Last year a new, one-day debating tournament was created in the Auckland region: the Impromptu Cup. This trialled a new style of impromptu debating, and was received very warmly by schools across Auckland. Students improved their debating skills, and were given an opportunity to gain important feedback from experienced adjudicators.
This year the Impromptu Cup will be run by Auckland Schools Debating (ASD) in association with the University of Auckland Debating Society on Saturday 20 September, from around 8.30am until 6.30pm (with a lunch break and afternoon tea break in between).
As with last year, the format is as follows: teams consist of two speakers; each speaker will speak for five minutes; leader’s replies will be two-and-a-half minutes. Impromptu debating is different from ordinary debating in that there is only five minutes of preparation time. A coin is tossed to decide which team will have the power to select “affirmative” or “negative”; the other team then has one minute to select one moot from two options provided; after this, the team that won the coin toss has a minute to decide whether to affirm or negate. Following the initial period, both teams have five minutes to prepare a case.
It sounds like a challenge, but impromptu debating is common in university style – so the Impromptu Cup is both a valuable learning curve and an interesting introduction to a style of university debating!
The day will start with a show-debate, where experienced debaters will illustrate how impromptu debating works, followed by be four rounds of debating (all of which are adjudicated by experienced adjudicators), and the semi-finals and finals.
Very soon we will be sending out entry forms asking for entries, along with a more detailed timetable and set of guidelines. This year there will be only one grade (due to the large number of schools attached to ASD), and each school can send only one team. We recommend that schools field teams of older speakers from Years 12 and 13, given the new style. The team cap for the tournament is 24 teams. This means we will be accepting entries on a “first-come, first-serve” basis. Please think seriously about whether your school will enter a team.
Entries open on August 18 and will close on September 2. If you would like to enter a team, we will ask you to fill in a soon-to-be released entry form and to enclose a cheque for $20 made out to ‘Auckland Schools Debating’ in an envelope addressed to:
Auckland Schools Debating
PO Box 109025
Newmarket
Auckland 1149
