Debating Club

Debating Club

The Debating Club is DEREE’s oldest (founded in 1987) and most active club. The purpose of the club is to engage students in the art of rhetoric; the type of rhetoric that practiced is British parliamentary debating.

Personal Benefits of Debating
Debating benefits the individual by helping them surpass stage fright, indulge in effective listening, actively attain responsible knowledge, sharpen their critical skills, avoid defective reasoning, maintain a viewpoint for every subject, and learn how to argue persuasively; in three words, master public speaking.

How a Debate Works
British Parliamentary debating is a team sport; it involves four teams of two people and a judging panel. A topic is given - usually inspired by current events - and the teams are randomly assigned to argue for or against the topic. The debate starts 15 minutes after the topic and team positions have been announced and each speaker has to deliver a speech of five, six, or seven minutes. After all speeches have been delivered, the adjudication panel deliberates and announces the team positions and gives feedback to each individual speaker.

Debating Meetings & Tournaments
The Debating Club meets every Friday at 18:00 on the Aghia Paraskevi campus at the Events Hall (across Starbucks) for one or two debates. Every year there are many international debating tournaments, such as the World University Debating Championship (WUDC), the European University Debating Championship (EUDC), the Amsterdam Open, the Cambridge Open, etc. The Debating Club sends representatives to a variety of those tournaments and sometimes sponsors teams to represent the Club. Moreover, the Debating Club annually hosts two tournaments - the DEREE Invitationals. In 2008 the Deree Debating Club hosted an international tournament, the Athens Open.

Officers
For the academic year 2009/2010 the governing body is:
President: Eirini Damianaki
Vice President: Vassilis Boukas
Secretary: Kimon Ioannides
Treasurer: Dimitris Kotzias
Convenor: Dimitra Sayas
Advisor: Dean N. Parkes

Contact Us
To contact the debating club, either email us (dc.debateclub@acg.edu) or come to a meeting any Friday at 18:00 at the Events Hall. Also, you can find any of us and/or our group on Facebook (DEREE Debating Club).