Fitting the battle of life

Well, it’s been nearly a month since we launched the new UCL Union Debating Society website over at debating.org. The old side was a bit of a beast, requiring updating by hand and not really being very extendable.

We (that is, myself and Alex) decided to go with a WordPress installation that would allow us to have static pages describing what we do and rolling updates of what’s going on in the Society, how debates have been and who’s won competitions, in blog form.

Header image on debating.org

It took a little over the 5 minutes advertised – but only because we first had to work out whether we actually did have MySQL on the server and how to use it. Neither of us had been near anything like this before, but once we’d worked that out, Alex had to go and I was left in Gordon’s Café in the Union with my laptop.

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For some reason the new year is the time to make resolutions for the 12 months ahead. Over the next couple of days I’ll be posting my resolutions and aims in various categories. Today it’s debating.

1. Break again. My first semi-final at Kings was a good moment, and obviously one I ought to be repeating. If I can do it once I can do it again (assuming it wasn’t a lucky fluke). All it requires is some good, solid performances, starting at Warwick on the 26th.
2. This leads neatly onto number 2: make it to Euros in the summer. We haven’t sent teams for a while, and I want to be there. Debating well in tournaments this term will get me a place in Tallinn.
3. Sort out the debating guide for the Society. This is a project I’ve wanted to get done for some time, and really want to get it written and improved by our best debaters this term. I’d hoped to get it done for the start of this term, but it actually involves quite a lot of work, so I will be happy for it to be done this term ready for the incoming debaters in September – so we can perform better at President’s Cup!
4. Some other minor goals include running UCL IV to be really enjoyable by everyone who comes, making a few good floor speeches, and so on.

I’ll report back on these at the end of term, and see how well I’ve done.