The U of G Debate Club hosts various events to teach students what debate is, how to do it effectively, and why that is important in the world beyond creating better arguments. On top of our weekly seminars, we also host monthly socials for all Guelph students, monthly internal debate competitions for our team and active club members to practice debate, and external tournament opportunities for our Debate Team to take part in. For more information about our events and event types, visit our Events page.
Not at all! In fact, we highly encourage those who have not debated before to register for and participate in our events. One of the focuses of the weekly seminars is to bring newer students into the world of debate and contextualize it for us as Guelph students in particular. The internal debate competitions are also designed to help new debaters practice their skills in a fun and constructive learning environment while still showcasing what they can expect from real tournaments.
Debate is a skill that everybody already has, and we want to be able to create an environment that will help students of all academic and social backgrounds develop these skills in casual and competitive environments. Regardless of your major or qualifications, we would love to hear from you at our events!
We will have a social every month that is open to all Guelph students. This is to give the community and the people of our club a casual event that they can attend to take their minds off school work and have fun with friends through engaging discussions and fun games. Information about each upcoming social can be found on our Socials page.
The Internal Debate Competitions will be a mixture of the thrill that comes with competing in tournaments and the constructive/fun environment that comes with practicing these skills. In these events, we will be having 1-2 debates in the British Parliamentary format, meaning there will be 4 teams of 2 competing against each other. We will be explaining the formats and how to develop these skills to prepare for each role in our seminars and in our event briefings, but we also have more information about the format on our Resources page. These competitions will be named after the theme that each month’s seminars were based on, so the motion/prompt used will be heavily based on what was discussed at that month’s seminars. We will do our best to place equally skilled teams against each other for an even matchup.
For those who have lots of experience in debate, these competitions are a great opportunity to warm up your skills before competing in external tournaments. For those who are active in our club and are being introduced to debate, these events are the perfect opportunity to familiarize yourself with the format and discover if competitive debate is something that you would be interested in.
To participate in these events, you either have to be a Debate Team Member or an Active Club Member who’s been to many seminars (in the case that more people want to compete than we have space for, Debate Team members will be prioritized).
On the Register page, we have two separate forms for those who wish to register as club/general members and those interested in applying to the debate team. There are also lengthy descriptions of what both roles are, but we will summarize the differences here.
To break it down, all Debate Team Members are Club Members, but not all Club Members are on the Debate Team. General members is the term we use to describe everybody in the club, whether they only participate in socials or compete with us in external tournaments. To summarize what each role can do:
If you are not in the club, you will still be able to join us for our socials.
If you are a General Club Member (which you can sign up for on our Register page by simply filling out the first form), then you will be able to join us for our socials and seminars. You will also be able to spectate our internal debate competitions and potentially participate in them as well if you’ve been active enough in our seminars and we have the space for it.
If you are a Team Member, then you will be able to join us for all of our events, including the socials, seminars, internal debate competitions, and external tournaments (given there are no budget concerns). We will decide who is on the Debate Team based on our application process. Applications from the second form on the Register page will be assessed based on the applicant’s debate qualifications and activity within our club. If an applicant does not meet the standard, we will follow up with them to discuss what they can do to join us in future tournaments (either practicing debate more or participating in our events more often).
Yes, that’s perfectly fine! We understand if some people aren’t able to be there for the whole duration of our events due to classes or other responsibilities. If it’s a social, we’ll likely have an executive member at the door to introduce those who missed the explanation of the rules. If not, then feel free to sit down wherever respectfully. If you need to leave early, just be sure to be respectful!
There’s no need to worry if you missed some of our earlier seminars or haven’t planned on attending every single one! Our events are open to anyone who is interested in debate regardless of their plans for competing in the future or their past experience in our club. The seminars including U of G professors will be especially interesting for those who might not be as familiar with our club, so we highly recommend coming out to those to get introduced to our club and what we do.