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25 June 2009

Update on Worlds Registration

As many of you are aware there was extremely high interest in attending Worlds this year.  The result is a large number of teams have been "waitlisted" for slots once the team cap was reached.  The organisers are in a very difficult position on this one and here is their response to some queries about why somw teams have 3 teams while others are waitlisted.

Yesterday’sregistration may have come as a surprise to some but to those who have been following global debating over the last years, it was expected. We were certainly expecting it. Whilst 90 seconds is remarkably fast, last year’sWorlds filled up in a similar fashion. However, between the two bouts of registration fever, there was a Worlds Council at which the issue was discussed at length. It is worth returning to that discussion, particularly as we are bound as an Organizing Committee to abiding by the policies (or as is more often the case, the spirit) of Council.

Firstly, we asked explicitly whether we should have a team cap of three or two. After a discussion lasting an hour, it became clear that there was no consensus but that the majority of delegates favored a three team cap. No binding decision was taken and the initiative was left with us. The arguments for three teams over two were many, including a larger number of n-1 judges (your proposal, Rajan, to reduce retroactively the team cap would also remove 77 judges) and the fact that many C teams are highly competitive. We stated at Council that we would go for three teams and that we would share our registration plans with the Chair of Council, which we have since done. We don’t believe that we can now reduce the team cap, even in the face of unprecedented interest in Worlds as this would undo every public and private statement we have made about registration since January 2008. It would also throw our adjudication pool into chaos. Any kind of retroactive, off-the-cuff response to a problem is likely to throw carefully designed plans into disarray and so we simply cannot go back on what we have said we would do.

Secondly, Council discussed internet speed as an issue which undermined registration inparts of Asia and Africa. We instigated a policy whereby institutions from nations with low bandwidth internet connections would get a break and as a result, many new institutions were included in the first phase of registration this year. Thirdly, Council reaffirmed the rule whereby every nation that has competed at Worlds one year get sone team slot as a right at the next round. A look at our registered list shows a remarkably diverse number of nations represented from every continent and region (with the unfortunate exceptions of North and Central Africa). We have done everything that Council expects from us andin this sense, we are happy with how registration has gone.

You are right, however, that a lasting solution is needed to the effect the growth of Worlds Style debating around the globe has had on the World Universities Debating Championships. You suggest a team cap of two but a quick look at current registration indicates that this would still leave around 70 institutions outside the tournament. There are now so many universities that actively debate that a team cap of one would be required to include everyone. We now face a situation where the global debating community must decide what its biggest tournament is about. Is Worlds a tournament solely about finding thebest team in the World? Is it about ensuring that everyone who wants to competegets to compete?

It is in this context that last year’s Worlds Council set up the Future of Worlds Committee, which was charged with looking at an array of issues, including registration. We would suggest that you, and anyone else who has strong viewson this matter, approach the Chair of that Committee, Adiba Shareen, with your ideas. This year’s registration was no surprise – we all saw it coming. Rather than trying to solve the problem by making retroactive knee-jerk decisions, we will need to come together as a community and make some hard decisions. Thismight happen this year but more likely it will take two. What is imperative is that we are prepared to make changes that preserve what makes Worlds such an attractive event whist also dealing with the myriad problems that explosive growth has brought.

We should all be proud that Worlds Style debating is flourishing and at Koç we recognize that we are the temporary guardians of an immensely valuable Championship. We hope that Singapore Management University get in off the waitlist (and our pre-payment policy will ensure that speculative registrations are knocked out much earlier than in previous years).We also hope that you choose to help us seek a long-term solution rather than a short-term one that would throw our plans into chaos and make us go back on our word.

With our warmest regards,
Can Okar
on behalf of the Vehbi Koç World Universities Debating Championships

23 June 2009

Herzliya win Israeli National Debating Championship

The Israeli National Debating Championship, hosted by IDC Herzliya, took place on June 17-18, and consisted of 6 preliminary rounds, semi-finals and a grand-final.

The finalists were (in breaking order):
Tel Aviv A (Danny Zeevi and Yoni Cohen-Idov)
IDC Herzliya B (Carmel Sahaf and Daphna Gross)
IDC Herzliya C (Jonathan Braverman and Maya Boursi)
Haifa A (Leor Sapir and Shiri Newman)

Winners: IDC Herzliya C (Jonathan Braverman and Maya Boursi).

Best Speaker: Yoni Cohen-Idov (Tel Aviv A)

Motions:
Round 1: THW obligate internet commenters to reveal their true identities.
Round 2: THBT the west should intervene in the Iranian election.
Round 3: THW set a congestion toll on private vehicles entering city centers.
Round 4: THW ban leaders who lost their bid for reelection from running for office again.
Round 5: THBT the gay parade is detrimental to the gay community.
Round 6: THW privatize the military checkpoints in Gaza and the West Bank.
Semi-Finals: THW ban the use of evidence which had been illegally obtained
Finals: THW ban the commemoration of the “Day of Al Nakba”.

