A typical evening
Debating format:
We debate according to a format which could be classified as Parliamentary Style:
Roles for each debate:
Feedback & education:
Participation:
Here below an overview of the format we use:
We debate according to a format which could be classified as Parliamentary Style:
- For each debate we from 2 teams with 2/3
persons per team.
- Motions are set by a vote - no debate on this - at the beginning of the
meeting for all debates at once, after which everybody gets 15 min. preparation time.
- Motions can vary from rather serious to highly
nonsensical (e.g. the value of the color ‘green’).
- Everybody can introduce a
motion to Adam, our ‘motion manager’.
- People who don’t debate take up supportive
roles. After the first debate we switch roles. People who did supportive roles
can do debating roles in the next round.
- Speaking time varies from 3 to 7 min. per
person (conclusion = 1 minute), depending on the number of participants.
- During the debate, the non-speaking team can introduce a 'point of information': This is a concise question or comment. The speaking team can accept or refuse to respond, but they should accept at least one 'point of information' during the debate. Points of information are a mechanism for making the idividual speeches more dynamic, and perhaps even more importanly it makes the audience more involved and so more interested.
Roles for each debate:
- Debating teams: 2 teams (2-3 persons/team).
- Supportive roles: 1 Moderator, 1 Timer , + 2
evaluators.
- Roles are randomly assigned through by drawing cards.
Feedback & education:
- After the debates there’s no voting but
qualitative evaluations in order to keep the focus on learning.
- Evaluations are done according to a preset
template + a personal comment.
- Evaluators use this evaluation sheet as a support.
Participation:
- Every member who attends the meetings can participate. We set the maximum number of participants at 16 to keep it manageable. The Meetup RSVP-list is used to manage this.
Here below an overview of the format we use: