Dutch Debating Winter School

We would like to congratulate Daan Welling, one of the trainers of the Dutch Debating Winter School 2016, for being selected as a DCA for Scottish EUDC 2018!

Good job, Daan!

The DCA Announcement | Scottish EUDC After all this waiting, the time has come to reveal the DCAs of Scottish EUDC.

On Sunday, several people arrived and joined us for a quick tour around Tilburg. We also visited the Swan Market at Spoorzone013. We ended the day with a cocktail at Havana Tilburg.

Only 3 days left till the Dutch Debating Winter School starts! We are extremely excited for your arrival here in Tilburg.

To make the week even more sociable we will be hosting a game night on Tuesday. If you have any good (board) games that are easy to pack, make sure to bring them!

Moreover, a pubquiz will take place on Wednesday, which will test your knowledge on a wide array of subjects. Can you beat the others?

See you next week! :)

PS: If you are not joining the training week but you still want to come and help us by judging at the tournament, you can certainly do so. Here is the event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1665187197129092/.

Wrapping up the list of trainers, we would like to introduce you to Bas Tönissen.

Bas has broken at over twenty tournaments and won the Kalliope Debate Tournament 2015 and the Erasmus BP Tournament 2014, as well as the ESL Final of the SOAS IV 2012. In 2013 he represented the Roosevelt Debating Society in its first ever ESL Quarterfinal at both EUDC and WUDC. He has also broken as a judge at many competitions including the Dutch Championships, where he was DCA the year after, and the Berlin IV. Bas spent two years working as a fulltime trainer for Cogency, a Dutch company specializing in debate education, and has successfully trained thousands of young people across every level of Dutch education. Currently, he is doing a Research Master in Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews.

We are happy to have Bas on board as the last trainer for the Dutch Debating Winter School 2016.

We are extremely excited to announce that Nastia Grishkova will join the Dutch Debating Winter School as trainer and CA. Nastia, besides being just an awesome person in general, has shown extreme dedication to training the debating world. This is shown by her judging recorded debates for Cicero for almost one-and-a-half year now and providing excellent feedback. She was also part of the CA-team for Cicero Internal 2016.

As a debater and judge, Nastia has numerous breaks on her name. For example, she won the Kalliope Debating Tournament 2015 as well as the Cicero Debating Tournament 2014 and 2013 (pro-am final). Moreover, she also judged the finals of the Glasgow Pro-Am 2016 and the semi-final of the Leiden Open 2015. There are plenty more breaks to be named, but that would make the post way too long. I think that our excitement has already been shown enough.

You can still register for the DDWS Tournament via http://www.dutchdebatingwinterschool.com/registration/tournament-only/. The event can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1665187197129092/.

We are proud to announce that Raluca Vacaru will be a trainer for the Dutch Debating Winter School and a CA for the subsequent DDWS Tournament!

Raluca (better known as Ginger) spends most of her time being part of tournaments - speaking, judging, convening, and even tabbing. Since chairing a round at Vienna EUDC she broke as a judge multiple times, including at the Manchester IV, Cardiff Open and Imperial IV. She will be part of the CA team of the Southampton Open and SOAS Schools this year. As a speaker, Raluca is an ESL quarterfinalist of Warsaw EUDC, ESL finalist of Cambridge Women’s and Paris Open, and pro-am finalist of the Liverpool IV. She has also been coaching for a long time now - starting a debate club while she was still in high school, and continuing at university as being a mentor for Debate Mate.

During the summer, when there’s not as much debating going on, Raluca hangs around Google's offices writing code and taking advantage of the free food and massages. She is very passionate about everything to do with technology, to such an extent that her final year project for university is developing the online training platform for Scottish EUDC 2018.

You can still register for the DDWS Tournament via our website: http://www.dutchdebatingwinterschool.com/registration/tournament-only/.

Daan Welling is one of the trainers who will teach you during the Dutch Debating Winter School. He is a WUDC Open Quarterfinalist, EUDC ESL Champion, and WUDC ESL Finalist.

