Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
This Guide was Proudly Sponsored by
University of Porto Debating Society www.sdd.up.pt www.facebook.com/sddup socidadededebates@gmail.com Rua dos Bragas, 223 4050-123 Porto PORTUGAL
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
Acknowledgements We are deeply appreciated many debaters, trainers and debate organisers around the world whose comments made a huge contribution to this guide. Among those who contributed the most we are specially thankful to our friends Anne Valkering, Chan Choyi, Maja Nenadović (MN) and Michael Shapira. Despite all these contributions, the opinions expressed here are of our exclusive responsibility.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
Summary Introduction!
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Why would you do such a thing?!
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The Mission!
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Many goals, many reasons What is your reason? Beyond Debating The (il)Legal Nature!
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The Strategy!
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Analyse the chess board Define your goals How am I Going to Make This Work?!
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Institutional! (How we want to be perceived as an institution?) Reputations Stakeholder Analysis and Potential Allies Financial! Money: Root of all evil? Sponsorships Budget Organisational! Human Resources Management Memberships Delegating and Transition Policies Manual Values Statement
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
Operational! The Model The First Debate Trainings and Workshops High School Tournaments, IV’s and Debate Academies Domestic Tournaments and National Championship Organising Tournaments and Stuff Conclusion!
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
Introduction The aim of this short book is to present a few short, honest and unpretentious tips to those who are thinking about starting a debating society, or giving the first steps into creating one, in hope that this might help them out. After presiding to the creation of the first iberian debating society with international visibility, the requests for advice multiplied. Those demands rose the question of whether there was a demand for a guide like this, in a similar way there’s a demand for guides on debate. Based on our experience, we believed there was a demand and felt the duty to provide a supply. When we started, a few years ago, we were lucky to have someone explaining how important it was for us to start competing internationally, but we had to learn from our experience the importance of debating in british parliamentary format, to find the great value of peer-to-peer teaching or of creating and maintaining a team where each individual takes ownership of the project. Many of the things we write here are inspired on a few conversations with debaters from around the world, but they reflect more of our view our personal view of debating and our experience than any sort of general consensus. So, while reading this, bear in mind that: a) this is not “The Holy Bible on How to Start a Debating Society�, for we were not divinely inspired and we do not intend to set a dogma; b) this is not a magic recipe, for it is not just because some of this it worked in the past somewhere, to some degree, that it will work in
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
another place and time; c) this is not a complete guide so brevitatis causa there were some things left out. Another disclaimer: the guide is meant mainly for university debating in “western liberal democracies�. Not because we do not believe there’s debate outside that limited context, but because we recognise our lack of experience in tackling some of the problems you might face if you are starting a debating society in high school or in a very different political and cultural setting. We believe that debating should have impact and that the potential to have impact is greater in places where there is no debate and/or it is more difficult to establish debate. We felt the need to created this guide to serve as a dynamic repository of the gained know-how of the debating community. This means that if you have any ideas on how to improve it, if you disagree with something, or if you have an idea others may benefit from, you can and should write us an email to aryfcunha@gmail.com. We would be more than welcome to include and fully acknowledge any pertinent remarks and comments.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
Why would you do such a thing? Starting a debating society (DS) is not an easy thing to do: it’s an endeavour that will probably take much of your free time as a student, it might prolong your life in university for more time than you would like to and in the end there’s no guarantee that your efforts will actually have a lasting impact. Secondary effects of debating include obsessively disagreeing with people, asking them uncomfortable questions that will lead them into contradiction and plugging into a sort of nihilistic approach to every everything that will make you think that anything, at anytime, with anyone, is debatable. But don’t let all this discourage you because: 1. Debating is a perfect way to meet a fun, interesting, intellectually stimulating (and sometimes nerdy) crowd, both in your university and in the far side of the world. And it’s not only an “interesting-people-magnet”, but a great way to make friendships that last the test of time and distance. 2. As a university debater you will compliment your academic training with the acquisition of critical thinking, active listening and communication skills that will be of value in your personal and professional life. 3. Those skills might be of good use already in your academic life and they might have a very positive impact in the way you approach questions in an exam, you respond in an oral
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
inquiry or you write an essay or a thesis. Therefore it might have a very positive impact on your marks. 4. As an organiser you will test you leadership, your ability to negotiate and manage conflicts and so on. You will learn to network, to do project management, to fundraise and get sponsorships. It might give you the opportunity to start putting you knowledge at work before getting a job in diverse areas such as arts and design, marketing, management, law, politics or psychology. 5. Debating will always give you more and better reasons to believe in the things you believe, but less absolute certitudes. It will help you to listen better and understand better (not only to talk and to be understood better). It will foster your tolerance, as you will be more capable of getting into the other person’s shoes. 6. This is not an activity you do only for yourself. Debating has a strong impact on the communities it reaches and though you have no guarantee to make a lasting impact you might be building a school of civic values, political engagement and proving life changing opportunities to students you will never meet, long after you are gone. 7. Debating rewards and give you knowledge and awareness of current and past events, all kinds of scientific and social phenomena and exposes you to a ton of ideas. People from all sorts of academic backgrounds debate all sorts of topics and so you will learn a lot about many interesting things you would never know if you stayed in your comfort zone. 8. As most of the existing international debate tournaments are in English, you will not only improve your language skills in your native language, but you’ll improve your English as well. This obviously doesn’t apply if english is your native language. 9. Just because some people experience some bad side effects (as obsessively disagreeing with people) that doesn’t mean that you will have to experiment them as well. And there are positive personality side effects, like a boost in self-confidence. 10. All this will makes you very attractive to prospective employers.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
There are lots of egoistic reasons to create a debating society, but we shouldn’t forget the altruistic ones. Those we be better examined in the following chapters.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
The Mission Many goals, many reasons In all societies people with a common cause or a common goal, many times find it easier or even essential to create institutions that congregate wills and resources. In this case, a DS (or debate club, debate union or debate association, whatever) is an institution created with the purpose of implementing a program that relies on a competitive debating format. There are many formats of debating and many ultimate goals one can aim at when implementing a debate program. In some places, debate is used as a tool to develop fluency in a foreign language, to train legal professionals, to get people involved in philosophical thinking or to raise awareness for human rights and other worthy causes. Some people see it just as an intellectual sport, others as a way to make their parents pay for their trips around the world, others even as just a way to meet people and have fun saying silly things. You might start a debate programme for one of these reasons, for more than one of these reasons, or for a set of reasons different from these. All reasons can be great, but if you are in a group it’s probably a good thing to know what the group thinks when it sets out in this adventure.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
