MUDS Update!

(Week 5ive)

DAV Adjudication Training for MUDS members

Thought that debating only involved spending money? Rethink that!

The DAV is holding adjudication training for all MUDS members, qualifying you to adjudicate in the DAV Schools Competition and providing you with extra skills for MUDS internals. The process to becoming a qualified adjudicator involves one training session and an adjudication test.

DAV adult members receive $40 for each night they adjudicate ($50 in Ballarat and Bendigo) and are also able to take on additional training and adjudication jobs around Victoria.

Date: Tuesday, 15 April
Time: 5:30pm
Venue: Redmond Barry, room 1120
Bring: Pen, paper, and $5 for pizza
RSVP: mudsonline@gmail.com

Easters training

It's less than three weeks away and fast approaching. (No, it's not superman.) However, we are planning to make you superhuman debaters/adjudicators for Easters 2008. Two training sessions have been organised so you can ask questions and get comprehensive feedback:

Training session 1

Date: Sunday, 13 April
Time: 11am
Venue: University of Melbourne Law School, meet in room 102

Training session 2

Date: Tuesday, 22 April
Time: 5:30pm
Venue: Redmond Barry, room 1120

RSVP now: mudsonline@gmail.com

3-v-3 Internal Comp - Round 2 Report

In spite of the sometimes crazy room allocations (there was possibly more walking than some teams were expecting), Round 2 of this year's massive 3-on-3 internal competition was another great success. Following Phil's training on the many intricacies of rebuttal, teams demonstrated their knowledge (or lack thereof) of foreign affairs, debating the topic 'That if Robert Mugabe does not stand down, the West should remove him by force'. 5 Affirmative teams and 8 Negative teams won.

For those who are interested in learning more about the context of this topic, and Zimbabwe's fragile political climate in general, here are some recent links to articles from The Economist and The Guardian (both publications that all debaters should become acquainted with):

While the turnout was generally very good, teams are reminded that they are expected to be present by 6:00 at the latest, ready for the roll call at 6:05. Arriving later just causes us further headaches, and that's the last thing anyone needs. Teams who choose not to arrive at all can look forward to facing the full force of our wrath. The quality of the competition relies on people turning up every week - and if you don't turn up it not only irritates us but ruins the night for the team who were expecting to debate you.

Thanks to everyone who did come, especially those who had to put up with the strange rooms. Sadly, Round 3 is not until May 6, which is like three weeks away, so you'll have to be patient. Hopefully we'll see many of you at the adjudication training next week, and Easters after that.

Tom Sutherland & Chris Lum
Internal Competitions Officers

Tuesday Nights = MUDS Nights

Every Tuesday night, MUDS will be holding an event. Generally this event will be either an internal competition round, a training night, or a social event. Every training and social night will begin in the Old Geology Lecture Theatre 1. On the nights of Hamish Malcolm (the Semester 2 internal competition), there will be 30minutes of training before the roll call and topic release. During Hamish Malcolm, the topic will be released at 6:15pm, so those with a late class can still attend! On nights when there is just training, it will be held in Old Geology, Theatre 1, and the practice debates will spread into Redmond Barry. Finally, each Tuesday night, unless it is already a social function, will end up at the Corkman Pub on the corner of Pelham and Leicester Sts (opposite the Law building). So if you have an extremely late class, you can still meet up with those from MUDS. As such, Tuesday nights will look like this:

In order to help with your planning for the semester, we have included a Calendar for the full semester at the end of this email. Every event on a Tuesday will follow the structure outlined above. Every event on a Sunday will be 11am to 5pm.

MUDS Calendar

Cheers,

Melbourne University Debating Society

mudsonline@gmail.com

Visit our website (www.mudsonline.net) for details of training, debating, tournaments and more!

Joining the Student Union is your choice. So is your club's livelihood. For information on Student Union membership go to www.union.unimelb.edu.au/membership or call the Membership Officer on 8344 3870.