Villa Maria College win Canterbury Regionals 2015
Canterbury Regionals were held over the weekend of the 14th and 15th of March at the University of Canterbury. CSDC worked closely with the University of Canterbury College of Arts, who assisted us with booking debating rooms and a seminar room for the final. The College of Arts was also generous enough to provide gift bags for debaters and prizes for the winning speakers. We would like to thank them for their help in making Regionals a success and extend particular thanks to Paul Millar, who was on hand throughout the weekend.
This year we only had sixteen teams in attendance, which was less than we hoped for. However, the teachers that we spoke to over the weekend attributed this to the fact that Regionals clashed with a number of other school commitments. We were assured by these teachers that we could not have done anything more to increase registrations. Despite the lower-than-usual numbers, we had a fantastic group of enthusiastic debaters and witnessed some high quality debates.
St Margaret’s College, Villa Maria College, Cashmere High School and Papanui High School broke to the semi-finals, with St Margaret’s College and Villa Maria College progressing to the finals. The final topic was “This house believes that western media outlets should republish uncensored cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammed when reporting on threats or attacks against their artists.” After a close debate, Villa Maria College won in a unanimous decision from the adjudication panel.
Thank you to all of the adjudicators who gave up their weekend to volunteer, and to Hamish Saunders and Corinne Marti for flying down to represent NZSDC.
Winners (Villa Maria College):
Samantha Crews
Olivia Nally
Isabella Walsh
Runners-Up (St Margaret’s College):
Emma Clucas
Rebecca Lilley
Nat Vaughan
Most Promising Team:
Papanui High School
Best Speaker:
Isabelle Walsh (Villa Maria College)
Most Promising Speaker:
Harrison Smith (St Andrew’s College)
Members of the Canterbury Teams:
Emma Clucas (St Margaret’s College)
Nat Vaughan (St Margaret’s College)
Sasha Cuthbert (Cashmere High School)
Samantha Crews (Villa Maria College)
Isabella Walsh (Villa Maria College)
Matthew Moore (Christ’s College)
Reserve to the Canterbury Teams:
Harrison Smith (St Andrew’s College)
Highly Commended:
Rebecca Lilley (St Margaret’s College)
Annemieke Krijgsman (Marian College)
Zach Withers (Burnside High School)
Ashleigh Ooi and Tim Bain (Convenors)