Recent Success
St Andrews is looking forward to having another great year after numerous recent successes. For the latest news on Inter-Varsity debating take a look at our blog.
Bogwall
Bogwall is the SSDC's competition for fresher debaters. Freshers are sent off to Bogwall, a purely first-year competition, for a day of debating against other universities for the first time. Last year St Andrews' own Sarah Whittam and Erika Hektor brought the trophy back to St Andrews for the second year in a row; Kenny and Sam Fowles having won back the trophy for the first time since 2004 the previous year.
The Scottish Mace
Each year teams from all over Scotland compete to represent Scotland in the prestigious John Smith Memorial International Mace final featuring one team from Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland. The SSDC coordinates the Scottish part of this tournament. In the last several years, St Andrews has routinely reached the Scottish final of the tournament.
Last year St Andrews had five out of the eight teams in the semi-finals, including a team of freshers competing for the first time, and two out of the four teams in the final. The St Andrews team of Tom Cahn and Daniel won the final and represented Scotland at the International Mace Final.
In 2008, St Andrews had three teams in the final, and it was the St Andrews team of Connie Grieve and Doug Cochran that won the competition. In addition, out of the five St Andrews teams that participated, 4 reached the semi-finals.
International Championships
EUDC 2009
Newcastle played host to the European Universities Debating Championship in 2009. St Andrews had a very strong showing, with all four teams strongly in contention for the break. Miles and James came 15th on tab, making it to the quarter finals.
WUDC 2009
University College Cork in Ireland hosted the 2009 World Universities Debating Championship. St Andrews matched its best ever performance (in terms of sheer quantity of points accumulated) with Miles and James finishing 33rd out of the 316 teams competing, narrowly missing the break to octo-finals by four speaker points. Alumni Tony Murphy joined the organisation committee as the tournament Equity Officer.
EUDC 2008
In 2008 the european championship was held at the University of Tallinn in Estonia. St Andrews sent a young team with several speakers and judges just having completed their first year. All of the teams did well, especially Jess Siegel and Chris Hawkins who finished 17th on the team tab, missing the break by a single speaker point. St Andrews alums Connie and Tony were specially invited to judge by the competition organisers, and judged the final.
WUDC 2008
The 2008 championship at Assumption University in Bangkok, Thailand saw great success with Connie and Doug breaking 18th on tab out of over 460 teams and reaching the semi-finals for the second time.