SEGOVIA – The IE Segovia Debate Club held its inaugural session last Thursday in the Refectory welcoming new attendees and greeting former members.
The session was meant to act as an introduction to the clubs leadership and their plans for the coming year. The club leadership laid out the three different branches of the debate club: MUN; Formal Debate; and Social Forums.
The MUN branch focuses primarily on Model United Nations-style debating and procedure, which involves parliamentary roleplaying scenarios that are generally modeled to follow the United Nations decision making protocol. This branch offers students various chances to better their rhetorical skills through formal legislative discussions. The leadership also revealed several upcoming international MUN events where a select group of students will be able to debate against students from around the world. Currently, this branch plans to attend conferences in Geneva, London, and Tokyo.
The Formal Debate branch offers Debate club members the chance to participate and observe organized discussions on a particular topic. In these discussions, two opposing opinions will argue under the supervision of a judge who will crown one side victor based on their rhetorical skills. This branch also introduced several upcoming debates, such as another popular scholar debate and another debate with the Segovian Artillery Academy.
The Social Forums branch of the debate club gives members the opportunity to debate in an informal environment. Decorum is not as important in these branch meetings as it will typically meet in public areas outside of university, such as a coffee shop. As per the head of this branch, Adam Ross, the idea of this branch is to “socialize and integrate”. Members can use these events as was to practice their skills without the stress of formal debate.
The Debate Club also reintroduced the mandatory training sessions for all members wishing to participate in formal events. These training sessions are meant to prepare students for formal debate environments, teaching basic skills such as controlling body language and crafting coherent arguments. This professionally instructed course is available for 50 euros, and it is required to participate in the international MUN conferences and certain formal debates. There will be a total of six sessions starting in late October.
After this introductory session, the Debate Club held a workshop for incoming members and veterans to become familiar with the Harvard MUN rules in procedure.
Future events will be viewable on Campus Groups and the VIVE IE applications.