What is your reason? Our reasons were perhaps not clear on the beginning and probably yours won’t be as well when you first start (it just sounds so cool!) but in time you will have to ask the question and get a consensus. Having a DS where the most important thing is to have fun is not the same thing as having a DS where the ultimate goal is to develop language skills. Of course things are not black and white and you probably want several things, but at some point you will understand that though you can pick aiming at several things its vital to know your priorities. For us, a debating society should aim to have a positive lasting impact on the surrounding community: analysing policy, helping to spread inspiring ideas, promoting diversity and freedom of speech, but specially empowering citizens with tools that allow them to demand accountability from political representatives and defend themselves and others from abuse. Beyond Debating Debating allows for the creation of a very special sort of elite, that is not generated on the basis of wealth or birth, but on a special kind of merit that rises from the fact that debaters are good in analysing complex situations, have strategical vision and posse great communication skills. Plus, this elite is typically aware of the problems of the world, civically engaged and eager to make a difference. This is particularly important when we talk about debating in university. In most regions, people who go to university are still a privileged minority that doesn’t understand that it can and should be leading change in their communities. An active educated elite is many times the only thing capable of stopping a wave of populism from sweeping a country as well as counter-balance the power of economical and social lobbies.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
But while the creation of that elite is many times an unconscious sub-product of many debating societies, empowering citizens in disadvantaged communities and harassed minorities is something that is not likely to happen if we do not aim for it. In most of our societies there are large groups of people whose rights are in constant threat. An active educated elite can contribute for the protection of those rights on a macro scale, but its unlikely to be effective on a micro scale. People need to be capable of standing-up for themselves and a debating society can offer the adequate set of skills for that to happen. For this goal to be achieve debating societies cannot stay safely in universities and expensive private schools. They can create outreach programs that put them in contact with those who are not likely to go to universities because they don’t usually get those opportunities.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
The (il)Legal Nature You are always going to need a group of people willing to set a debate program, but the institutional framework they work on can change a lot. Around the world there are debate programs provided as an extracurricular activity in some universities, others are associations of students that just do debating, there are students unions that promote debating as one of their activities, there are departments of english that coach their own teams and sponsor their activities, there are NGO that foster debate and organise debates at university level, etc. Some organisations promote debate on an international scale, others on a national scale, others on a specific city or region, others gather only people from one University or even just one Department. For a debating society to be sustainable, it needs needs “new members, new friendships, new ideas, and cross-pollination”(MN). When it’s always the same people, from the same backgrounds you don’t feel like you are growing. Some debating societies gather only people from one department, but we personally find this to be too close of a network. You must see what scheme fits best what you want to do and what you have resources for doing. And in fact you can change the structure you are working on. We started at Department level and grew to University level, started very informal and went to a more formal scheme, but sure some institutions might have done the opposite path.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
Debate about different models within your group, see want fits your strategy. Actually, you might not need a institutional framework for a while, specially if you expect to be running on a very low budget, which would be considerably diminished just if the legal expenses related to creating some sort of association.
The Strategy This is not a strategy or management manual, just a few suggestion with a very practical approach. Depending on your personality and cultural background you might or might not think you need a plan. Despite my cultural context, but pushed by our personality, we tend to believe you need a plan, preferably a detailed plan. Even if you know things won’t turn out the way you planned. When you make a plan you are forced to think about what you want and how are you going to get there. It helps you to keep focused on the important stuff, to evaluate your performance, it gives you a goal to push for as a team and it ensures that everyone knows what’s their contribution to the big picture. Analyse the chess board So how to define a strategy? Start by analysing your current position. What resources do you have? What have you accomplished? Do a SWOT diagram, where you write your
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strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are aspects of your situation that derive from internal characteristics of the organisation or project; opportunities and threats are inherit to the external context you operate in. Think about what you can do to deal with your weaknesses, prevent threats, seize opportunities and maximise the impact of your strengths. In your analysis don’t forget to take in to account different stakeholders: students, members of the DS, members of the board of the DS, the community in general, sponsors and potential sponsors, the chancellor, the deans, the professors, the staff, other student groups, your regional or national circuit of debating and whoever you might touch with your work. Understand how all those stakeholders impact your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and how they can react positively or negatively to different courses of action. Understand what are you comparative advantages. These are basically strengths or opportunities that make you unique and that are very hard to mimic by your competition. Focus on them and try to understand how they can make you reach your full potential. Try to link different points and see how they relate to each other. If lack of public recognition is for you a weakness, but you have contacts with the press as a strength, may be you can use that strength to fight that weakness. Don’t forget that things are rarely simple: you may perceive that your board members being involved in lots of other activities is a weakness, but it creates a threat when it exposes you conflicts of interest, it is a strength when it gives you diversity of perspectives and experiences and it widens the span of your network. All these tools will help you understand how the pieces are placed in the chessboard before the next move.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
Define your goals Then ask yourself “what would I like us to look like?” Be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) when you right down your goals. It’s really important that you establish a time-frame for achieving your goals. The next step is to look at the interconnections between goals. Some of your goals may be dependable on you achieving other things first. These smaller goals might not even be relevant in the end, but they are indispensable for the bigger ones to be achievable. Lets say that, for some reason, your goal is to organise the WUDC (World Universities Debate Championship) then it might be a good idea to organise some big events first, to participate in some international competitions, to have a big team of volunteers, to foster good relations with your University, with a few hotels... You get the point: if you are just starting and your goal is organising the WUDC, it’s probably not the best idea to prepare a bid right away. Having looked at the interconnections you may then establish deadlines for the smaller goals as well. If you want to organise the WUDC in 2025, you might say that you want to go to your first WUDC in 2012; and go to at least 3 tournaments per year and organise an annual IV by 2014. Be SMART! This way you make sure you know you are just not doing stuff “just because”, you are focusing your efforts into the things that will make you fulfil your plan. Those who don’t know where they are going will never have the wind in favour. Of course you will be thinking by now that this is all bullsh*t. Most worthwhile goals are only possible with long-term plans, and if you are starting something now in University there’s a good chance you will not be there for long. You are totally right! This means that a huge part of your plan coming along will be based on your ability to pass the torch to a new generation of students and their ability to pass it on to further generations. But we will talk about that later.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
How am I Going to Make This Work? In this chapter we approach the different dimensions of running a DS. There are lots of guides on debating itself, they will help you to understand the rules and perfect your game. Because they exist I’ll not do what “Opening” already did for me. We divided this chapter into four categories where we analyze four vectors you should always be concern about: Institutional, Financial, Organizational and Operational. This is just a way to put things in a way that makes sense in our mind. Obviously all these dimensions are deeply intertwined.
Institutional (How we want to be perceived as an institution?) Reputations DS, like countries, have friends and reputations. To some wide extent a DS only exists once they are recognized by a certain amount of agents in a certain community. It won’t do you much good to exist on paper in your university if the students and the governing bodies don’t know you exist. And to exist on a larger scale you must create friends that vouch for your existence on a larger scale, usually other DS. Ask a international law student about country recognition, he might further extend on this issue. 20
Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
The first step is to raise awareness of your existence, but that’s not enough. Just existing is not that awesome, because many things exist and we do not pay attention to them. So you have to come out with some sort of brand statement that explains why people should not only pay attention to you but actually like you (and if possible love and have your babies). This means you have to create an image that spells: awesome. A brand statement is basically the big promise behind every brand. So what is your promise? You can’t promise “to have lots of parties” (which is a way of being awesome) if you have no intention on throwing at least a decent among of parties every year. If you promised, deliver. People will probably look at the word “debate” that this is going to be more of a serious thing and expect, well ... debates, workshops, conferences, etc.. Though serious partying goes along very well with debating. Your brand statement should also be consistent, though you can adapt it a bit when speaking with different audiences. The promise “we are going to train very good debaters” is consistent with both the “we are going to teach you how to ask for a raise in your allowance” and the “we are going to win lots of tournaments for the University” promises. We think the reason why many brands use famous actors or sport personalities on their commercials is because it makes the work of conveying a certain promise. The promise behind many products is “we will make you beautiful”. But beautiful in what way? How does that feel? It is a lot easier to answer these questions when you have a public figure on the screen. Then your promise becomes much more real and people can relate more to it. Try to be the promise you present. Saying out loud your brand statement sounds somehow silly. So say it with everything but words. In the typography you use, in the colours of your logo, in the design of your business cards, the style in which you write your newsletters, the way you approach your new students, professors or distinguished guest, the activities you organise. Make things consistent and on purpose.
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Stakeholder Analysis and Potential Allies Your friends are your best friends. It is vital to you create and maintain a network of people and institutions that like your DS. Here are a few examples of people and institutions you definitely should try to get as allies, “parties who might be interested in helping the DS out, and who have the ability to assist, whether in kind or through finances, advice/ expertise, etc.” (MN). Don’t forget to establish personal relations with these people. You: I mean your entire network. Tell everyone about this. Show them how thrilled you are. Post it on facebook and twitter all the time. Show pride. People will sense you confidence and feel attracted to the project. Parents: In many cultures, university students are still dependent to one degree or another on their parents. If you are going to become a debater and travel a lot, or spend late hours organising events, or skip classes to go to a debating workshop is preferable that your parents support it. Persuade them that this is good and important for you. Furthermore, they will probably be your biggest sponsor to workshops, tournaments and so on. Many parents are eager to take part in their kids lives, so involve them in the process, invite them to presentation debates, show them videos online, tell them what you are doing and how it is relevant to you and your community. Don’t forget “parents sometimes work in companies or establishments that may be interest in sponsoring such activities” (MN). Deans, chancellors and high-ranking professors: Try to earn the respect and admiration of those who call the shots. The success of your DS will be also dependent on how hard they will try to make you life. Explain them what the university/faculty/department stands to gain. Try to understand what kind of people they are and what they value. Read
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
their strategical plans, go to their conferences and try to realise how exactly can you help them achieve what they want and how they can help you achieve what you want. Earn their trust personally as well, show them you are reliable and accountable. Press: if it’s not in the news it didn’t happen. If you don’t have access to the big fish tank, try to get to the student media first. VIP: people love VIP’s, they worship them like they were demigods and they will rush to your events if you bring one. But in fact political, economical, showbiz, academia and other kinds of celebrities they are just people and many times good natured, easy going people that don’t even perceive them selves as celebrities. Everyone you see on TV actually exists and they usually have cellphones, emails, facebook pages... More than that, they usually have friends. In fact, usually they are very well connected people. You just have to find a personal link. I bet that for a national celebrity you won’t need six degrees, you will probably only need two or three. Staff members: I’ve had many activities that were only possible because staff members were willing to close their eyes and give a hand (not at the same time). Truth be told, they are the ones that make it happen. Other students groups: They are your competition sometimes (people cannot be enrolled in every single group) but most of the times they are also your allies. In most universities, most students are not enrolled in anything. They just go to classes and go home, unless there’s a party somewhere. Indifference, lack of attachment to the university, over focus on studies and/or parties are you biggest menace and not other students groups. When people start being engaged with one thing it usually leads them to engaging with other
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things. Collaborate with other groups to maximise your impact and make your message reach new people. But keep your eyes open. Public Authorities: If you are preparing a big event there are many public institutions that might be willing to help you out. In some countries city councils can give very nice sponsorships to tournaments, in other places they can lent you very nice rooms for you debates and events. Many public institutions have grants for youth activities and can lent you equipment or help you spread the message. Sponsors: We will deal with sponsors on the next chapter but I think the main idea here should be that you should understand you sponsorships as long-term alliances. Create value, establish trust and you will be rewarded. Other debating societies: You are not alone. There are dozens of thousands of people around the world that are debaters as well. A very inarticulate community of articulate-greatfun-inspiring-smart people that organise wonderful events for each other, people that like to know and to learn; to talk and to listen; to drink and to read The Economist. There are many people in this community that will be thrilled to know that you are starting a debating society and that will gladly help you. Inspire yourself in what’s being done elsewhere, talk to people about their experiences, ask them for advice, go to different places just to see how they run their debating societies, organise workshops and ask trainers outside your institution to train there. Ahead, we will talk more about about domestic DS’s, when we approach the problem of fostering a national circuit.
