Wanganui dominate CNI Regionals in 2015
The 2015 Central North Island regional debating tournament was hosted on March 21st and 22nd at Freyberg High School in Palmerston North. The facilities provided were excellent, and included a projector, which gave students and teachers better access to the information being delivered to them. A huge thank you to Pene Will for all her help within the tournament setup.
This year, there were 13 teams in the tournament, which was a slight drop from last year’s 14. We also lost two teams by the Sunday, and were down to 11 teams for the fourth preliminary round. The turnout this year was caused by the date conflicting with other high school events, including the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare competition and horse of the year. We had a number of teams interested in travelling from out of town but found the timeframe too short for them to prepare, and so we are optimistic about seeing them represented in future years.
All teams in the tournament performed well. Unfortunately, the Central North Island region lacks further debating opportunities, and so for most debaters this tournament is the only one they attend in the year. However the tournament maintained a number of high quality speakers and teams, and the margin for awarding prizes was often very close.
The four teams in the semi-final were Wanganui High School A, Wanganui High School B, Saint Peter’s Green and Boys’ High B. Both the teams from Wanganui High School won their semi-finals and faced each other in the finals, with the motion, “this house believes that military drone strikes are an illegitimate tool of warfare.” Wanganui High School A won on the negating side with a unanimous panel.
An extra thank you to the adjudicators who attended from Wellington over the weekend.
Winners (Wanganui High School A):
Rhaz Solomon
Gabrielle Penn
Pratibh
Runners-Up (Wanganui High School B):
Alistair Hughes
Jackie Hazelhurst
Jack Southee
Best Speaker:
Gabrielle Penn (Wanganui High School)
Most Promising Speaker:
Jackie Hazelhurst (Wanganui High School)
Members of the Central North Island Team:
Rhaz Solomon (Wanganui High School)
Gabrielle Penn (Wanganui High School)
Jackie Hazelhurst (Wanganui High School)
Reserve to the Central North Island Team:
Pratibh (Wanganui High School)
Highly Commended:
John Richards (Saint Peter’s College)
Gerogia (Nga Tawa)
Promising Speaker Awards:
Alister Hughes (Wanganui High School)
Theo (Palmerston North Boys’ High School)
Lydia (Nga Tawa)