US NFL Nationals results

The National Forensics League of the US were on last week.  This format has multiple different sorts of competition in forms of debating and public speaking so the list of winners is longer than normal.

Policy Debate – Sean Hernandez & Reid Ehrlich-Quinn, Damien HS (CA)

Lincoln Douglas Debate – Shivani Vohra, Hockaday (TX)
Public Forum Debate - Robert Kindman & Josh Zoffer, Durham Academy (NC)
Domestic Extemp – Evan Larson, Bellarmine (CA)
Foreign Extemp – Stacey Chen, North Allegheny (PA)
Original Oratory – John Hoffmeister, Apple Valley (MN)
Dramatic Interpretation – Jane Bruce, Ogden (UT)
Duo Interpretation - Ismael Williams and Drake Pough, James Logan (CA)
Humorous Interpretation – Lindsey White, Eastview (MN)
Storytelling – Francis Blaise, New Trier (IL)
Impromptu – Jessica Petrie, Bellevue West (IL)
Prose – Vanessa Garcia, Fullerton Union (CA)
Poetry - Andrew Laroca, Riverdale HS (LA)
Expository – Evan Hernandez, Wichita East (KS)
Commentary – Anuv Ratan, Claremont (CA)
Senate – Robert Colonol, Winter Springs (FL)
Congress – Howard Downs Temple, Stuyvesant (NY)

For more info visit http://gaforensics.com/2009/06/nfl-week-2009-the-champions.html

22 June 2009

Worlds 2010 Registration Day One: Who's registered, who's waitlisted?


After an incredibly long day of going through massive amounts of data and e-mails, we have organized the list of who has registered and who has not for Koc Worlds 2010. All of the information can be found at http://www.kocworlds2010.com/index.php?page=76.
Please get in touch if you have any questions.
Fatih Mehmet Inal
Co-Convenor of the Vehbi Koç Worlds 2010

21 June 2009

Worlds 2010 Important Registration Info.

Hello from Turkey!
We are writing with some final details concerning the registration process for Worlds which commences next week. Please read this carefully as we hope we have been as clear as possible. If you have any outstanding queries regarding registration, you can contact Hasan Sadik Arik at h.s.arik@kocworlds.com.

Exact day and time
The first stage of registration for the Vehbi Koc Worlds 2010 begins on 22nd June 2009 (this coming Monday). Registration will be on a first-come, first serve basis so you should note the exact time at which registration starts. We will turn on the system at 9am Turkish time (GMT + 3). For your ease, this means the time will be as follows in some cities around the world (though we advise strongly that you re-check this time as we cannot be held responsible if we have got this wrong!):

San Francisco- 23:00pm (21st June 2009)
Ottawa– 02:00am
New York– 02:00am
Dublin– 07:00am
London– 07:00am
Paris– 08:00am
Berlin– 08:00am
Gabarone - 08:00am
Baghdad– 09:00am
Moscow– 10:00am
Mumbai – 11:30am
Dhaka– 12:00pm
Bangkok– 13:00pm
Beijing– 14:00pm
Tokyo– 15:00pm
Sydney– 16:00pm

What you need to do in order to register
At 9am Turkish time on the 22nd June 2009, you can access the registration page by clicking the REGISTER NOW link at www.kocworlds2010.com. This will redirect you to our registration page. You will only have registered when you enter your details and then press the Register button. Please ensure that your details are correct, particularly your e-mail address – if you write this wrongly, we cannot send you a confirmation mail and you will face a very stressful couple of days.

The details required at this stage are as follows:
Institution Name, Country, City, Representative Name, Representative Status (is the person who is filling in the form a debater, adjudicator or not attending Worlds), Phone Work/Home, Phone Mobile, E-mail, No. of teams, No. of Adjudicators, Password (that you choose)

Please, please only register as many teams and judges as you plan to send! We will be merciless in our adherence to the pre-payment system and will delete teams who do not pay their pre-payment as described in our previous mail and on our website (www.kocworlds2010.com). To make it clear, if you register 3 teams and 2 judges and pay only 500 EUR in pre-payment, we will only accept this as payment for 2 teams and 1 judge. If you send an amount that does not correspond to n-1 (i.e. you send 400 EUR), we will take this to mean 1 team and 1 judge and you will not receive your 100 EUR back.