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Financial (How are we going to pay for all this?) Money: Root of all evil? Being on a low budget is very hard, but it can boost creativity and focus you on the important stuff. No, you won’t have those big billboards all over campus. But when was the last time you went to an event because of the billboards? And was it the size and ubiquity that mattered in your decision? No, you won’t have a conference with that big name because you can’t pay a business class return ticket. But some of the best conferences I attended weren’t with the “big names” from overseas, but with interesting guys who are eager to talk with young people and that would gladly drive by the University in a thursday afternoon. First thing you need to know is that money won’t solve every problem you have. The quality of your activities is not proportionate to the among of money you spend on them. Sponsorships People are always suspicious when giving money to students, just as we are suspicious when giving money to a beggar on the street. We are afraid he will spend it on drugs, they are afraid we will spend it on booze. Start behaving like a businessman and not like a beggar. Tell people what you can do for them, what do they stand to gain, debate with them the topic. Create a short sponsorship book that does a presentation of your work and of the advantages of sponsoring. That book should also contain a certain number os degrees of sponsorship with cool names. Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze are most standard ones, but you can have different names for them. You should aim to have a pyramid-shape number of sponsors, with just one Platinum, but several Bronze partners. 25
Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
Make proposals that would make sense to you if you were in the position to decide. For that you will need to understand the institution’s philosophy and strategy, specially towards the public that you represent to them: smart, young, urban, educated, middle class. An institution might be interested in sponsoring you for many reasons. They might just want to promote awareness for their products and services among young people or to make a direct sale; they might be interested in hiring smart young people; they might want to be perceived by the public in general as enrolled in community activities; they might want to associate themselves with some aspect of your brand statement and so on. Think hard on what can you offer to those institutions. Many times it’s a good idea to start from selling a specific event, try selling one of your flagship events, and then build up a relationship where they feel more comfortable with long-term commitment and with a more generalist approach to the sponsorship. Whatever the case you must focus yourself in creating real value for you and for them. It’s a lot harder to establish a partnership than to maintain it and renew it. Don’t try to rip them off. If it is possible, propose a sponsorship whose amount is dependable on the results you get for them. They might be a bit more welcome to share the money if you share the risks. Get as much information on the institution you are asking money from as you can, but don’t forget to know yours even better. If you don’t like memorising facts and figures have them with you: what’s your budget? how many debates did you have last year? and this year? with how many people? how many visitors has your website? and how many people on your facebook page? what percentage of your members would you consider to be active? Use your personal connections, to reach the right people. We all know a friend who knows a friend... Using these connection is not illegal or immoral. You just want a fair chance to present your case in front of the right person. If know the person you will be
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talking to try to know her as well. It’s very different to talk to someone from a Marketing, Human Resources or Sales Department. At a meeting, don’t be flirty, but use your charm, your sexual attraction, your good looks, and dress to the occasion. Show yourself confident and at ease. Smile, but don’t force it much, makes you look nervous. Be polite and be honest. If you don’t know how to behave let them show you: they put you at ease, be at ease; they are right down to business, you go right down to business; they like to chat, you chat with them. Be ready to make a proposal at this first meeting. This proposal should include duties for each part, the time frame for the contract, a round figure for the value of the sponsorship, etc.. If you are not the one to “call the shots” on the issue at stake, discuss this issue with those who can. Don’t seal the deal unless you have powers to do so. Many times the people you are talking to will have also to talk with their superiors too. Try different angles. If they are reluctant to giving you a yearly grant ask them to sponsor an event, or to fly a team to a tournament, ask them for discounts for your members, ask them to give you stuff they produce instead of money, if they can’t give it for free ask for a discount. Learn to say no to low proposals. Sponsorships are not unlimited. You cannot sell ten “platinum sponsors” places the same way it’s unlikely that you will manage to have two banks sponsoring the same event. If you have McDonalds you can’t have Burger King. Learn to say yes to low proposals. In the begging it might make a lot of sense to accept low proposals from high profile companies. First, its an opportunity to show that you are trust worthy to the sponsor, so that in the future it might want to increase its relationship with you. Second, the fact that a company is sponsoring you gives other companies a sense of security. If you are good enough for them, you should be good enough for us. Be persistent, but learn when to quit. No sometimes means no, but many times means “I’m not sure” or “I didn’t understand” or “I don’t have the budget right now”. Even when
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you quit try to learn from you mistakes, ask people if they liked the way you approached them, the way you negotiated with them, what can you do to improve your proposal and when would they like do be contacted again with another proposal. Always have the last word, even if it is “Thank you for your attention. I hope we can talk again sometime soon”. Budget Debating is a fairly safe business, because you don’t need to mount an entire operation to start it: you don’t need employees or expensive equipment. I think 500EUR can get you comfortably started anywhere in the world (legalise the association, first posters, a website, business cards, may be a couple of t-shirts and a little something to help with transports if you can make a trainer come there). But you can start with a lot less if you don’t have that kind of money. The possibilities of downsizing the operation are virtually unlimited. You can start a debate project telling people to bring a pen, a piece of paper and a old cellphone. If don’t have money for big posters do them small, don’t have money for colour do black and white, don’t have money for posters do flyers, don’t have money for flyers just use social networks and talk to people. People will come, specially the few first ones, not because of the apparatus but because a friend told them to. And that’s still free. Use free stuff and ask people to give you stuff for free. If you know a friend that has a data show don’t buy one. If you can get the city council to give you maps don’t buy maps. If you can have a great activity in the park for free you don’t need to pay everyone a visit to the zoo. Do you really need a professional designer to do your website or your logo, or do you have a friend who’s a senior design student that will be glad to make for free, if he can add it all to his portfolio? This is a good cause and people are glad to help if you let them know and give them some recognition.
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Ask for money. We know this is somehow not seen as polite in some cultures where educated people are not suppose to talk such trivial things as money. Many times people won’t regard a free service as one with the same quality as a paid one, so if you got a good product (a nice workshop, for example) you can ask for money. With time you will have the money to do some things differently. Instead of asking for cakes at every caffe in the neighbourhood, you will go just to three or four and ask them a budget. And if you become very busy and very successful there might be a time where you can just go to one and buy things on the spot while you wait for someone to tell you how much is it going to cost. But remember that if something goes wrong you can always go back to basics. Diversify your sources of income. You never know when someone will cease to help you and you shouldn’t take the risk of putting all the eggs in the same basket. That’s why it’s convenient than when negotiating a contract, specially if the rule of law is well established in your country, the bigger the stakes, the bigger should be the length of the contract. If a certain institution is willing to put a bunch of money in your DS, they will probably also actually prefer doing it over a course of time. Therefore your interests are not conflicting. With a big amount of money coming all of sudden you might be tempted to incur in expenses that will make your operation harder to downsize (like asking for more rooms you then have to maintain or hiring a secretary). Use your long-term, predictable, time-bond sources of income (old steady sponsorships, automatically credited membership fees or rents) to pay for long-term, predictable, time-bond expenses (salaries or rents). Use your extraordinary sources of income (profits from a debate workshop or charitable donations) to do extraordinary expenses (tournament subsidies). If your current income doesn’t cover your current expenses something is wrong. As portuguese we must advise you: you don’t want to try to learn this the hard way.
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Never forget to write down the contract, sign it and keep a copy. Actually, keep multiple copies. When doing transition don’t forget to hand everything over. Trusting people is nice, but always have a plan B, and a plan B for the plan B.
