We at ESU Scotland were very excited at being given the opportunity to host the last World Members’ Conference in Edinburgh in September 2008. Over 250 delegates from 31 countries attended.
› ESU World 2008 |
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Other Projects
St. Andrews Day Debating Championships
On St. Andrews Day 2008, ESU Scotland, in partnership with The Scottish Government
and The Scottish Parliament, ran a one-day tournament for University Debaters.
This was a great day which culminated in a full house watching the final take place
in the Chamber of the Parliament. The Final was chaired by the Presiding Officer, and
ESU Scotland's Honorary President, Alex Fergusson MSP and the judges included Brian Taylor
of the BBC and Kenny MacAskill MSP.
The standard was high throughout the day and the eventual champions were Rachael Whitbread
and Chris Hawkins of the University of St. Andrews.
Global Campaign For Education Debate
In May of 2008, ESU Scotland, in partnership with Oxfam and Save The Children,
ran a show debate between 8 school pupils from all over the country as part of
the Global Campaign For Education.
The final was chaired by Linda Fabiani MSP and the winners of the debate were
Ewan McGregor (Stewart's Melville College) and Rebecca Joseph (Dumfries Academy).
European Parliament Project
In February 2007, ESU Scotland was awarded European Parliament funding
to run three major projects to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the
Treaty of Rome.
The funding awarded totals some £21,500 and is supported by
generous match funding of £10,000 from ASDA, our main sponsor for schools debates work.
The first of these projects was a Public Speaking Competition held in
June, which was won by Jonathan Benjamin of Greenock Academy. Perhaps
the most pleasing aspect of the Public Speaking Competition was that
the European funding enabled us to run Public Speaking workshops at 9
schools across the country.
Jonathan’s prize was a trip to the European Parliament in
Brussels where he was lucky enough to meet Hans-Gert Pottering, the
President of the European Parliament.
The second phase of the project was a guest speaker debate which was
held in Glasgow on Friday 23rd November. The debate was on the motion:
This House believes that the Treaty of Rome’s ambition of an
ever closer European Union is more important today than ever. The
speakers were David Martin MEP, Struan Stevenson MEP, Robin Harper MSP,
Vivian Linacre, David Campbell Bannerman and Sir Ken Collins.
Over 130 people attended the debate and in the end the speakers in
opposition to the motion won the debate.
We were delighted to secure a media partnership with The Sunday Herald for this phase of the
project.
The final element of the project was a major intervarsity debating
tournament to be held at the University of Strathclyde. This was held
on Friday 1st of February and 16 teams from around Europe visited
Scotland to take part in the tournament.
The finalists were:
1st Proposition – Team Greece (Manos Moschopoulos &
Eirini Damianaki)
1st Opposition – Team Scotland (Doug Cochran & Connie
Grieve)
2nd Proposition – Team Ireland (Art Ward & Tiernan
Fitzgibbon)
2nd Opposition – Team Finland (Rich Penny & Ina
Subulica)
In the end, the winners were Doug Cochran & Connie Grieve of
Team Scotland.
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