The 2005 Russell McVeagh Hawke’s Bay Regional Schools’ Debating Championship was held on the 15th of May, at Karamu High School in Hastings. Like other areas in New Zealand, Hawke’s Bay schools debating is as much a matter of development of the ‘Schools’ style of debating as well as development of the students. Both advanced by leaps and bounds this year.
All debaters went through a debating workshop, while the teachers met to discuss the development of debating in the region. Next year should again see an improvement in the quality of debating in the region.
Improvements were seen throughout the day. Through a prepared round, two limited preparation rounds and a closely fought final the students demonstrated the quickly emerging potential of the region.
Motions debating were:
- That voting should be compulsory in NZ general elections
- That New Zealand should be more Brash
- That NZ should become a republic
- That we should legalise cannabis (final)
Karamu A won the tournament with Lindisfarne A a very close runner up.
The regional team is: William Avisenis (Campion A), Jun Kwon (Lindisfarne A), and Pei Huang (Karamu A). The first reserve is Armando Neris (Lindisfarne A) and the second reserve is William Findlay (Lindisfarne B).
Promising Speaker Awards were given to Vincent Rosario (Campion B), Makisua Faletutulu (Napier Boys) and Tim Jones (Lindisfarne B), and the Most Promising Speaker was Shaun Carswell (Karamu A/B)
The speaker of the tournament was Pei Huang (Karamu A).
The Inaugural Award for “Best Hope For the Future” went to Ben from Karamu B who stepped up from the audience to debate for a team who lost a member early on.
I especially thanked Jill Allan for her tireless organisation, Judith Bartlett for agreeing, with little notice, to adjudicate with a foreign scoresheet, and Gina and Ryan for adjudicating.