The University of Helsinki Debating Society

On Tuesday February 2nd at 18:00 in Cajsa (Mannerheimintie 5B, 4th floor) we will have an Annual General Meeting of the Debating Society. At the meeting we will elect the new board, approve documents for the past year and have a chat about our future plans for the upcoming year.

After the meeting, we will have a regular debate session in the same room (bound to start around 18:30). The motion for the week is ‘This House Would Allow Mothers/Fathers In Prison To Be Accompanied By Their Children’.

As always, we’ll proceed to the bar post-debate to hang out in a great atmosphere and celebrate our new board!

The show debate proved to be quite a success and we hope we’ll see more new members join our club this semester!

Welcome to our first meeting this decade on Tuesday January 26th at 18:30 in Cajsa (New Student House, Mannerheimintie 5B, 4th floor). The motion for the debate is ‘This House Would Enforce Racial and Religious Profiling in Airports’. As always, you can come and watch us debate or take part in it – we’ll provide all the help and supported needed.

Just to give you a taste of what is going to happen this semester apart from our regular Tuesday meetings, here is the preliminary plan of socials, travelling plans and debate trainings:

-Bowling night
-Winter-swimming
-Boardgames night
-Sledging
-Trip to Tallinn (where we might meet up with Estonian debaters!)
-Workshop by Rich Penny coming up in February
-Training seminar and workshop by another debate celebrity in mid-April
-Debating competitions in Lithuania, UK, France and Germany (info will be posted on the list as the tournaments approach)
-Debate Summer Camp in mid-June (two days of fun and debating in a peaceful Finnish countryside!)

We hope to deliver all of those and more! Stay tuned

Spring semester is about to start and so are activities of our Debating Society! We are proud to welcome you to our show debate on Tuesday 19th January at 18:30 in Mannerheim-sali (Mannerheimintie 5A, top floor). Come and watch our experienced members engage in a heated and entertaining debate and feel free to voice your opinions afterwards! The topic for the debate is ‘This House Believes That All Taxation Is  Theft’.

No prior registration is needed, entrance is free, some drinks and snacks will be served after the debate. Come along!

This year our debating society was represented at Worlds University Debating Championship (WUDC) for the fourth time. We sent one team (Julia Toivanen and Anna Bessonova) and one judge (Ami Ganguli) from our institution. The winners in three different categories are:

MGIMO A (Russia) in EFL (English as a foreign language) Category

Tel Aviv A (Israel) in ESL (English as a second language) Category

Sydney A (Australia) in EPL (English as a Proficient language) Category

You can find the tab here http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tdw2qVR3Q7vfFT-aSF-7GGA&gid=2

The competition this year was hosted in Antalya, Turkey by Koç University. It was an amazingly well-run tournament in all possible ways! There were almost no delays in the schedule, the organizers worked really hard on ensuring everyone’s wishes were met and all their promises were fulfilled. We enjoyed exceptionally high-quality debates and fabulous socials. It was a truly fantastic 10-day experience in sunny Antalya in a company of great people.

Thank you Koç and we hope that our society will continue sending teams to future Worlds!

University of Helsinki Debating Society hasn’t been particularly active in debating competitions this past year. However, we are trying to revive that and the first step has been taken – we went to SSE Riga IV this December. The results have been quite pleasing: one of our teams (Ami Ganguli and Tianyan Liu) made it to the semi-finals. Ami was ranked 7th speaker and the rest of our debaters were ranked in top 20 out of 80+ participants. Note, that this was the first competition ever for Tianyan and he’s started debating only this autumn. We are oh-so-very proud!

Our second team (Anna Bessonova and Julia Toivanen) missed the break by just a couple of speaker points (i.e. 8 teams went through to semi-finals and Anna and Julia were the 9th team). The tab and motions of the tournament can be found here http://www.sserigads.com/tabbie/standing.php. (Our team names were Helsinki Finska and Helsinki Svenska)

You can also find photos from the tournament here http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=photos&gid=320493885640 or in the photo gallery of this page.

We hope to continue going to international tournaments and encourage you to join us! Ask any of us if you want to learn more.

Pikkujoulus are one of the many wonderful traditions Finland has. Every student organization, business company or a group of friends have a party like that and our debating society is no exception.

We’ll have ours on Wednesday 16th December from 18:00 onwards in Aurora (New Student House, Mannerheimintie 5B, 3rd floor).

What should you expect from the party? Debate fun and games! We’ll also have some snacks and drinks.
I’ll add more details closer to the day. For now, mark it in your calendars and hold your breath

Winter is here even if it doesn’t exactly feel like it . We all wish for more snow but while Finnish winter might be lacking it at the moment, we still have SAUNA! Hence, after our debate this week we will treat our members with the most Finnish thing there is and go to the sauna. Don’t forget your towels and refreshments (cold beer is highly recommended during and after sauna but cider and soft drinks can do the trick just as well).

We’ll meet on Tuesday 08th December at 18:30 in Cajsa (New Student House, Mannerheimintie 5B, 4th floor).
The motion will be disclosed only before the debate.

Hope you are enjoying the last month before Christmas and all the ‘pikkujoulu’s student life has to offer.
We are meeting as usual next Tuesday 01.12 at 18:30 in Cajsa (New Student House, Mannerheimintie 5B, 4th floor).
The motion will not be disclosed until 15 min before the debate

By the way, mark Wednesday December 16th in your calendar because that’s when we’ll have our society’s ‘pikkujoulu’ or ‘little Christmas’ celebration. It will be a night filled with debating and debauchery – you don’t want to miss it! More details later.

P.S. The motion for the week was: This House Would Allow Same-Sex Couples Adopt Children.

This week is full of various fun events to celebrate 141st birthday of our Student Union (HYY). You can find more details of the events on HYY’s website http://www.hyy.helsinki.fi/english/3/news/608/.

I’m happy to tell you that our debate session is one of those extraordinary events! So please come and join us next Tuesday 24th November at 18:30 in Cajsa (New Student House, Mannerheimintie 5B, 4th floor).

The motion for the debate is ‘This House Believes That Students Should Be Banned From Drinking’.