Organisational (Who is going to make this happen?) Human Resources Management No good team is made without good individuals. Recruit among the most talented and hard working individuals and show them why this project is worth their time and passion. Good individuals don’t always make a good team. If you only have bohemian artists, or nerdy accountants, or cool surfers or smart talk lawyers in your team it will be hard to start a debating society. Try to make a team not only of diverse people, but specially of people with complementary skills and that know how to play in a team. Get people with political skills (they love to know people in high rank positions and can make your life easier by persuading them of the qualities of the project) with computer skills (manage a website and facebook account, run TAB, make electronic devices work properly) with designer skills (make your stuff look good and work better) with business skills (get sponsorships, cut costs, etc.). But more than that, get passioned people who love the project and are eager to do anything to help you out. Get leaders: people that make a difference, that take the initiative, that volunteer to go the extra mile and inspire people to go the extra mile with them. Get communicators: people who know everyone everywhere they go and make friends in a snap. Get mayvinim (experts): computer wizards to manage your website and facebook account, run TAB, make electronic devices work properly, or designer skills that make your 30
Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
stuff look good and work better, or accountants that make you feel safe about a tax inspection; or lawyers to design your contracts. Get salesman: people that would persuade every freshmen to apply for membership; or with the political skills to get you a meeting with the chancellor in 24 hours; or with the ability to get you a sponsorship after a thirty minute talk with a senior manager. It also doesn’t help to put people in the wrong place. Albert Einstein is quoted saying “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”. People perform at their best when they are doing what they like. Before telling them what to do or how to do it ask them what would they like to do and how do they think they should do it. Some people just add extra-weight and not extra-value to the project. Try not to quit on then too quickly, sometimes a talk or a change of position might do the trick. If it doesn’t do the trick don’t worry too much: you don’t have to be right in every pick you make. And in a volunteering project dead-weights usually go away after a while. Always try to end things in good terms. With a little bit of luck they might serve as good ambassadors for your project within their networks and many times they will gladly give an extra-hand in times of great need. Brain-drain of debating societies might happen. It puts bright people on the spotlight and so other students groups might head-hunted debaters to join the ranks. You can try to prevent this, showing freshmen with potential what they stand to gain with investing in debating. If you don’t succeed (and you won’t always succeed) try to look at this phenomena as brain-circulation. People can leave and come back, they can learn from an experience in other groups and expand their networks.
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Memberships If you want the project to live long and prosper, you need to attract new people and allow them/persuade them to take ownership of the project by involving them in projecting, planning, adopting, implementing and evaluating activities. But first you need to reach them. People must know you exist and they are far more distracted than you would think. You should create a coherent, stable and strong marketing programme that hits people in a way they remember the message and are persuaded to act accordingly. You can create a website, a facebook page, a facebook group, a twitter account, a youtube/vimeo account, posters and billboards, flyers, business cards, t-shirts and merchandising. More than your image you should promote a clear message that emphasises why they should come. Try to make direct marketing events, do a tour around campus presenting people the project, talk to people and invite them to come to your events, present the project in open days, presentation ceremonies, just pitch it to as many people as you can. Talk with people from the University and ask them how can they help you reaching students: may be them have an internal tv, a newspaper, a magazine, an agenda, a newsletter, a news’ website where you can promote you activities. Once people come you should try to establish a bridge between you and them. An easy way to do this is to have a membership scheme, which could/should have some kind of privileges (you can give them discounts in paid activities like tournaments, try to negotiate discounts in local shops, try them to give special credit in terms of ECTS for activities or make engagement in the DS appear in graduation diplomas, for example), a membership card is also a nice way to establish a link. You should collect and organise the data you ask you members so you can reach them through diverse channels and understand who are the members of the debating society. Make sure new people are correctly accompanied when they show up at a debate for the first time. Don’t push them too hard to debate, but incentive their participate, have someone
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explaining the debate model for them and make sure you make a personal connection with that person so that in the following session you can text her asking if she can make it. Then you can cultivate a sense of belonging. Promote the idea that a DS isn’t just a place they go sometimes to talk and then go home. A DS should be seen as a place for freedom of speech, for intellectual inspiration, of constant challange. People don’t just debate, they are debaters, it can and should be part of their personal identity and self-image. A question that always pops up is whether we there should be membership fees. I think it depends on what you need the most: money or members. You will get more contacts easier, specially if you can get discounts or other benefits for members, and a large number of members can do a great deal for you in terms of credibility with deans and public authorities, but having numbers is not equal to having people. But having members doesn’t mean you will have active members or even people that will see the debate. Some people will just join to have a fancy line in their CV. As for money, its value was discussed in the proper chapter. Some DS focus only on a few departments or even on just a few courses. We think this can be a nice idea in the very first steps of the DS, but afterwards these dynamics actually can kill it by having always the same people present, the same kinds of arguments and no real cross-pollination of views. From our own experience and from what we have seen although some courses are easier to target than others you are never really talking about courses, you are always talking about people. And there are people interested in debating in all courses. But yes, people in different courses usually like different things. So you can adequate the motions of your show debates: have a energy debate in engineering faculty, or a bioethics debate in the science faculty, or doctor-patient privileges debate for medical students, etc. The same thing goes when you need to address students who you perceive as “apathetic, resigned, not active enough” (MN). It’s not enough to be passionate about debating for people to understand why you are passionate and for them to be passionate as
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well. The strategy is to show them that debate is not “just words”. Policy doesn’t change after a debate, but debating changes perspectives, it fosters tolerance and it gives skills people can use outside debating to shape the world in the way they think is needed. It’s not “just words”, when those words change people and people change things. The strategy is to show them debate isn’t a “political thing” (on the worst sense of the word). The issues we debate are ones that impact on the community, they things that matter to people in this earth. Delegating and Transition One thing you will learn very quickly is that you can’t do everything. If you want your project to be more than just about you will have to pass on responsibilities. That process it’s easier when you’re telling someone to make a poster and you have no idea how to make one. But it’s a lot harder when you know that if you were to do it, you would do it better and faster. And it’s almost impossible to delegate when you know that you will spend more time and effort supervising or teaching how to do it than actually you would spend doing it. Unfortunately the best option on the long-term is almost always to delegate what’s “delagatable”, so that knowledge and experience is multiplied and it doesn’t run out once your gone. Managing is important but “unmanaging” is many times crucial. Learn not to micromanage and just to let people assume their own responsibilities. But before establishing a culture of responsibility don’t assume that everyone is responsible. In the right context most people are responsible, in the wrong one no one is. This is why a sense of belonging is even more important. Manage not just for today but for tomorrow. Imagine what sort of record of previous events you would like to have in a few years and provide it for “yourself” in the future. For every big activity you organise, for every partnership you promote you should be careful to
