symposium for all
Commonwealth Universities, the NOMA awards for the best writer, author and
publisher n Africa, the first IASTED conference in Africa (International
Association for Science and technology Development) and many more events
that depended upon huge conference facilities, IT support, first world class
accommodation, safe environments and easy international access.

We have incredible amount of support from the government, private sector,
and NGOs. With our improved organizational team and with Logandran
Balavijendran and James Dray heading the Adjudication team, we honestly
believe we can host not just the best Worlds in Africa, but the best Worlds
ever.

*Development*

>From 1997 to 2009 only 1 Worlds has been hosted in Africa (4 in AustralAsia,
5 in Europe, 2 in North America). Yet teams from the African Continent have
participated in every one of them. Occasionally some institutions will make
their first appearance, but seldom come back, it is now time that Africa is
given a chance

In the 30 years of WUDC history, it has visited the African continent twice
(Stellenbosch, South Africa, 1997 and 2003). For 2 debate generations,
debaters in Africa have not had Worlds on their continent. Representation of
African teams at Worlds has withered. While debate continues to flourish in
pockets, it does so alone and segregated from the Worlds community. It is
time we changed this.

Hosting the World Universities Debating Championships in Botswana will allow
debate to grow in Africa, because it will give us a platform to promote
debate. Members of the organizing committee of Botswana Worlds 2011 have
been promoting debate actively in Southern Africa, mainly by running
workshops and debate tournaments in Swaziland and Lesotho. The response, to
learn and spread debate, has been amazing. With the support of other
debating nations in Southern Africa, we will use WUDC 2011 to plant debating
into as many of the 52 countries in Africa as possible.

By 2011 we pledge to bring 20 African countries to Worlds for the first time
ever. In the first continental tournament we organized we were able to bring
10 African countries together just in a space of under four months, next
year we plan to double the size of the tournament and even have 150 teams.
There are many many countries that have shown interest to participate and
could not come this year and we are working with IDEA/OSI on assisting them
to be able to attend next year.

We are currently in the process of setting up an English Speaking Union in
Botswana, because of the attention and awareness we generated through our
bid for Botswana Worlds 2010. When other corporations, universities and
governments see how huge, important and colorful the WUDC and debate is,
they will be more pliable to pleas of support from hundreds of debaters in
their countries. This helps build larger debate organizations, secure
support for regional debate events and obtain funding to attend future
Worlds.

*Excitement*

At the risk of sounding fantastic, the truth is Botswana has everything. The
most stable democratic country in Africa, with a solid economy and great
infrastructure - boasts all the comforts and excitement of any developed
city. Great shopping, clubs, bars, food, casinos, backpacking adventure,
resorts and food from around the world.

Integrated into Worlds will be visits to the Mokolodi Nature Reserve, (Game
viewing, leopard petting, elephant riding and general lounging in the sun),
beers at St.Claire Lion's Park, opportunities to visit the Central Kalahari
Nature Reserve.

Botswana worlds will also be less than 6 months after the FIFA World Cup
ends just across the border in South Africa. This means more travel
promotions, which means more options at less cost for you!

If the WUDC is to take you somewhere you would never go or could never go on
your own, let it take you to Botswana, Africa. Let it take you to the
Safari, the Okavango, the Kalahari; to the transparent, safe, democratic,
pluralistic nation that is Africa's best kept secret. Let it take you to
Botswana.

Please visit our website, www.botswanaworlds.

com, for more updated
information (organization team, logistics, schedules), videos and pictures.

I will see you at Cork, and hopefully, at Botswana Worlds 2011!

Cheers

Justice Motlhabani
Convenor
Botswana Worlds 2011

New WUDC 2010 Koc DCA list

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:36:07 +0000

Webmaster:

So here is the new list of people, I kindof was surprised, that the call was opened for the second time, but now I see a lot of good new names on the list, so I believe that this was a good idea. Please, if you know any of the people on the list and believe that they should be DCA's, do vote for them, do send an email to Can and give him your feedback. What I believe that we need is DCA's from different backgrounds

Dear debaters,
After opening the DCA applications phase for a further two days, we now have a far longer list of potential candidates. I realize that some people have already sent feedback about the earlier list of candidates and want to assure them that they can send another mail if they so wish! Again, thank you to everyone who has already written to me – I am learning a lot and want to make sure that we have the best possible team (on a number of different metrics) for Worlds in 2010. My pick would include Adriaan, Will, Daniel and Tuna... What would be your pick? Comment

Asia
Muhammad Abdul Latif (Malaysia/Bangladesh)
Sharmilla Parmanand (Philippines)
Mizanur Rahman (Bangladesh)
Suthen "Tate" Thomas (Malaysia)
{mosloadposition user9}
Europe, Middle East and Africa
Adriaan Adringa (Netherlands)
Susan Connolly (Ireland)
Samir Deger-Sen (England)
Tiernan Fitzgibbon (Ireland)
Will Jones (England)
Eoin Kilkenny (Ireland)
Ýsabelle Loewe (Germany)
Daniel Schut (Netherlands)

North America
Josh Bone (US)
Ian Freeman (Canada)
Alfred "Tuna" Snider (US)

Oceania
Christopher Bishop (New Zealand)
Julia Bowes (Australia)
Fiona Prowse (Australia)

You can contact me at can_okar@hotmail.com with any feedback. I will only accept comments until 12th December 2008 and will announce before Council on 1st January 2008.

For those of you that have Bayram next week, I hope it is enjoyable. For everyone else, be well.

Can Okar
Chief Adjudicator (to be ratified), Vehbi Koc Worlds 2010