So I noticed that Mcmaster has a Debating Society. Who's been in it?? Basically I just wanna know what kind of debates they've done in the past and maybe any other info people wanna throw out there!

Thanks!

I wasn't in it for too long, and it was way back when I was in first year, but it was British and Canadian Parliamentary that they were doing when I was there. IIRC, they met up in UH in some of the first floor rooms on Thursdays around 8 p.m.

You just debate for fun/practice and if you want, you can join/sign up to compete in other universities or debating events such as one in Queen's, in Quebec, etc.

I've seen the Chinese Debating society. The only problem is that it is mostly in Chinese..

Lol, I assumed as much for the CHINESE debating society

Maybe I should make a martian debating society

Hey,

I'm the VP internal of the McMaster Debating Society.

We debate about all kinds of topics. We usually start most meetings by having a small discussion on what's going on in current events, and then we move on to a debate which may or may not be based around the discussion. Topics can include stuff like politics (stuff going on in Syria for example), economics (maybe something based around the economic crisis or the LIBOR scandal happening in the UK), debates in law, healthcare, policy, civil/human rights, etc. We don't usually linger on anything specific for too long, but always try to attempt to keep the topic relevant to what you might have been hearing in the news. Last year we did a few rounds on KONY2012 for example. Every once in a while we have pop-culture related rounds too, stuff like: "We believe that Hogwarts should eliminate the house system." or "We believe Superman should not be allowed to procreate." These are really fun, but less likely to appear at conventional tournaments. There are some designated tournaments however that pretty much just focus on pop-culture resolutions, really fun to participate in usually.

The whole idea behind it is for you to develop your argumentation and public speaking skills, and if you'd like, eventually going on to represent McMaster at a tournament (they happen all across Canada, we hold one ourselves too). At these tournaments, you're going to be debating all kinds of things, that's why we try to develop skills in which you can develop arguments for anything, even if you have no idea what the topic is about. I once had to debate the most random topic about land distribution in Zimbabwe (I think it was a tournament at Queen's, my first university tournament), something I had absolutely zero idea about, and my team ended up getting second place still (out of four places).

Justin is right in mentioning that we teach specific debating styles, we usually do British Parliamentary in first semester, and Canadian Parliamentary in the second. If you don't know what these are, it's absolutely not an issue since we spend the first few meetings or so going over these, and they aren't very hard to learn. Also I'd like to stress that they have little to do with actual "parliament", the name just indicates how many speakers are involved in each debate, how long they speak for, etc. They're just formats that may have been based on the speaking formats used in parliament (but not really).

PM me if you have any more questions! We'll have a booth at clubsfest if you wanna come chat. We haven't yet decided what date the first meeting will be, but once we do, I'll post it on MI. It'll likely happen on the week of September 10th.

Cheers.

Originally Posted by dumbconsumer

Hey,

I'm the VP internal of the McMaster Debating Society.

We debate about all kinds of topics. We usually start most meetings by having a small discussion on what's going on in current events, and then we move on to a debate which may or may not be based around the discussion. Topics can include stuff like politics (stuff going on in Syria for example), economics (maybe something based around the economic crisis or the LIBOR scandal happening in the UK), debates in law, healthcare, policy, civil/human rights, etc. We don't usually linger on anything specific for too long, but always try to attempt to keep the topic relevant to what you might have been hearing in the news. Last year we did a few rounds on KONY2012 for example. Every once in a while we have pop-culture related rounds too, stuff like: "We believe that Hogwarts should eliminate the house system." or "We believe Superman should not be allowed to procreate." These are really fun, but less likely to appear at conventional tournaments. There are some designated tournaments however that pretty much just focus on pop-culture resolutions, really fun to participate in usually.

The whole idea behind it is for you to develop your argumentation and public speaking skills, and if you'd like, eventually going on to represent McMaster at a tournament (they happen all across Canada, we hold one ourselves too). At these tournaments, you're going to be debating all kinds of things, that's why we try to develop skills in which you can develop arguments for anything, even if you have no idea what the topic is about. I once had to debate the most random topic about land distribution in Zimbabwe (I think it was a tournament at Queen's, my first university tournament), something I had absolutely zero idea about, and my team ended up getting second place still (out of four places).

Justin is right in mentioning that we teach specific debating styles, we usually do British Parliamentary in first semester, and Canadian Parliamentary in the second. If you don't know what these are, it's absolutely not an issue since we spend the first few meetings or so going over these, and they aren't very hard to learn. Also I'd like to stress that they have little to do with actual "parliament", the name just indicates how many speakers are involved in each debate, how long they speak for, etc. They're just formats that may have been based on the speaking formats used in parliament (but not really).

PM me if you have any more questions! We'll have a booth at clubsfest if you wanna come chat. We haven't yet decided what date the first meeting will be, but once we do, I'll post it on MI. It'll likely happen on the week of September 10th.

Cheers.

That sounds great!

I've been on my school "Debate Team" for a while. We've had some impromptu debates, as well as the prepared topics. This definitely sounds like something I want to do. I'll be sure to stop by the booth to sign up!

Looking forward to meeting everyone!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/McMas...34154606689441

^ Our facebook page! We only really made it recently, so it's a bit low on content at the moment, but we'll be using it once the school year gets rolling. (let me know if the link isn't working for any reason!, the page is called: McMaster Debating Society)

Is it just sign up and come to the meetings? I am interested (made a thread earlier). Or, do you interview candidates for the team?

Just sign up and come to meetings. Sorry, I might have missed your previous thread!

When the time comes to send people to tournaments, we try to accommodate everyone who is interested. Often times, tournaments impose a cap on the number of teams we can send (each team has two members). So if we're capped at 5 teams for example, we can send a maximum of 10 people. If the situation has more than 10 people interested, we might have tryouts of sorts, or maybe we can work out a system in which 10 people go to the upcoming tournament, and those who didn't get to go are selected for the next available tournament. Usually tournaments have some type of skill distinction:
- "Novice" Tournaments are limited to those who haven't debated before at the university levels (high school debating experience is fair game).
- "Pro-Am" tournaments have teams composed of one novice debater and one senior debater.
- While there are no strictly "senior" tournaments, some tournaments just tend to draw a more experienced crowd, such as the Canadian Nationals.

Due to these distinctions, the crowd that will be likely be interested in any given tournament will differ from time to time. I can almost guarantee that anyone who really does show us that they are interested (attending meetings, participating, etc.) will definitely go to at least one tournament in a year, if not more (likely more!).

How often are the meetings and how long are they? Are all meetings mandatory, even for people who don't intend to compete? Thank you!

Meetings are once a week, and range from 1.5 to 2 hours. Usually that consists of about half an hour of discussion (or a little more) followed by an hour(ish) of debating/exercises/games/etc. The exact schedule for the upcoming year is still in the process of being decided, but in the past few years, meetings have been generally held on a Non-Friday weekday, starting at around 6:30pm.

Attendance at all meetings is not mandatory, especially if you're not intending to compete. We still think it'd be awesome if you can drop by though, schedule-permitting. I find that debating gets progressively more fun as you get to know the people in the society. Regular attendance also encourages continual development of any skills you hope to gain through debating.

For those who want to compete, meetings aren't "mandatory" either, we're just gonna expect that you can attend a good number of meetings preceding the tournament you're going to, so we can help you train and develop your skills. We're super understanding if you have some particular reason for not attending a particular meeting, like a midterm in the days around the meeting or some other appointment. We're also totally willing to hold extra meetings in the week, if those who are interested in competing would like to train further.

That was really helpful, thanks! I'll definitely look to check it out!

I don't know how I missed this before but I am definitely interested in joining. I'm not on Facebook so can't check there - when are meetings held this year?

Same. I'm definitely interested..
Is there a mailing list we can add ourselves to?

My friend helps run this club! He says email [email protected] om if you're interested.