UTA Debate Society

Hello all,

Today we’re having the public Debate Night 2012 (in finnish) at YO-Talo. It takes place at the same time as our regular meeting so that’s cancelled for today.

If you can, be sure to attend the Debate Night though, there are interesting topics and good speakers.

And next week we have a regular meeting again, so see you all there!

Hi everyone!

Tuesday the 6th, the day after tomorrow, we won’t be having our weekly meeting due to the period break at the University. See you all on Tuesday the 13th of March!

Hi everyone, happy new year 2012!

You might think I’m a bit late with this, but actually today is the Chinese New Year’s Day, so there you have it. Happy Year of the Dragon!

Anyway, down to business. Tomorrow we have the first official meeting of this year, same place and time as usually. If you’re a newcomer, feel free to come and see what we do! No pressure, no obligations, you can bring your friends along. Especially now, at the beginning of the year, we will focus on the basics of debating with the newcomers, and next week’s meeting is even themed “Introduction to Debate”. The more experienced members will probably have some activity in another room so there’s something for everyone, regardless of whether you’ve debated five, fifteen, fifty or zero times in your life!

Also, we have some pretty neat fliers this year, which should appear everywhere around the campus tomorrow.

See you all tomorrow!

(Language Centre E301, 17:00 sharp)

Howdy!

It’s been a long time since the last post, but that does most certainly not mean that nothing has been going on… More about recent events later in this post. First of all I’d like to welcome everyone to the Fall meeting and Christmas party which will take place this Saturday, the 10th of December, at 18.00 in Pyry’s place. To get an invitation to the Facebook event you can either contact Jenni or Pyry or ask to be invited in the UTA Debate Society group in Facebook. Hoping to see many of you there!

The food and drinks in the party will be brought collectively, so everyone should bring something with them. Also we will do “Secret Santa”, which means that everyone who wants to can bring a gift of no more than 5 euros in value, packaged and so on, and everyone who does this will receive a random gift from someone else. This is bound to be fun :)

In other news, I’m glad to inform everyone that the First Finnish National Debate Championship, which was held in Helsinki last weekend was won by Jenni and Leo (team Sly Fox) from the UTA Debate Society! We also had one more finalist, Aira. Go Tampere!

Jenni and Leo also took part in the International Debate Academy Slovenia from 19th to 27th November, including the tournament in the end, where they almost made it to the quarter-finals. The debate tricks we learned in Slovenia will undoubtedly be shared for everyone’s benefit in the upcoming meetings of UTA Debate Society.

A few weeks ago, on the 15th of November, we also had the pleasure to have a visitor in the Society meeting, ms Leasa Weimer from the University of Georgia (Institute for Higher Education) who is doing her Ph.D. research on tuition fees. We saw and heard a very interesting presentation about the international student market and afterwards we debated whether Finland should introduce tuition fees for non-EU students. Having an expert introduce us to a subject and comment on the debate afterwards was great, and I’m hoping we can arrange a similar meeting again in the future.

I can’t think of any other major things that have been going on lately, perhaps because I missed two meetings being in Slovenia. Please, do fill me in if I forgot anything :)

See you all on Saturday!

P.S. We will have at least one more meeting before Christmas, so be sure to come debate next Tuesday (the usual time and place)!

Hi again!

Our last meeting was fun as usually, we had two meetings at the same time. The two motions used were THBT severely overpopulated countries should adopt a one-child policy andTHW ban clearly deceptive headlines.

A reminder for everyone: No meeting next Tuesday! It’s the unofficial period break next week so we will meet again on the 25th of October.

Greetings!

Since there were so many news last week I completely forgot to write about last week’s debate meeting on September the 27th, so here’s a short summary before moving on to this week’s meeting. We did a “long table debate” exercise on the motion  THW ban gambling. The exercise works so that people are divided into two sides, and people take turns in delivering one argument and one counter-argument. There were ten people in total and we did two rounds.

Additionally, we had a full debate on the very interesting motion of THBT marriage is an outdated concept.

This week, 4th of October we first did an exercise in which the whole group brainstormed government and opposition arguments and points of view on the motion THBT that feminists should reject slutwalks. People were really active and we had good discussion going on, which is why it was decided to leave the further analysis of the brainstormed ideas to some other time.

We also had two six-person debates, one on the motions THW put university curriculum in the hands of students and THW not sentence non-violent offenders to jail.

Many people wanted their speeches to be videoed, which was done. Great going! I hope you enjoy watching your speech :)

Also, on the subject of slutwalks, tomorrow there’s an event supporting the Tampere SlutWalk that took place some time ago. Basically the event consists of a public 1-on-1 debate (in Finnish) which is hosted by myself, and after that there are bands playing. The place is YO-talo at Kauppakatu, the time is 7 pm tomorrow, so make sure to come if you can! Read more here.

That’s all for now, I’m hoping to see many of you tomorrow!

Until now, being a member of the society has been entirely free, but since we’re in the process of officially registering the society we will start collecting a membership fee of 3 euros per semester/ 4 euros per calendar year. We have indeed had some costs and we are expecting to have more in the future, which is why collective participation in the form of a membership fee is going to be introduced.

