Meeting Minutes
Tuesday 29 th February 2013
5pm, Chifley Library room 4.02
Attending
Vincent Chiang (President)
Jessy Wu (Vice President - Internal)
Yarn Shih (Vice President - External)
Stacey Waring (Treasurer)
Madeline Verge (Secretary)
Tom Goldie (Training Officer)
Grace Elkins (Publications Officer)
Sean Barry (Publications Officer)
Clodagh O’Doherty (Socials Officer)
Mieke Foster (Socials Officer)
Ben Ye (IT Officer)
Apologies
Charlie Austin (Vice President – Sponsorship & Finance)
Linda Ma (Women’s Officer)
Ella Masri (Public Debates Officer)
Meeting opened at 5:12pm
1. General Business (Vincent)
 We must reflect for future improvement
 We will discuss survey results, proposed calendar and then general discussion
 Thanks for survey, all good and helpful (except Goldie’s)
 Survey feedback o Good things were fivefold
 Training
 Internals
 Higher retention – 2 rooms by end of comp, rather than half a room
 Socials
 People felt they had fun – little complaints – change from the past when people complained about atmosphere and locations.
 Engagement
 Society is friendly and welcoming
 Reflected by first years on committee
 Intervarsity success
 Perhaps BEST SINCE 2002!
 Goldie agrees. o Three main concerns
 Structure of internals
 People wanted transparency about pro-am and mentoring
 Big focus on mentoring desires
 Space for people who don’t feel confident debating against
ANU’s best.

 Training
 “Intimidation”/social interactions
 This meeting isn’t to make decisions, but to discuss – decisions will be made next year
2. 1. Term 1
 Vincent: Make it a novice competition o Goldie: We did that anyway this year, 8-14 rooms at start of the year, hard to find that many pros to adj the rooms – adjs multitasked. o Mieke: If Pros only come to adj and not debate or enjoy, then won’t we just lose a lot of them? It’s not a requirement for them to come back. If we make all the pros not debate, whilst good for novices, we can’t expect them to just come every week. o Vincent replies: We will address this later o Goldie: If you’re a pro and the society has given resources to you, then you have an obligation to come back. Every single pro had an opportunity to debate after term 1. o Vincent: We will talk about this later
 Vincent: Will have pros sit in on prep time and then adj other teams  we should do this more aggressively next year, people felt silly asking this year. This will lead to better training.
 Vincent: Tiering the rooms o People do not want to debate in rooms where they are either intimidated or much better than the others. o Make sure teams have intermediate levelled debaters with more experienced novices o Pros more focused on lower rooms o Ben: We must classify pros and novices more clearly internally e.g. high school state debaters vs. people who have never debated before. o Vincent: We hadn’t done all this because we didn’t have many pros. o Goldie: Administratively difficult when dealing with 80 people, found it very stressful in first few weeks, difficult trade-offs… “bin rooms” of 6 people who have never debated before? o Ben: Why is that a problem? o Maddie and Clodagh: but how are they meant to cope then? o Yarn: People should be welcome to watch etc. instead of having to sign up. o Goldie: That’s a clever idea, what if they sit in on prep time? o Mieke: 7 weeks before Easters, why not longer prep times in first few weeks, easy and fun motions, lots of jokes, laughing makes people more confident. o Goldie: But we have different levels of debaters o Mieke: Well tiered rooms? o Goldie: This type of stuff is our most important issue right now o Vincent: 2 fun motions and 1 serious motions for each internal round? o Mieke: Maybe make Fridays serious and Tuesday not, pros who have to adj can debate then? (Addresses earlier concern) o Vincent: Put around survey to see when people are free o Clodagh: Will people come twice a week?

2.2 Term two
 Vincent: Pro am will continue and be more transparent, but still flexible o Mieke: People felt intimidated to organise and ask a pro, what is it was more organised unless you were really set on a team? o Vincent: Committee this year didn’t really represent everyone and weren’t in the best decision to make these types of choices
 Vincent: Perhaps an ESL and Novice to make people feel more comfortable
3.1 Training
 Vincent: Emphasise intervarsity and weekend tournaments o Goldie: Much better this year than last
 Vincent: Tiering training, have most debaters (other than perhaps those in state teams) begin in lowest stream. Start with the basics and focus on roles of speakers and practical things e.g. what is uni debating, how to improve. o Mieke: Big gap between someone who has never debated before vs. people who debated all through high school. You will bore people who have debated for 4 years by telling them what a first speaker says. o Goldie: Having written the seminars, this will not be an issue o Jessy: Not important to push the form of debating, more about framing debates to win etc. o Clodagh: Manning Clark is too big, destroys the atmosphere. Food is all the way at the back, it just dynamically doesn’t work. Will make it informal and fun whilst still giving up tons of information. People who don’t know people will be sitting against each other. o Vincent: Smaller and interactive groups, especially for lower level debaters, we have pros for 6 rooms o Clodagh: Put moles in the audience o Jessy: Panel discussions rather than forums? o Vincent: Awkward silences o Jessy: PLANNED panel discussions then. o Goldie: What are the advantages? o Jessy: One person teaching, another chimes in, more entertaining.
 Vincent: Mentoring program – soft variant on this, otherwise there could be problems, communication would break down and pros would be frustrated. o Jessy: Mentors for Easters team like USU o Goldie: Intimidating for novices who don’t know them o Clodagh: Too much pressure making people come every week, needs to casual and opt-in. o Vincent: Can be soft model by how we frame it at start of the year, ask pros to take initiative. Adjudicator, team relationship. Human-old-person personal relationships. o Jessy: Hard thing to put in, won’t this happen organically? Hard to make it if it doesn’t already. o Vincent: Adjudicators can switch off after giving them feedback, telling them to chat might help. o Yarn: Big difference between asking people to be mentors and asking people to be nice. o Vincent: Later people should look at the minutes and write down what they think.

