This week a particular mention should go to the involvement our members have with the various regional secondary school debating competitions since this weekend in Wellington the National Championships have just wrapped up.
Each year there are a number of weekend long regional tournaments open to secondary schools around NZ. This year our members helped convene and adjudicate number of these tournaments. Our members are then involved in coaching regional representative teams. Those people were:
Auckland Coaches: Desley Horton (convener also), Brad Ward, George Minton and Dan White.
Northland Conveners/Coaches: Mitch Cooper and Kate Mills
Waikato Coaches: Akif Malik and Max Harris
Waikato Development Team Coaches: Mark Tushingham and Rachel McMaster
At Thropy all five of the above teams attended and debated exceptionally well. Special mention should go to 'Auckland White' for ranking in first place after the four preliminary rounds.
That team was made up of Emily Adlam from Diocesan, Sam Horner from Wentworth and Nupur Upadhyay from St Cuths.
Likewise special mention to the Waikato Team who were ranked second and included Tom Chen from Hillcrest High, Jessica Jackman from Sacred Heart and Luke Craven from Bethlehem College.
Over the last few days the regional teams and their coaches have been in Wellington for the National Finals. Again, special congratulations go to the Waikato Team (above) who won the Grand Final to become the 2008 winners. Congratulations to their coaches Max and Akif as well for their coaching efforts.
Likewise, congratulations to Auckland White (above also) who broke to the semi-finals but were ultimately beaten by the Waikato Team. Finally, a mention should also go to Kings College student Ben Kornfield who was selected as a member of the NZ Representative team.
The Debsoc has close links with many schools competitions, including the largest single competition in NZ which we founded this year (www.aucklandschoolsdebating.org.nz). For more information check out that website our the schools page of our own website.