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leave enough paper trail behind you some people know the way. If you do so you will have an extensive knowledge base that will make project management a lot easier. Just imagine how easier it would be to organise a second edition of any event if you had in one place copies of the invitations letters, grant applications, sponsorship applications, participants’ feedback, the graphical image of the event, contacts of past participants, partners and organisers, a task distribution scheme and calendar, etc.. This would be extremely useful and it actually prevents knowledge loss when there’s a big change in the board or in the organising committee of a given activity. It’s important that your project can regenerate itself. For that you need to find a balance between people with experience and people without experience. Experience doesn’t transfer itself easily just with the mere passage of time. It usually related highly to the amount of responsibility you give people. It’s a good thing that you learn to let go of your projects and let other people have the wonderful experience of running the beautiful machine you have built. After all, we are all human and sooner or later you will have to let go. Wouldn’t it be better then if you ensure a smooth transition and watch the fruits your work give birth to trees of their own? But letting go shouldn’t mean to disappear and never show up again. Pass by once in a while, offer your services as a trainer, accept the opportunity for helping out adjudicating in an IV, drop by for the parties and buy the kids a few drinks, keep in touch with the new members of the board, foster the relations between the DS and its alumni, persuade your company to sponsor the DS or introduce them to people who might get them sponsorships. You know you will love to know how things are going and give a hand. What you might now know is that they will likely appreciate your presence, regard highly your advice and cherish the opportunity to talk with someone with a bit more experience. The presence of older members in these institutions is what really makes them institutions: endeavours that carry
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on regardless of the people who run things at a given moment in time. It’s a spirit in multiple bodies. Transition is not only important to do in big roles, but also in small ones. Even volunteers create and perfect work routines, establish connection with members of the staff and sponsors. It’s important that you know the person who did your job before and that you are able to learn from his or her success and mistakes and build on what was laid down before. Everyone who is doing a certain job should be working to make himself dispensable. Policies Manual It might be useful to create a Policies Manual, which spells out not only the roles and tasks of different members in the Board/Organising Committees, but it also determines things as the rules of allocation of jointly fundraised funds for attending international events (if there is a travel fund for international competitions). A Policies Manual makes procedures more transparent, avoids conflicts based on casuistic decisions and ensures information is wide-spread and easily accessible for those who need it. Values Statement It’s important for the organisation, and specially for board members, to understand and incorporate the values of the DS. They should reflect the culture, the mindset, of the people that make the DS and address issues that might be problematic in your specific context. These values can be laid down a Ethics Code and help people keep a ethical reference in times of shift. In our case we picked the following values: Chivalry (we aim to raise brave, respectful and honest leaders); Independence (we are democratically run and independent from political, religious, philosophical and other groups of all persuasions); Diversity (we cherish diversity in all its shapes and forms, inside and outside debates, as trampolines for the
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progress of ideas); Unity (we believe in the power of synergies among different people and institutions) and Ambition (we are passionate about what we do serving the community, we aim to do it better and to lead through example).
Operational (What are we going to do?) What you should do depends a lot on what you are trying to achieve: so do stuff that helps you to get where you want to be. This is hard at times, because you might have lots of ideas, plans and invitations and you might not be able to take them all. So you must decide what’s important to you at any given moment, what puts you closer to your goals. There’s a level of institutional, financial and organisational capacity that is required to do a certain activity. So when is an event to big for you? Growing is about pushing the limits. A debater that only competes with people that are worst than herself will never achieve her full potential. An organisation that doesn’t try to push itself to do things it has never done will most probably stagnate and die. You should aim high, “shoot for the moon, because even if you miss you will land among the stars”. But there’s very thin line between being a visionary and been a lunatic. That line is called success. There are things, many things, that you will not be able to do (at least for the time being). There are even more things that are not worth doing (at least now) because they are, or could be, too resource consuming and you have other priorities. There are many good reasons for you to do something, so just don’t do it out of vanity or repetition. There are many good reasons for you not to do something, so just don’t refrain from doing them out of fear or laziness. Be a leader and embrace the possibility of failure, learn to deal with it, but don’t ever become addicted or used to it. The idea is to learn from the mistakes while trying to succeed; 37
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and so it’s important (vital event!) to survive your own mistakes. If you feel the attraction for the abyss, to fail spectacularly, to go down in flames, to die out with a bang, remember that your DS really isn’t yours and making that decision really isn’t up to you to make. It’s a lot harder to build than it is to destroy, so keep the destroying to a minimum. So what should you do? The approach we take is to force ourselves to do things that are just a bit over our head. It allows you to keep learning and to keep growing while giving you a decent chance to survive your mistakes. You have to start somewhere, so don’t be afraid to start small. Margaret Mead said “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that has done it”. But let me finish with a word of advice: you do need a group, you can’t decide to go alone or against any substantial part of your team. The Model Please do yourself a favour: start debating in british parliamentary aka world’s style and stick to it. It is a fascinating model because it has a more complex strategy, it privileges persuasion and not the ability to speak fast (as policy debating), incentivises general knowledge (as you have only 15 minutes of preparation time), it’s fast paced and allows for some deeper analysis. Moreover, it is a world-wide spread model, which means that you can travel almost to any region of the globe a debate with people there in the same model. I would advise though for you to be careful when deciding the language you will be debating in. In some countries kids nowadays learn english from a very young age and are almost bilingual. They reach college being very comfortable about their English speaking skills and they might be seduced with the idea of debating in English as a way not to rust their English. But these areas of the world are an exception. Most probably you will be starting a debating society in a place where most university students understand english well but speak
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it with a huge lack of proficiency, vocabulary and confidence. Many of your colleagues will be scared with you start things in English. You basically have two options which you can try to mix. If your priority is getting better debaters and internationally competitive teams first, you should probably start in english. If you want to have more debaters first, you should probably start in your native language. I know DS with similar goals on the long-run that are opting for different strategies right now regarding this point. The First Debate You don’t have to make something huge out of your first debate and make a big launching event, with everything and everyone. Actually I would probably do a small debate first: just among friends and friends of friends. If you know anyone that can help you setting up the first few debates it would be great: an exchange student that used to debate, a professor that studied abroad, a english professor, people from other debating societies nearby, people from other debating societies not so nearby... If you would appreciate some help, ask for it. You can do things differently considering, but here are a few ideas. 1. Pick ten friends you can count on, get them to say yes to being a part of a show debate. Two of them adjudicating and eight debating. 2. Email them some materials for them to read, preferably in their own language, with debating rules and adjudication guide lines, links for a couple of debate videos and a list of motions so they know what kind of thing to expect. 3. Pick a classical but still controversial motion (death penalty, prostitution, drugs ...) or one that they know about (local issues, current national news, etc.). Make sure the motion doesn’t require a complex model or a complex definition.
