Dear Adjudicators,

We are approaching the start of another year full of exciting debate competitions. I know all of you learned a lot from your days as student debaters, and may have moved on now to bigger and more exciting adventures - but we still need you! Without the time and effort of our volunteer adjudicators, we would not be able to run any debate competitions at all. While we hope to continue training new adjudicators, I'm sure you remember how important it was for senior judges (especially those in university or working already) to come back and judge debates (and wow all the young debaters). I am thus asking you to please, please, spend a few minutes to fill up the form below and volunteer to adjudicate at the upcoming competitions.

To make it easier for adjudicators to turn up on time (especially for the 6pm SSDC prelim debates), DA(S) will be providing some limited taxi reimbursement. Details will be provided by email. If there is anything else we can do to make it easier for you to volunteer your time, please let us know.

Every year, after the SSDC prelim rounds end at about 9:30pm, some of the older judges and coaches head out and mingle over some snacks and drinks. This year, we want to encourage more of our adult judges and coaches (over-18) to join us after every prelim round. We will announce the venue for our little social event over email and remind everybody on the day itself. Let's all get to know each other a little better this year. :)

Adjudicator Request Form

DA(S) will be holding a full-day adjudicator training session on Saturday Jan 16th at Tampines Junior College (2 Tampines Avenue 9, Singapore 529564). The training session will begin at 10 am and end at 5pm. There will be a one-hour break for lunch, but lunch will not be provided for participants.

The training will be provided free of charge and all trainees will receive a certificate of completion.

Meridian Junior College holding a debating competition for Secondary schools on Saturday, 23rd January 2010. It will be held in MJC. All Secondary schools are welcome to join. Each participating school is to send 5 member teams, and the registration fee is $50.00, payable on the day of the competition. For more information, please contact Benjamin Astono

[20 Dec 2009 Update: Thanks to everybody who attended and to our wonderful trainers (esp. Scott, Vishal, Wah Jiam, and the national team) for volunteering their time. Photos and Videos from the event have been uploaded below. Camp participants, if you have any question, please post them below or email us directly.]

PHOTOS & VIDEOS

[caption id="attachment_276" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="DA(S) Debate Camp Dec 2009"][/caption]

APEC Voices of the Future (VOF) 2009 will be held from 9 to 15 November 2009 in conjunction with the APEC 2009 summit meetings hosted by Singapore this year. VOF is an annual youth event for youth leaders in the APEC economies. It aims to provide a platform for youth leaders to engage government and business leaders on issues relevant to APEC. VOF 2009 will involve 120 youth leaders from all 21 APEC economies, and is organised by the National Youth Council (NYC) of Singapore in cooperation with the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) and the National Youth Achievement Award (NYAA) Council. Through VOF, it is hoped that young persons without the opportunity to attend APEC events, will remain clued in on the goings on during APEC week.

We have revamped the website to make it more dynamic, to bring you the latest happenings, competitions, videos, articles, and so much more. We're still working on a new forum (that's nicely integrated to the website), new membership subscription, email lists, and a few more cool toys, so stay tuned. Feel free to explore the website, and drop us a comment (you'll find it's much easier to leave a comment if you have a Facebook account - try it out).

What else can we do on this website to help you, fellow debaters?