Here is a message from Daan:
"Hi (prospective) participants!

I am very happy to be part of the faculty and welcome you all in Tilburg this December. Apart from workshops we will offer you great seminars about useful topics.

As Worlds often has "local" motions, and it is good to learn more about any country you are visiting, I am very happy to offer to participants a seminar on Dutch political history. We're going to look at how the Netherlands works and what the biggest contemporary debates in Dutch politics are. I hope this will be inspiring and make you think of the Netherlands as more than just the country of clogs, tulips and windmills!"

If you are interested in joining the Dutch Debating Winter School, you can sign up via http://www.dutchdebatingwinterschool.com/registration/.

To have a bit of relief from the debate-focussed workshops, Victor will be providing the DDWS with a plenary workshop more aimed at public speaking. However, as he gave this workshop before for members of T.D.V. Cicero, we can assure you that it can certainly be applied to debates as well.

Many people are already familiar with the infamous TED talks. In these talks, people give a short speech on something that piques their interest, is close to their heart, or something they have researched. However, some talks seem to be immensely more successful than others. Victor has analysed this and has spotted a pattern in the structure of these talks that seems to be correlated with the success the talk achieved. This is what the workshop will be about.

Lucinda David, for example, held a TED talk on how debating changed her life: http://youtu.be/WJaMtU1P-3w.

Besides being a WUDC ESL semifinalist, Victor is also the go-to Dutch person on American politics. He has been involved in both of Barack Obama's campaigns and regularly appears on TV as an analyst on the current presidential elections. As such, he has surely appreciated the first presidential debate that happened last night. He can tell you all about what was going on during the DDWS as long as you ask him nicely.

Victor: “Debating is one of the most important skills I have learned in my life. I am excited to be sharing what I've learned at the Dutch Debating Winter School.”

We are proud to be announcing another trainer for the DDWS, namely Milla Huuskonen!

Milla is one of the most, if not the most, active and successful Finnish debaters out there. As a speaker, she has had 14 breaks in total and won the ESL final of the Manchester IV and the final of the SSE Riga Debate Academy 2015. Milla has has moreover broken at various competitions, such as at the Erasmus Rotterdam Open, Helsinki Open and TUT Open. She also was the (D)CA of 7 competitions, among which she will be the CA of the Helsinki Mini 2016 and the Birmingham ESL Novice 2016. Moreover, she was the language officer of the Hull EUDC 2018 bid through which she wanted to minimise the impact of language barriers in judging.

Milla’s experience as a trainer comes forth from her position as vice president and educational officer at FINDA (the Finnish Debate Association). She visited Finnish debating societies to give workshops, and coached high schools for years.

We are very happy to have Milla on board to give you the best trainings possible. The participant cap has almost been reached though, so make sure to subscribe soon! You can do so at: http://www.dutchdebatingwinterschool.com/registration/participant-registration/ :)

You can also register to join just the tournament right here: http://www.dutchdebatingwinterschool.com/registration/tournament-only/

People from eight nationalities have already registered for the Dutch Debating Winter School! Huge enthusiasm has come from Kazakhstan and Portugal, but also from Zimbabwe, Vietnam, and South Africa. Participants from Germany, the Netherlands, and Botswana are also joining the most intensive though accessible training week in debating.

Make sure that you join the wide variety of participants and have your country’s flag added to the picture!

Warsaw EUDC 2016 provided the trainers of DDWS with plenty of achievements to be excited about.

First of all, both Duncan and Daan were breaking judges. Moreover, we would also like to congratulate Duncan on winning the bid for EUDC 2018, meaning he will CA the Scottish EUDC in Edinburgh. However, we are very proud of the great job Daan did as a prospective CA for the Hull EUDC bid. Lastly, Emma managed to reach the Open Quarterfinals and reached the ESL Finals.

We hope that this shows you even better what the capabilities of the trainers of the Dutch Debating Winter School are and why you should attend! :)