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4. For the first debate and give teams 20min instead of 15min so you (and someone that might be helping you) can fly from one team to the other challenging their ideas and asking them questions that might help them to come up with better developed arguments. 5. If a debater can’t fill the 7 minutes, try to help him out by asking questions. If he’s already in protected time tell him to summarise what he just said. 6. After the debate try to make the adjudication as much of a conversation as possible and reach a consensus even with the participants. 7. Make sure new people are correctly accompanied when they show up at a debate for the first time. Don’t push them too hard to debate, but incentive their participate, have someone explaining the debate model for them and make sure you make a personal connection with that person so that in the following session you can text her asking if she can make it. From this first debate many question will probably pop-up. Try to answer them by reading a debaters or adjudicators briefing online (google it) or just email a debater you know. If you don’t know anyone just email me (aryfcunha@gmail.com). Not that I’m the best person to answer your question, it’s just that I like helping out. After this first debate you will be readier to make a first show debate. You can still invite some people from other DS for this first show debate, as it is important for the first show debate to be a good one, increasing people’s confidence in the work of the DS. 1. Pick a date and book a room. 2. Print some black and white A3 posters and place them all over the campus. 3. Use online social networks to invite all your friends to the event and ask your friends to invite their friends, phone friends, text friends, email friends but above all talk to people face to face and tell them how cool it will all be. 4. After all this work don’t demotivate if you only have a few people participating in the show debate. It will get better.
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5. Once again be careful to pick easy motions without much definition or model. 6. Oral adjudication and a Q&A (questions and answers) period may be important to make people engage in the debate. After this you are launched and the real work starts. Trainings and Workshops You learn a lot and get all sorts of skills through debating itself. But debating and attending workshops is also a great complementary way to improve your skills. Debate trainings and workshops should teach participants certain skills by focusing on particular aspects of debating, like particular debate positions, strategies, theories, kinds of motions, etc.. Specially with good debaters it’s important to have regular trainings and workshops where they can work on their soft spots. It’s a very good idea to bring experienced debaters and trainers to give these trainings and workshops, as a good trainer can help participants improve a lot in only a few sessions. It’s hard to be better with no better examples around you and so its important to bring these examples or to go to where they are. The difference is it can be a lot cheaper to fly a trainer to give a workshop for ten people than to fly ten people to be in contact with good debating. But unless you are sitting in a goldmine you can’t afford to be flying trainers and at least in the beginning you won’t have that many great debaters in your DS. Many DS in that position just don’t do trainings and workshops, but we don’t think that is good, specially as you have some options. 1. You may not have many experienced debaters around you, but you may have around some acting professors, rethorics professors, communications professors that can teach and train lots of useful skill in debating. 2. If you are near another debating society may be you can go to trainings there, or send a good debaters there so he can learn and then teach the rest of you guys, or may be you can organise common trainings... 3. If you know something about debating or about a certain topic that pops up in debating, if you have
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a certain skill useful in debating, if you have something to share, you have something to teach. Do prepare, do make your research, but don’t make a big deal out of orienting a training or giving a workshop. You don’t have to be a debating specialist, you just need to be able to give people something new, and that can just be a worthy different perspective. There are lots of free materials for you research online. Without wanting to discourage you to finding other good, or even better, platforms, we recommend the following: World Debating Website (news, motions, rules and tips) Global Debate (news) Alfred Snider’s Channels on Vimeo (debates and lectures on video) Debatepedia (wikipedia of debating, pros and cons on many topics) ProCon.org (pros and cons on many topics) Debatabase (pros and cons on many topics) Debate Motion Central (all motions of all big tournaments) High School Debating is an activity in which experience is somehow important. If you start early you will have a significant advantage comparing with other university freshmen and with proper training and guidance you will be able to keep that advantage and become a great debater. Some high school kids are incredibly smart and civically engaged. They shouldn’t be missing out on these opportunities. Here are some of the advantages: A. Starting a debating programme to reach high schools (you could start even earlier, but it usually starts in high school) can be a very effective way to get better debaters at university level. B. Giving trainings to high school kids can also be a way to finance your debating society or to compensate your best debaters when they help out as trainers if you can get the parents or the schools to pay for the trainings. C. In high school you can reach students that you usually can’t in university because of drop out
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before that. It’s an amazing opportunity to positively impact the lives of those students. D. If you are able to start a debate movement in high school you might be able to use a army of teachers in favour of your cause or even make national school curricula contemplate debate as a subject. In which case in a generation’s time debating would be a part of the country’s culture. E. To train high school kids can be a great way to improve your debating skills and a path to smoothen the transition between debating and training. So you can end up with a team of very cool debaters and trainers. Problems: A. It’s hard to have autonomous and self-governing high school debating societies, students typically don’t have enough maturity and autonomy, and so you need a great deal of support from teachers, that usually are already exhausted and don’t feel like spending extra-time at school for no extra-money and no sort of compensation. B. You must have the school board’s permission to do most things and while some may like the idea others will be suspicious. C. For debating it’s necessary to have certain skills and knowledge that many kids in high school do not have and those take a long time and a huge effort to acquire. D. You need debaters/trainers not only with sufficient debating skills to teach, but that have the necessary reliability to commit to the project and that know how to deal with kids that are not the younger than they are but might not be all that mature and/or interested. E. You could be using those wonderful resources in university debating, your core-business, where benefits could more easily, directly and quickly be perceived. Tournaments, IV’s and Debate Academies It’s when you go outside to represent your university that debating really turns into a competition. For any DS it’s important it’s important to go to, to make the most out of and to bring good results home from tournaments, IV’s and debate academies. Here are a few reasons why this is so important:
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A. It’s only once you go to a big tournament that you understand what it means to be a part of such a large community and that you start to perceive yourself as a debater. Going to a big debating event may be a great motivator. B. It’s a great incentive to young debaters to travel and go swim with the guys you watched videos of. Most debaters improve a lot going to their first real tournament, they become more confident in their own skills and many theoretical concepts become real. C. Experienced debaters don’t have much room to grow in internal competitions where they know they will be the best. For them to keep growing they need to face people that are better than they are, they need to go outside their lake, into the sea, and have the humbling experience of realising how big sharks really are. D.You need good, internationally experienced, successful debaters in your debating society. You need their knowledge and their authority as debaters to train and to judge debates. E. You also need these events to promote the image of your DS, your university and your sponsors outside. F. Big international competitions, such as Euros or Worlds, benchmark debating societies. Part of our image near your peers, your university and your sponsor depends on international victories. G. Tournaments and IV’s are great places to put things in to practice and for you to train with your partner, but academies allow you to learn a lot both on a theoretical and on a practical perspective in a very complementary way. H.One can really learn a lot from the cultural exchanges taking place at in international tournament. Culture and debating are both fields where perspective is paramount and getting to know different cultures can make you grow not only as a debater but also as a person. But as always there are some problems related to this you might have to consider:
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A. When you put too much emphasis on the competitive part you may loose focus of your ultimate goals. Fact that in competition you have ways to measure success might make you believe that your success is dependable on the number of points you make in Worlds. This is about much more than that and you should know it. B. Debating is not an expensive sport. You don’t need a car, a horse, clubs or balls, you just need a pen a few pieces of paper and a cellphone with a chronometer might help. But when it comes to going to international competitions this becomes a rich men’s game. Unfortunately you will not be able to pay for the participation of every debater to every tournament they want to go, not even to pay for the participation of the best debaters to every tournament they deserve to go. It’s sad and unfair to see good debaters not growing as fast as they could because they don’t have the money to have the international experiences that would allow them to jump to the next stage, but that’s a reality you should be able to live with. C. Air traveling is still very expensive. Sending a team to Worlds can easily cost you the same as your entire annual marketing budget and so you have to think carefully before sacrificing your internal activities to send two people across the world to a week of debating. D.Investing in a team it’s a high stakes and high risk investment. You must start early to give them a chance to improve with time but they can never really jump to the next stage despite all the tournaments; or they can just click in a tournament and make you proud for years afterwards. E. It’s not just about the big competitions. A team can win a great deal from going to a smaller competition first where they can fail safely, go home and see what went wrong. If learning is more important to you at this stage than international projection or benchmarking, small weekend tournaments near you might be a great solution. A big piece of the experience for a small fraction of the price.
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Domestic Tournaments and National Championship I can’t stress more the absolute necessity of national or regional circuit. It’s very hard to thrive on the desert, as it is very hard to start a DS in place where you don’t have DS’s. After you established yourself and created some nice conditions in the area around you you might be tempted to stay an oasis. The problem with oasis (besides the Noel-Liam relationship) is that not only can’t they ever sustain on themselves alone the most complex forms of life but also that a single desert storm can silent them forever. A DS that isolates itself from the world will inevitably never reach its full potential, will suffer from heavy brain drain and could end very quickly with a just a couple of bad boards in a row. So what do we mean for “circuit”? I refer to a network of DS’s that live in a mutualistic community where each DS benefits from being more or less integrated with the others. While maintaining significant autonomy on its decisions and internal affaires, DS’s that work in circuit coordinate their efforts and create synergies. Like in wolf packs, there might be some competition within the group, but it is always displayed within a context of collaboration. A national circuit allows you to specialise, focusing on the kind of activities you are really good at organising and where you can deliver great quality at a great price. A big and coordinated circuit also allows you specialise according to comparative advantages, organising a few very good activities of a certain kind and just participating in others organised by other DS’s. If your DS is in a city with low-cost flights may be you can be the one to host the big international open; but your university might not have big enough infrastructures to host a Euros or it might not make sense to host national debate workshops there because hotels are too expensive. Different cities also have different high and low
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
seasons, so you can take advantage of that too. Plus, you can organise bigger activities than you ever could if your were working alone. Your debaters can get the experience of an international competition for a fraction of the price. One of the biggest advantages of having other DS’s close by is that you don’t need to be organising activities all the time to have a regular activity for your debaters. If you have ten debating societies in a 300km radius and each one organises just one competition per year you don’t don’t need that much money to have your debaters competing every single month and that would give them a huge hedge over debaters that just have the opportunity to compete once or twice a year in big tournaments. It’s easier to create value for national companies when you are giving them exposer in a national context. But you can also get your university more interested in debating if you compete on the level they are competing. Most university compete mainly on a national basis and so they are interest in showing that they are good in a national comparison. Plus, an healthy regular competition between domestic DS’s can foster excellence. You can share equipment, know-how and human resources. May be they have a couple of extra computers, may be they know how to organise an IV and have some cool international contacts, may be they have a good trainer you would like to invite for a workshop. You will end up seeing these people a lot more than other debaters and you will create friendship bonds with some of them. Personally this is valuable, of course, but institutionally it’s also very nice to know that even if you screw up in organising an event you still don’t have to cancel it because you have debater friends across the country you can rely on. A domestic circuit is your best insurance in case something goes wrong. The fact that somewhere near another DS is thriving will get people interested in your DS effortlessly and it’s a lot easier to get help from experienced trainers, experienced judges, experienced organisers and experienced debaters when they don’t have to take holidays to meet you, you
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
don’t have to pay them expensive flights, they speak the same language of you and the people around you and they are bond to you to some kind of weird cultural moral tie that makes us care more for what’s near and looks familiar. If you can create a context in which collaboration and competition exist between DS’s reinforcing the best in each and creating a debating culture throughout the land, there’s a good chance it becomes self-sustainable. Organising Tournaments and Stuff Debating activities don’t have all to look alike. In fact it’s good to have different programmes for different people, with different tastes, so that everyone can find something they love. Some people would like to combine debating with night-life (imagine an Ibiza IV with no morning rounds!), others with cultural visits to historical sights (imagine a Roma Debate Workshops, with a whole day of guided tours through the city in small groups) or with ski and snow (book me for Kitzbuhel Debate Academy!). It’s nice to live in a world with diversity where you have the “Crazy IV” (Strathclyde University) with Harry Potter motions.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
Conclusion We deposited here much of what we have learned in the past few years in hope some might be useful to someone, someday, somehow. We hope to have given you some ideas that will make you project move forward and we expect that you might contribute to this guide as well. As said already, we would like this to be a dynamic repository of debate organising know-how, so please feel free to send us any comments, critiques, ideas, and suggestions you might see fit. Starting and running a DS is an amazing adventure that will lead you to amazing people with great ideas and wonderful experiences in beautiful places. You will face many obstacles, but it might shape your community for the best and it will definitely shape you. Just don’t forget to make it fun.
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Brief Guide on How to Start a Debating Society - December 2011
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