Tilbury House Cologne Open

Actually we hit three birds with one stone:  This autumn we organized our first Open event, for debaters in and outside of university.
Motivated from our comeback in March, Tilbury House organized not only one but two debating tournaments in a year.
Third, we could return to our tradition to let the debate take place in autumn.

At the end of October, the 27^th to 28^th October 2018, 32 teams arrived in Cologne. In five rounds of British Parliament debate style they competed against each other to speak in the Grand Final – or, for novices, to speak in the Novice Final.

Once again this year we were glad to meet participants from many places of Europe; Such as Denmark, France, Poland, the Uk, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria.
For the autumn season, we found amazing CAs, from but also outside of Europe. Well known but also new talents of the debating scene brought in their expertise to create intriguing as challenging motions.

Milos Marjanovic
Not only did he he break at numerous international competitions, amongst which were Camebridge IV ESL, Budapest Open, and Oxford IV 2017, Milos also is 3^rd best speaker ESL of Europe.
Additionally to his many breaks, his achievement comes his achievement as World’s ESL finalist, and semi finalst in Open Euros.
Not only as a speaker but also as judge Milos could present an impressive record of judge breaks at several tournaments, such as Macau Tournament of Champions 2018, Saint Petersburg Open 2018 Shanghai International debate Open 2018.
Further his activities as debate coach were a great addition to our workshop on Friday.

Ayal Hayut-man
His name alone is speaking for himself yet Ayal deserves his credit where credit is due.
As speaker, he broke thrice at WUDC, was EUDC ESL Champion and Open Finalist. Further, Ayal even won over 10 tournaments, noticeably UCD Law Soc IV, Vienna IV, and Cambridge IV.
As judge, Ayal broke twice, at WUDC.
His participation as CA in tournaments, like Helsinki or Moscow Open, are as numerous as his successes in debating, therefore we were glad to invite him and his elaborated knowledge about debating to our Open.

Ana Vilhemina Verdnik
Ana has an impressive career as a debater. She made it as EUDC Open and ESL Quaterfinalist, and Euros 7^th best ESL speaker – all in her first year of debating. At Camebridge IV Ana broke as ESL finalist, and became 9^th best ESL speaker. Not only is she a speaker talent but also had a noticeable experience as judge at EUDC Talinn 2017, Oxford IV, and many UK high school competitions.

In light of our new tradition to organize workshops of our series “Become Persuasive in one Day” before the actual tournament, Milos and Ayal held two workshops. The first part by Milos focused on convincing points to use in a debate. The second part by Ayal characterized the most essential models appearing in debates about International Relations.

The Cologne Open brought the following Motions for the first five rounds:

1. This House Regrets the social expectation of going to the University
2. This House Would introduce quotas for women in League of Legends Esports teams
3. This House Believes that the West should impose an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia
4. Assuming a this technology existed, This House Would allow the allow the use of technology X.
5. In states with high rates of violent crime This House supports assassination of individuals credibly accused of participating in organized crime

After a full day of diverse motions, the second day Tilbury hosted not only the Semi, and Novice Finals but also another Workshop of “Become Persuasive in one Day”. This time by Ana Verdnik, about priorities of arguments.

The Motion for the Semi Final was: “This House believes that open immigration policy is not good for Germany.”

For the Novice Final the Motion read: “This House regrets the demonization of Donald Trump.”
The teams competing in the Novice final were: Jasmin Glynne and Max Steiner, Anke Steinwart and Sarah Grudzinski, Eugene Golov and Maurzio Raina, and Kai Zhang and Florian Schweitzer.

Kai and Florian succeeded with strong argumentation in this debate, and brought victory for their Danish team.

In the Grand Final the following strong teams qualified: Zeno Galastra van Loon and Lana Moon, Ron Leitrowice and Florens Rilling, Josef Mocovici and Claxx Peucker, David Metz and Marike Breed.

All of them argued the Grand Final Motion:
“Assuming that a technology exists that can accurately measure and transfer intelligence This House Would radically redistribute intelligence among the population.”

After debate with amusing speeches, a brave Iron Man standing in for his sadly ill partner, and of course varied cases and arguments, David and Marike convinced the judges by a thoughtful case and striking arguments for them winning. Congratuliants to David and Marike for winning Tilbury House Cologne Open 2018!

Even if they don’t all break, good speakers should never be left unmentioned. Arguments are one part of debating, but so is speaking style. This tournament the best speakers were:

1. Marike Breed
2. David Metz
3. Josef Moscovici
4. Calyxx Peucker
5. René Geci
6. Peter Giertzuch
7. Alwin Bakker
8. Miri Mutean
9. Yimin Ge
10. Katharina Jansen

Two tournaments in a year demanded a lot of organization and effort yet we received wonderful help from our volunteers. In old fashion of our new habit we offered a catering of self made dishes Pasta with various sauces, gourmet curry, and warming Chili sin Carne.

As little special addition to our tournament, the volunteers set up a fun award “The Seraphim memorial award” for the funniest team name. The winner of this prize was “OPD is a CHinese hoax to make German debate uncomparative.”

Tilbury House wants to thank everyone who made this tournament so enjoyable: The CAs, the lovely participants, the volunteers, and the University of Cologne for having offered us the rooms to make this tournament happen.