It seems a bit of nostalgia fell upon Tilbury House this autumn. Nostalgia, and great ambition.
In one week we visited Oxford again, in the next it’s Maastricht.
Every year Tilbury has been attending the Maastricht debating tournament, sometimes we like it so much, our novices visit Maastricht in the colder month of November. Three years ago Tilbury won at Maastricht Novice with flying colours,a good reason to keep Maastricht in good memories.

But we won’t keep on dwelling in the past either. Our novices Gregor Gsell and Priska Seeling defended Tilbury’s good name at Maastricht Novice, 16th November 2019.
Not only did they win first places in the inrounds, they also broke into the Novice final. Seemingly mastering the debates with ease, they convinced the judges with the quality of their speeches to become 1st and 2nd best speaker of the tourament!
Congratulations!

Will they, won’t they? For once the joke isn’t directed towards the British, and potential Brexit plans but towards Tilbury House. Will they return to Oxford once more?
The anyser is… yes, they did!
Tilbury House finally found their way back to Oxford IV, from 8th to 9th November 2019, where we attended the tournament back in 2017. Even the very same team, consisting of Ruben Dillmann and Helena Hecke, debated with the same enthusiasm they’d back two years ago.
Visiting Oxford again, had been a familiar feeling for them, and they achieved a total of 770 speaker points as a team!

Yesterday evening we were joyous to have so many people joining our newcomer workshop. We hope yesterday’s debate gave you an insight in how debating works.
But perhaps some questions are still left. At least we have to unpack a lot about debating.

For Thursday 24th Ocotber 2019 our workshop host Helena Hecke will give you an indepth understanding about BP (British Parliament) debating style for an introduction for all newcomers.
Join us at 7.30pm in Hörsaal XVIIb in the Hauptgebäude of the University of Cologne.

This House believes, the other House regrets, and another House is actually Kim-Jong Un’s minister of foreign affairs.
As we already talked about in our workshops, wordigs of motions can be pretty essential to the understanding the motion. But actually we don’t need to overthink every word in a motion twice, the introducing words „This House…“ already tell us a lot how we’re going to debate.
Do we explain how our policy is going to solve a problem, do we argue out of the perspective of the French prime minister and therefore prioritize the export of Camenbert over negociations with Denmark? In this workshop you’ll learn key essentials to understand a motion, and how you avoid arguing outside the motion.

Beginning with the new semester we can guarantee you enjoyable workshops evenings on almost every Thursday again. As usual, our fantastic workshop organizer Helena Hecke awaits you at 19.30 o’clock in Hörsaal XVII b in the Hauptgebäude of the University of Cologne, this Thursday, 10th October 2019.

Two teams of our society were brave in two ways this summer: First, attending the European Debating Championship 2019 in Athens, and travelling during the hottest period of this year.
The teams of Helena Hecke and Ruben Dillmann, and Ida Holschabch, and Michael Breiman, attended Athens EUDC 2019, from 4th August to 9th August 2019.

As usual attendence at EUDCs every year brims with exciting challenges: many teams,and great speakers competing with each other, great CAs presenting difficult yet intriguing motions – for an entire week.
Our debaters enjoyed a dense weeks of demanding debates but also experienced a summerweek in one of Europe’s historically famous cities.
They enjoyed the competetions, and very proud of their acribic performance.

What an unusual date for our annual tournament. Usually our tournaments take place during colder months but this year, we choose 7th to 9th June for a warm welcome for our debaters.

The format was still „Business as usual“: 5 rounds in British Parliament style, two finals: Grand Final and a Pro-Am final. For this year we were glad to welcome many German teams, but also many Dutch, and mixed teams from across Europe.
Another constant element about our tournaments is our sheer luck of amazing CAs accepting our invitations to our tournaments. All of them could present an impressive history of expertise in judging, speaking, but also as CAs.

Katharina Jansen
Back in 2018, Katharina was actually finalist in Tilbury House Open 2018. In 2019, she returned as our CA. Tilbury was by far not her only time being a finalist. Around ten times breaking are on her breaking-list, amongst those Rossevelt Open, thrice atErasmus Rotterdam. To her breaks she cna count herself winning in Erasmus Rotterdam 2019, twice as ESL-finalist at LSE Open 2019, and at Trinitiy IV 2017.
Additionally Katharina is an experienced adjudicator, participating, and breaking at many tournaments, amongst various UCU Open, Tilburg’s Women, and Munich Open.

Aishling Kinsella
Aishling qualified twice at WUDC: Once as octofinalist in 2018, then as semifinalist in 2019. At EUDC 2018 she qualified as 10th speaker. Additionally to her in total 20 speaking breaks, Aishling got noticeably broke at the Oxford IV 2018 semifinals, and won Oxford Women’s Open.
Not only is Aishling breaking, she brought an elaborate experience as CA from 5 former tournaments, amongst which were Trinity Open, and Colgate Open.

Abigail Leblanc
Just by being a CA, Abigail can be credited as such for numerous US tournaments. Her records as adjudicator also start in the US, her breaking at the North American University Championship 2018, and continue as Chair Judge in Leiden Open 2018.
As a speaker she was equally active, breaking at US, and Canadian tournaments, including the Canadian National Championships. Then in Europe she broke at the final of Maastricht Open, in Maynooth Open 2019 and at the semi-final of Paris Open 2019.

With our great team of CAs assembled, the following five motions were presented:

1. This House supports the extra –legal and illegal methods to provide wider access to knowledge (eg. Sci-hub, unauthorized distribution of files and copies.)
2. In places where conscription of men already exist This House Believes That the feminist movement should advocate for the conscription of women.
3. This House Would ban the private ownership of 3D-printers
4. This House Supports such organisation (specified in infoslide)
5. This House Would elect 51% of parliament by lottery.

In five rounds eight finalists qualified for our two finals.

For the Pro-Am final qualifying teams were Humbug Heidelberg (Kostantin Krüger, Wiona Glänzer), the road to Athens begins (Dino Wildli, Illinca Berinde), Tirvium (slides into your) DM (Daan Spackler, Mara Burgstede), and Redereicebreaker (René Geci, Erik Frehse).
The following Pro-AM final motion was presentend: “This House Regrets the modern high priorisation of sexual compability in romantic relationships.”
The winners to be congratulated in this Pro-Am-final were the road to Athens begins.

Our second, and Grand Final was debated by the teams Colognialism (Samuel Scheuer, Marius Hobbhahn), BDU Breaking Down (Lena Kolle, Elena Müller), The DDG was wrong (Anton Leicht, Luise Häder), and Be my whip (Lisa Knodt, Lion Seiffert).
With the motion: “This House Opposes the humanizes pro-regime Germans during the Second World War.” the debaters had a considered, nuanced debates.
As a result of carefully chosen yet thoughtful arguments, the team Colognialism won Tilbury House Cologne Open 2019. Congratulations!

Another round of congratulations has to be given to our top ten speakers during the tournament which were:

1. Marius Hobbhahn
2. Elena Müller
3. Lena Kolle
4. Anton Leicht
5. Lisa Knodt
6. Nikola Michaylov
7. Delany Hurley, shared spor with Dino Wildli
9. Joris Graff
10. Friso Sheepstra

The last very last round of congratulations goes to our hard working volunteers having helped us with every single task given to them, and helping without a break to make turn the tournament is the successful event it was. Without them, it wouldn’t have been possible.
But we shall also not forget everyone else also contributing to the success of the tournament. As final words, a grand “Thank you” to the participants, the CAs, and the University of Cologne offering us rooms for our debates.