WSDC 1999: London, England
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6 May 1998

We are writing to invite you to the Eleventh World Schools Debating Championships, to be held in London in February 1999. Official entry forms will follow later in the year, but at the moment we are letting you know the basic details and asking you simply whether your country is interested in participating. If your country has not taken part before or not in recent years - or if you have never heard of the Championships - then we very much encourage you to join us next year! Do feel very free to ask us for more information if the following leaves you with any questions.

What It Is

For those of you unfamiliar with the World Championships, they have been running since 1988 as the major international competition for secondary school debaters. Each country may enter a squad of 3-5 students (for whom criteria of eligibility are listed in the Rulebook), and will usually provide a coach for the team and perhaps an adjudicator as well. The form of debate is international parliamentary, involving two teams of 3 speakers each in any one debate. Some debate topics are announced in advance, others are 'short-preparation' with motions given an hour before the round. Each country will participate in eight preliminary debates before the 'break' is announced and the top teams proceed to knock-out rounds. We have copies of the Rules and Notes for Adjudicators available on request.

In the Tenth World Championships in Israel, 1998, the following countries took part: Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Bermuda, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, New Zealand, Peru, Scotland, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, USA and Wales. Kenya and the Netherlands also sent observers and judges.

Where and When

The provisional dates are 29^th January to 6^th February 1999 -- however at this stage we do reserve the right to move the starting date to a day earlier and are also planning asking judges to arrive on 28^th January (see Judges, below).

The debates will mostly take place in a variety of venues all over London. Most preliminary debates will be staged in secondary schools, but show and break-round debates will occur in the Inns of Court (London's law schools), the Houses of Parliament and similar chambers. The Grand Final will be in the London Guildhall, headquarters of the Corporation of London. We also intend one 'away-day', where participants will be taken to the Oxford and Cambridge Unions for debates and other activities.

Accommodation

All participants - coaches, judges and debaters - will stay in the Hammersmith Novotel, a very comfortable business hotel in West London. We will not have the hotel to ourselves as it has some 400 rooms but its size brings with it excellent facilities, including a restaurant, a café and bar, and it is situated 30 seconds from a London Underground station. Travel to and from Heathrow Airport is especially easy and from Gatwick Airport very reasonable.

Participants will be put into twin rooms and we will ask you for sharing preferences, whether with someone from your own country or elsewhere. However, should you desire a single room, you may upgrade yourself by paying an extra £20 per night. We are also assured that rooms will be available should you wish to extend your stay before or after the tournament.

Cost of Participation

As in Israel last year, there will be a participation fee (to be paid by competitors, judges and coaches), which is likely to be £100 or $170 per head. We will accept both sterling and dollars and these figure are based on today's exchange rate of £1=$1.6835, with a small surcharge to encourage you to pay in pounds!

This fee will go towards the tournament budget which will include travel in London and on the away-day, accommodation, breakfast, several other meals, receptions etc. We will tell you precisely how many meals you will have to pay for yourselves closer to the time.

We will issue all participants with a Travelcard that will give you free travel on all public transport throughout London. This will include the rest day and spare evenings and so we hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to do some sightseeing. We will not be organising any major sightseeing trips ourselves, on the basis that there is so much to see in London that we couldn't possible satisfy everyone's preferences.

Climate and Clothing

London in February is pretty much like London in April, or September, or December - totally unpredictable. We could have bright, sunny days or thunderstorms or anything in between. It is unlikely to be hot, though, so bring plenty of warm clothes. Teams should wear smart clothes or school or national uniform for the debates.

The Tournament

We are hoping to attract anywhere between 25 and 40 countries to the London Worlds. We fully encourage all of those teams that were in Israel to join us again, and to welcome teams from Pakistan and Malaysia back again. In addition we hope to attract several teams from Western Europe, some that have come before (e.g. France and Spain) and some that have not (Portugal, Finland). In other places round the world we do have links that can be exploited but suggestions are always welcome - so please let us know if you have contacts in debating organisations elsewhere. The relative cheapness and ease of flights to London should be an attraction.

The competition will be run along the usual grounds although we may be proposing the new system of Octo-Finals, whereby the top 16 teams proceed to the knock-out stage after the preliminary rounds. If you are the designated representative of a country with voting rights at the World Council, you will receive another document very soon! We will publish the outcome in our next Newsletter.

We propose to abolish the Individual Competition for this year. Instead a prize will be awarded to the top speaker(s) based on averaging the marks from main speeches in preliminary rounds. We have tested this system and it seems to work well; and in doing so, we have produced a list of the top 50 speakers from the Israel Worlds so please ask us if you would like to receive a copy of that. Some sort of social event will replace the Individual Competition to give participants a chance to meet each other at the beginning of the tournament.

Judges

Rule 11 of the World Schools Debating Championships Rulebook states that judges "must be experienced at judging the highest levels of senior school or university debates in that person's country and have judged such debates regularly within the last two years."

Although we do hope to encourage judges from as many countries as possible, we are advantaged in having a large pool of experienced judges in England (and in Wales, Scotland and Ireland) on which to rely and we will be strict in enforcing this rule. Judges will be asked for resumés which will be evaluated by the Chief Adjudicator before the roster is prepared.

In addition, all judges must attend a full-day briefing session at the start of the tournament. This will occur on Friday 29^th January and for this reason we will ask judges to arrive the day before, on Thursday 28^th January. The briefing session can then proceed on the Friday while teams are arriving and registering.

We will also be maintaining a process of evaluation of adjudicators throughout the tournament. We do not guarantee that all judges will be used equally or for the entire tournament. We will not be following the convention that no two judges from the same country may sit on a panel together, even in break rounds. Newer judges may be asked to hand in "dummy" adjudication sheets for their first few debates. We hope that none of this causes offence but trust that you will accept it as part of our efforts to standardise adjudication and to minimize the number of split-decisions awarded.

Further information about the adjudicators' briefing and evaluation programme will be available soon.

Motions

Suggestions for motions are very welcome - please send them to us no later than September 30^th. We will aim to release the prepared topics in November.

Communication

Finally, we intend to follow Israel's lead in communicating most tournament information by e-mail. If there is someone in your country, therefore, who has an e-mail address who could act as the official contact for us, that would be very helpful. If not, we will happily send you things via hard copy. If there are any other e-mail addresses you would like to be added to our mailing list, please let us know.

Please let us know the following no later than June 19^th 1998:

If your country is interested in taking part in the London Worlds (with no commitment to do so at this stage.
Who the official contact for your country is, to whom the official entry forms will be sent, and full contact details for them.
Who else in your country wishes to be on the mailing list for Newsletters.

This information would be appreciated as quickly as possible, preferably by e-mail or if not by fax. Post is always a last preference.

Thank you!

Trevor Sather
Convenor

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