Debate Club: Are Stereotypes Unfairly Stereotyped?
On September 17, the Debate Club hosted their kickoff event in order to explain their new structure for this 2018-2019 academic year. As a way to interact and discover the debate skills of the future members, the Club decided to have an informal open floor debate about “Are Stereotypes Unfairly Stereotyped?”; Certainly, it is a highly controversial topic open to discussion, but above all, familiar to everyone due to the international background at IE.
The main idea was to hear all the different points of view some of the participants had about stereotypes, some of them argued that they can serve as a tool to categorise people, others that stereotypes are just a way to pre-determinate a person and make a judgement based on that. The whole discussion went pretty well and the debate naturally flowed.
The Club also had other two events in the last couple of weeks, such as a Coffee House Debate, in which a couple of people reunited at la Colonial to discuss some topics of interest while drinking a good and warm cup of coffee.
Also, on Friday the 28th, they hosted their first MUN Mock in which the Committee discussed a Resolution about Natural Disasters; Most of the participants where highly implicated and seemed to be very interested about the topic in discussion.
Overall, both of the events were very successful and allowed the Leadership Team to realise the motivation and potential behind each member, two factors that definitely have to be exploited in this club.
Regarding the Club itself, this year the Club is going to be divided in 3 branches in order to make it easier for members to differentiate according to their interests: Formal Debate, MUN and Social Debates.
Concerning the MUN Branch goals, they’re planning on attend three international conferences (such as Geneva International MUN, Harvard MUN in Madrid …) and two local conferences (Barcelona International MUN, Universidad Carlos III MUN…). Added to this, they want to hold monthly MUN Mock Conferences and to have weekly training's with a Professional Coach, in order to prepare themselves for future conferences and gain more confidence while debating.
As for the Debate Branch, they aim to attend to one tournament, having a coaching focused ¾ on Public Speaking, possible internal tournaments and for sure, debates on demand are more than welcomed.
Last but not least, the Social Branch we’ll be focused on having weekly Coffeehouse Debates on Friday Afternoon and monthly debate pre-Drinks to work on the team/club spirit.
The debate Club is open for everyone and anyone, regardless of the previous experience some may have. They’re main goal is to encourage anyone with interest to join but mainly to provide a fun and different way of learning and meeting people, therefore contributing to the creation of a community.
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