o Mieke: We are implementing this in week one. DO we really have time? o Clodagh: We can do this online and have a meeting in n-week or o-week. o Vincent: This is a very macro view of next year, we just need to do first term, o-week and market day. Lots of online chat!
 Vincent: People want matter specific training e.g. drug lords, Israel and Palestine,
Economics etc.
 Maddie: Before tournaments e.g. this is what you may get in the international relations topic
 Vincent: Q & A
 Goldie: We had these this year, before Australs…
3.2 Socials
 Vincent: Less of a cultish presence, adjs being friendly to first-years, looking after people who look like they have no friends around. The onus is on us as people who opted to join the committee. o Mieke: Cultish presence less from social events but more competitions, particularly Easters. First years in top 3 teams… o Jessy: I don’t feel like I got invited to any more parties… o Mieke: It might have more that we didn’t have a pro o Maddie: I thought it was more about being more comfortable to go to IVs etc.
 Vincent: So we don’t look elitist o Publication will be good
 Vincent: We will run the cruise again, and the regressive. They were our most successful socials
Clodagh leaves at 6:02
4.1 Vincent: I came up with 8 crazy ideas
 First year and women’s forums o Vincent: Whoops… week 8 is Easters – we will miss class o Vincent: One year Jackie wrote a letter to the academics, I am friendly with academics.
 Macquarie Partnership – BP camp and “ANU Fall” o UNSW approached us too o Mieke: What if we invited UNSW as well? o Vincent: BP training camp. Macquarie loosing their experiences debaters i.e. WE STEAL THEM. They want pros to help develop the society. We do that if you subsidise ANU. But, still good even if they don’t approve that.
We will get a lot of benefits from our novices going. o Stacey: Lachlan told me that I should only go if I was really inexperienced o Vincent: Well that was because of not any pros, with more pros, there will be better training and more targeted levels of training
 ANU Fall o Vicent: Last year had ANU Mini o Goldie: Really?

o Vincent: Yes, you won it. If Macquarie partnership goes ahead they will come. Help our novices with more intervarsity relationships early on. A
Pre-Easters tournament. o Mieke: Will help UWA because they can do it back-to-back. o Vincent: We are the only university without holidays at Easters, if the comp is the weekend before it then it is a good idea (especially for what
Mieke said). o Stacey: Well would they go straight from Canberra to Melbourne.
 Mieke: People might appreciate having a few days in between for visiting Sydney etc. People may not want to debate for 9 days in a row. o Vincent: If you have a strong objection against this then say something online.
 Public Debate o Vincent: Charity debate, UN Society debate (already talked to UN Society
President and they are keen), Vice-Chancellor’s Debate, Socialist
Alternative debate (they do it at Monash). o Ben: We (as in UN people) are heaps keen for inter society stuff e.g. law society etc.
 Chinese Debating Society o Vincent: I was reading the USU minutes and they cooperate at Sydney.
Chancellery will be happy. o Goldie: Help out sponsorship with CAP o Vincent: Cross-signups at o-week, stalls next to each other
 ACTDU Schools Partnership Day o Vincent: Get us money and improve ACT debating
 Monash-style intensive competitions o Vincent: 2 rounds a night o Mieke: Linking that with the Fridays instead, people are tired on Tuesdays when we start after a day of class, 2 debates starting at 6 without dinner, people have to study, people have to get back etc. o Vincent: Fair, Tuesdays is weird anyway.
 Officialising Friday Debates o Vincent: Not necessarily on Fridays, calling them ‘workshops’, less a “boys club” and more accessible. o Goldie: Makes it “in group, out group” o Mieke: What about advertising on Tuesday, not just Facebook, making it available for everyone instead of it being seen as for good debaters. o Goldie: What about if we start them in term 2? o Yarn: Pros don’t get practice in term 1 o Goldie: They are in Easters teams o Mieke: I don’t think having an “in group out group” has been an issue this year. However, for improvement, we won’t get an “in group out group” thing as long as we allow everyone to come. Say to everyone, “Come if you want a challenge”. o Vincent: I agree. o Mieke: People can come and watch them. Novices can come and watch prep on Friday and then have them debate on Tuesday. o Grace: Watching Vincent and Goldie prep a case would be good.

o Mieke: Didn’t learn about prep till way after Easters until I debated with
Lachlan. o Goldie: I agree o Yarn: We really don’t want Friday debates to be competitive, Tuesdays is formal. Fridays are fun and casual. o Mieke: Good chance for first-years who are part of a large group to stand out and differentiate themselves. o Vincent: We really need to establish this before next year
5.1 Other Business
 Vincent: Dates are not finalised especially, seeing now that week 8 is Easters. We need to focus on term 1 right now. We should send out minutes, put them online and contact alumni.
 Mieke: What about Melbourne people who want to go to ANU Fall but coming back to ANU then going back to Melbourne is silly.
 Goldie: Perhaps we should do it at the beginning of holidays then, we should prioritise our own.
 Stacey: First break people will be able to go home to see parents.
 Vincent: Everyone check your emails and facebook, I’ll contact you about your individual portfolios over the holidays. Good luck for exams.
 Mieke: ADFA are doing intensive things to get more first years, will bring them here. Their society is very small…
 Goldie: But lockdown, so won’t come at start of term 1.
Meeting concluded at 6: 40pm