We want to reiterate two important facts about the pre-payment system:
1) Once you pay the pre-payment, it absolutely non-refundable. We instigated this approach because last year, teams registered and then disappeared for months meaning that the teams that eventually took their slots had to pay exorbitant air-fares.
2) You cannot pay 800 EUR for three teams and two judges in the Second Phase, then reduce your contingent to five people and expect the 300 EUR back or to top up your outstanding balance. Please only register and then pre-pay for teams that you will actually send.

Our policy for nations with notoriously slow internet-access
We have put in place a policy this year that protects the international nature of the tournament and ensures that institutions from nations with slow internet access are not automatically stripped of the opportunity to compete at Worlds. We have set aside 24 team slots for the nations listed below and institutions from these nations will compete with one another for places at Worlds. If institutions from these nations register in the first 300 teams, this will not affect the 24 team slots – these are independent of the 300 team slots that are purely first-come, first serve. The nations we have listed are below but if you believe your nation should be included, please get in touch with h.s.arik@kocworlds2010.com before Sunday 21st June 2009:

China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, all of the African continent (except for South Africa), all of the South American continent, all of the Middle East (except Qatar and UAE).

We want to reiterate that this does not mean that only 24 teams can come from the above mentioned countries and regions. We are saying that in addition to any teams from these countries and regions who register in the first 300 team slots, we will also put aside 24 places for the next teams from these countries and regions.

One final note: you will have noticed that we have mentioned 300 teams which are purely first-come, first serve and 24 teams set aside for nations with slow internet access. The remaining 36 team slots are set aside to ensure that every nation that went to Worlds last year can go this year. These 36 slots will be held until the end of the first registration phase and if untaken will then be given to teams on the waiting list.

Our n-1 and adjudication registration policy
If you register with 3 teams, you are constitutionally required to send 2 judges. If you send 2 teams, you are constitutionally required to send 1 judge. If you send 1 team, you are allowed but not constitutionally required to send 1 judge. If you wish to send more judges than your n-1 allocation, you should get in contact with Can Okar at c.okar@kocworlds2010.com. He will then speak with the regional DCA and a decision will be made as to whether we can accommodate your request for extra judges.

Some institutions have stated that they wish to send less than the number of judges stipulated by the Worlds Constitution (i.e. less than n-1) either because air-fare is very expensive or because they do not feel they have sufficiently qualified adjudicators. In this situation, we will expect you to pay the full registration as required by the Constitution (i.e. if you want to send 3 teams, you will be expected to pay for 8 people) but you must get permission from the adjudication team first. At the first stage of registration, you should enter 3 teams and 2 judges or 2 teams and 1 judge but you will need to contact Can Okar as soon as possible to let us know that you won’t actually be sending a judge. We will then use the registration fee you pay to subsidise an independent adjudicator to take the place of the judge that you should have sent. This policy has been discussed with representatives of the Worlds Council Executive and we believe that it isthe most effective way of ensuring that we get the right balance of serving the interests of teams that want to compete at Worlds without undermining the quality of the adjudication pool.

If you are planning to register as an independent adjudicator, you can do this on the first day of registration. However, you must contact a member of the adjudication team first so that we can ensure that you are sufficiently qualified. We are able to offer limited subsidies to independent adjudicators who show financial need so please do get in touch with us as soon as possible.

Observers may also register from 22nd June onwards but must contact Hasan at h.s.arik@kocworlds2010.com and take a look at our website for further details.

Communication
We realize that you may need to get in touch with us on the day of registration. We have set up two Skype accounts for which you can add us from tomorrow onwards. These accounts will be live from 8am Turkish time on the 22nd June 2009 through to 5pm Turkish time on the 22nd June 2009. These accounts are kocworldshotline1 and kocworldshotline2.

You can also call us that day on +90 212 338 19 26. Before then, you can e-mail us at h.s.arik@kocworlds2010.com. We would be much obliged if you could try to limit your queries on this day and in the immediate following two days to issues surrounding Phase 1. Once we have ensured that the Phase has been completed, we will gladly entertain questions regarding payment.

That is a lot of information for you to digest but we hope that it is clear. Let us reiterate, if there are any areas of confusion, please do get in touch with any questions or concerns. We have tried to set up a registration that is fair for all involved, transparent and in the spirit of our guiding Constitution. We also believe that it is in the interests of both individual institutions and the tournament as a whole from the perspectives of international involvement and strength of the adjudication pool.

The 22nd awaits. We are ready – we hope you are too.

With our warmest regards,
Fatih Mehmet Inal and Suleyman Onay
Co-Convenors, Koc Worlds 2010

Hasan Sadik Arik
Registration Officer, Koc Worlds 2010

Can Okar
Chief Adjudicator, Koc Worlds 2010