Wellington Regionals were held on the 28th-29th March this year at Sacred Heart College, Lower Hutt. 20 teams from 16 different schools participated, with an enormous amount of talent on show.
There were four preliminary rounds held on Saturday, with motions ranging from whether developing countries should have the right to host major sporting events to whether religious officials should be forced to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies, even if it is against their religious beliefs. Excitingly, a Cultural Diversity celebration was also being hosted at Sacred Heart by the local council, so debaters had access to an excellent range of food for lunch.
On Sunday the tournament broke to quarterfinals, where teams debated whether both parents should have to take equal amount of parental leave. Wellington High School 1 defeated St Catherine’s College; Scots College were upset by Wellington College; Kapiti College 1 defeated their younger counterparts in Kapiti College 2; and Wellington Girls College beat Hutt International Boys School 2.
The semi-finals were held on the motion, ‘This house would place new state housing developments in affluent neighbourhoods.’ Wellington Girls College beat Wellington High School, and Kapiti College 1 defeated Wellington College.
This set up a final between Wellington Girls College, the defending champions, and Kapiti College 1, a school with a growing reputation for debating around Wellington. Kapiti (Max Tweedle, Sarah McKenzie, Mila Maxan), affirmed ‘This house would teach popular fiction rather than classical literature in schools’. After an excellent debate, and in a very close decision -reflected by the 2-1 split on the panel- WGC (Katherine Dewar, Meg Bradley, Grace Belworthy) defended their school’s title.
After the tournament two further evenings of selection debates were held in order to finalise the two teams to represent Wellington at Nationals – again showing how competitive it is to gain spots on these teams. Congratulations to:
Wellington Black
Peter McKenzie (Scots College)
Sarah Mackenzie (Kapiti College)
Shakked Noy (Wellington High School)
Wellington Gold
Jack Comer-Hudson (Wellington High School)
Grace Belworthy (Wellington Girls College)
Adam Sangster (Scots College)
Reserves to the Wellington teams
Amy Campbell (St Catherine’s College)
Katherine Dewar (Wellington Girls College)
Priyanka Rajakumaran (Wellington Girls College)
A number of other individual speaker prizes were given out to recognise outstanding performances during the tournament:
Most Promising Speaker
Taylor Finderup (Kapiti College)
Highly Commended
George Barton (Wellington College)
Max Tweedie (Kapiti College)
Best Speaker
Shakked Noy (Wellington High School)
We would like to thank a number of people for helping to make the weekend run smoothly. Firstly, a massive thank you to Sacred Heart College – particularly Mrs Munro and Mrs Gavey – for providing the venue and their helping hands. Secondly, thank you to the number of adjudicators who gave up their weekends and travelled out to Lower Hutt for the tournament. Thirdly, thank you to all the coaches and teachers from around the region, for their enthusiasm and general helpfulness. It was a pleasure to convene this year and we’re looking forward to seeing you all again at the next debating event!
Maddy Nash and Jodie O’Neill
Conveners 2015