Our St Andrew's Debating & Interview Club goes from strength to strength each week, with excellent focus, concentration and incorporation of key skills by all. On skills, we looked at summary speaking and how best to use notes in public speaking.
Our warm-up questions for the week were two-fold:
(a) tell us something interesting about the world?; and (b) tell us something interesting about you?
It was great to see such an array of talents from riding, to cricket, reading and modern languages and it was inspiring to hear so many fascinating facts about our planet and the solar system more generally.
For our newsround we focussed on the proposed smoking & vaping bans by the PM, to the death of US troops in the Middle East and the destruction caused by the two storms/weather fronts in the UK of late.
In our previous session the topic of electric cars had been raised following Tesla's announcement of weaker trading/sales, so we turned to the motion:
(i) 'This House still thinks electric cars are the future'.
Overall, the group voted at both tellings in favour of electric cars, but with the caveat of modifications - to sound and to the car battery in order that it can be recycled (given environmental concern). It was also felt that the UK motorway network and rural areas needed greater investment in terms of charge points.
Our second motion looked at age for politicians and leadership:
(ii) 'This House believes that age matters when it comes to Presidential or Prime Ministerial leadership?'
Many were concerned about the idea of having an octogenarian again in the Whitehouse, whilst others pointed to examples of experience providing exceptional leadership, whether that be the late Queen Elizabeth II or Nelson Mandela or Winston Churchill. More nuanced points involved trying to work out a way that the population as a whole felt represented when different generations were so far apart in age terms.
Another tremendous session - well done all!
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