The fee will be officially introduced on the 11th of October, in our regular Tuesday meeting. From that on, everyone who has attended two meetings should pay the fee if they intend to continue coming. So you can attend two meetings without having to pay, to get you an idea of what debating is like. If after your two free meetings you are still unsure if you want to come again, you can contact anyone from the UTA DS Board face-to-face or via email and we can help you decide. Also, if you read this post you’ll find that there are other things apart from the regular meetings that you can attend as a member.

So, what will the money be used for? In the beginning it will mostly be used for covering the costs of registering the society, recruiting more members and organising events for the members of the society.

You can pay the fee to our treasurer, Pyry, or to Jenni if Pyry is absent. We only take cash and the paid money should be exact since we don’t carry any extra change with us. So, if you want to pay for membership until the end of this calendar year, bring exactly 3 euros to the meeting.

To sum it up:
What is this fee I’m talking about? – The membership fee to the UTA Debate Society
What do you get with this fee? – Membership to the Society, meeting on most Tuesdays during the academic year, extra meetings, and or course all the great benefits you get from debating!
How much is the fee? – 3 euros for one semester, 4 euros for a full calendar year
When should you pay? – Latest on the third meeting you attend, starting from 11th October (so you can attend two times before deciding whether to join the society)
Who should you pay to? – To Pyry if possible, to Jenni in his absence
What methods of payment there are? – Cash only, with the exact amount of money

Have any questions? Comment here or send an email to Jenni (jenni.juvonen (at) uta.fi) or  Pyry (pyry.jylha-vuorio (at) uta.fi)

Several people have asked for some other possibilities to debate and/or develop one’s skills other than our weekly meeting on Tuesdays. Well, here’s the answer to those requests! We’ve planned a few possibilities, which I’ll now present to you.

First of all, for all those of you who are too enthusiastic to settle for one meeting per week, it’s now possible for us to organize additional meetings every once in a while, somewhere other than our usual room. Because these extra meetings will only be arranged if there are enough people interested, you’ll obviously need to express your interest. (You can do that by emailing Jenni at jenni.juvonen (at) uta.fi) When we have enough people, we’ll find a time and place that will suit everyone. There will probably be a lot less people in these extra meetings, so it will be possible to concentrate on the particular issues that people are interested in. For example, we could practice public speaking and give feedback to each other, we could do a mini debate or try a debate in a different format, or practice asking and answering questions or coming up with arguments. The sky is the limit!

Second, we present you a possibility that I personally believe is one of the best ways to learn – looking at yourself on the video when you debate. This can be made happen in our regular debate meetings as well as the extra meetings. It is strictly voluntary and only those will be filmed who express it themselves that they want to do it, so not the whole debate, but individuals. Nobody else will be filmed or pressured into being filmed. Afterwards, you’ll be able to watch your speech on the internet, the video being behind a password that only you will receive. I strongly recommend this to anyone interested in better performance in any of the skills relating to debate! You’ll find for sure that you do quite a lot of things you had no idea about…

Third, we’ve been asked a lot about debates in Finnish. As you know, the regular meetings are always in English so as not to exclude non-Finnish people, and this will continue to be so. However, since so many people have been asking about debates in Finnish, we will consider arranging an extra meeting similar to the extra practice meetings mentioned in the beginning of this post, but instead of exercises we will have a debate in Finnish. The format depends on how many people are coming, and I’m sure you understand that signing up by sending an email to Jenni beforehand is a must so we can find a suitable date and time for the debate to take place. We’ll see how popular this opportunity becomes, and decide later if we want to keep the option available. In any case, the regular Tuesday evening meetings will continue to be in English.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, we’ve set up a mailing list which you can read more about here.

Phew, that was a big chunk of information… I hope the new opportunities please you, dear debaters! See you all tomorrow, Tuesday at 17:00!

Hi there!

Admittedly this post is a little bit late, considering our last meeting was nearly a week ago. Regardless! Here’s a short summary of what we did on Tuesday the 20th of September.

Since there were slightly less people than in the first meeting we didn’t do two full debates but rather one debate of eight people and one of six people. The motion for the bigger debate was THBT healthcare policy should be determined by an expert committee and not politicians and the other six debated the issue THW allow free distribution of music on the internet.

It was fun, as always, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow!

In other news, we advertised the Society at Aatemarkkinat on Wednesday, talked to a lot of people and generally made debate known. Thanks to all who showed interest, hopefully see you very soon!

Greetings, everyone!

First of all, thanks to all of you fine folks who came to the first meeting, it was great! 17 people in total, enough for two simultaneous debates in different rooms, after some briefing about debating in general.

The two debate groups voted on the motion they wanted to debate, and so the two motions debated were THBT competition is superior to cooperation in achieving excellence and TH believes in direct democracy.

I’d like to thank everyone for such a fantastic start for the year, and give particular credit to the newcomers who bravely stood up and gave their first debate speech ever! Kudos to you!

I also want to remind everyone that it’s not too late to join in. The meetings don’t form a course that you need to attend from the beginning, and there will probably be first-timers in most of our meetings. Hoping to see even more new people next week :)

In other news, I’d like everyone to welcome the newest addition to our board. Jaakko will be the secretary of the UTA Debate Society board starting this autumn – which is great news!

The UTA Debate Society board will be recruiting more people to join the society next Wednesday at Aatemarkkinat. You’ll find us, along with many other clubs and societies of the university, at the main lobby from 10 to 16 telling people about debating and the Society. Stop by to say hi if you’re around :)

See you all next Tuesday!