Tilbury Winter Workshop 2019

On Saturday14th December we invited debaters from outside of Tilbury House to join our Winter Workshop. Experimenting with out Thursday workshop format we wanted to organize workshops during which the participants can ask specific questions about the presented topic.
WE were delighted to welcome participants from the Netherlands, and Germany.

The first topic “Debating Democracy” was presented by Ruben Dillmann.
At first the topic seems a bit provocative yet is quiet common in debates. Common debate motions lead to theoretical debates pointing systematic flaw causing a need that needs to be met with a satisfying policy, or if the policy in question is granted to work with intended efficiency. Or should be made mandatory in democracy to really include every individual’s political will? Plenty of debating motions treat the issue of the possibilities and limits in democratic societies.
In his presentation he began with presenting the theory behind the concept of the democracy, then followed by concrete examples of movements acting in offense or in favour of democracy.

The Workshop for the afternoon was about different types motions, conceptualized by our experienced workshop organizer Helena Hecke, and presented by Lin Jung.
This workshop was directed towards strategic as well as technical problems surrounding debates.
Debating motions are introduced with “This House would”, “This House supports”, or “This House as X would decide to…”.
By not regarding the motion properly debaters are at high risk losing their speech by not debating the actual topic. So this workshop aimed at dissecting the actual nature of the different types of motions, and proposing effective strategies for each type of motion. To not only discuss the theory the workshop included exercises for Regret-Motions (This House Regrets) and Actor-Motions (This House as X would do Y) as these are motions most likely to lure the speaker to debate anything but the actual motion. The answers given were well condensed to the essence of the essence, laced with humorous ideas of the participants.

After a day of learning, and being answered their questions all the newly acquired knowledge has to be put into practice.
The motion was: “This House Opposes left wing media to comically mock the far right (eg. The daily show, Last Week tonight)

The workshop day had been a pleasant experience to organize. At the end we want to thank those having prepared and having presented the workshops, those organizing the location, but especially the participants having come all their way to attend to our workshop, and bringing in a lot of enthusiasm and their active participation!