Dear All,

(Apologies if you get this twice or if it does not concern you).

I am very much looking forward to seeing you in Johannesburg for what is shaping up to be a great tournament. I thought I would get in touch now with a couple of points.

TO COACHES

Good luck with researching the prepared motions and with training your teams. We hope you are now familiar with the World Schools Rules and Notes for Adjudicators which are available at www.debating.org.za/2001. It's also important that your debaters have read these so that they don't get surprised by what may be a new format of debate to them. If you have any questions at all about interpretation of the rules, please don't wait until the tournament to ask. I'd be happy to answer any queries -- please e-mail me at trevor@debating.org.za. I can't answer questions about the prepared motions, just about the rules.

I know many countries have obtained the Training Video we made in London. I have not yet supplied the accompanying notes for this as I've been busy & disorganised in equal measures, but they will come very soon. You should find the video fairly self-sufficient though as an example of a WSDC debate and judges' verdict.

TO JUDGES

Happily, we are vastly over-subscribed with judges this year -- all judges are being "accepted". We will need around 50 for each preliminary round, and we have somewhere in the region of 75 international judges planning on attending, and then another 20 odd experienced South Africans. So there will be no shortages!

While this makes supplying judges much easier, it is worth warning everyone of the implications in advance. You will judge somewhere between 1 and 7 of the 8 preliminary rounds, as we will need to give everyone a few rounds off in order to give everyone a chance to be involved. Handling this number of judges will be a fairly complicated task and Estelle, Ndanga and I hope you'll bear with us as we attempt to keep everyone happy while also ensuring the standards of adjudication are high.

We are delighted that a number of young judges are coming for the first time, particular ex-competitors. In order to enable you to learn the peculiarities of judging at WSDC, we will probably ask you to sit as Assistant Adjudicators for the first few rounds. You will fill out a sample ballot, and discuss the round with its Chief Judge, but your vote will not count towards the results of the tournaments. After a few such rounds, assuming all goes well, you'll be upgraded and given a vote. We hope this way the tournament will be a useful education for judges as well as debaters.

All judges (with some excused on the basis of extreme experience) will be asked to fill out ballots for a sample debate on video on the judges' briefing day. This will allow us to ensure that everyone has understood the main principles of WSDC debating. Please make sure you are fully familiar with the Rules and Notes for Adjudicators (at www.debating.org.za/2001) and again, if you have any questions, e-mail me at trevor@debating.org.za.

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Please make sure that all coaches and judges from your country have seen this e-mail, as not everyone may be signed up to the mailing lists.

A very Happy New Year to everyone!

Trevor Sather
(Chief Adjudicator, WSDC 2001)