Workshops

Workshops are held in Arts A5, every Wednesday, 5pm until 6.30pm. However they will not be running during summer term. Please check the Facebook group to see if any informal debates have been planned.

What happens in the workshops?

• Practice debating
• Ask questions and fuel the debate
• Acquire general knowledge to improve your arguments

Come along to a Tuesday workshop and you can improve your debating and public speaking. You are more than welcome to join in a debate, or otherwise just sit back and watch. We have speeches from the panel, typically made up of 4 or more students. This will be followed by a debate in which anyone can participate, chaired in the style of BBC’s ‘Question Time‘.

This will then be followed by an audience vote to decide the winner of the debate. The topical nature of debating means that workshop motions are chosen one week in advance.  Therefore at the end of each workshop we hold a short brainstorming session to decide upon the following week’s motion, and the panel who will be presenting it.

We regularly then go to Falmer Bar after the workshop to relax and chat.

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What’s it going to be like?

In the first few weeks of debating you may be worried about speaking infront of people on subjects you don’t know. Firstly, you will have time to prepare, where you can think of your arguments and prepare your speech. Other debaters are always happy to help you with ideas as well. Most importantly, we’ve all been there, we’ve all had experiences of not knowing what to say. After a few weeks your confidence will improve along with your knowledge of how to argue and structure your speeches. It really is a case of practice makes perfect, and the more you stick at it the better you will be!