Over the weekend, two of our debating teams competed in the Otago Regional Competition. OGHS 1 made up of Ella Richardson, Juju Moharram and Jenny de la Harpe and OGHS 2 made up of Charli Osborne and Tessa Hinch took on a full weekend of debating, working through interesting motions (topics).

The motions that they had to debate ranged from topics surrounding international relations to politics, cats and pirates. On the first day, there were four full debates, and on the second there were two before the semifinals and finals announcement was made. These were the motions:

1. This house would prohibit the prioritization of any particular religion in schools

2. This house would ban countries with poor human rights conditions from hosting international sporting events.

3. This house believes that all major political decisions should be made through referendums.

4. This house, as a cat, would prefer an overly affectionate owner to an absent owner.

5. This house regrets the rise of short-form content (e.g. TikTok).

6. This house, as a dictator in a period of economic decline, would focus on purging the disloyal as opposed to improving the economic state.

7. Semi Finals: This house believes that progressive (environmentalists, feminists, racial, queer) movements should never use violence.

8. Finals: On the 5th of September 1717, King George offered to grant a pardon to all pirates in the West Indies who surrendered themselves to any colonial governor under the domain of the British Empire. These pirates were granted a clean record and offered a large sum of money for the capturing of other pirates. This House, as a moderately successful pirate, would accept the king’s pardon and become a pirate hunter, rather than remain a pirate.

OGHS 2 were 'iron-manning' the entire tournament in a team of two, which is very impressive as most teams have 3 members. They managed to get wonderful results despite this.

OGHS 1 made it into the semifinals in 2nd place with 1521.5 speaker points where they competed with Columba 1. They were affirming the semifinal motion and won, making their way into the finals. Unfortunately, they came runners-up in the finals, where they were negating the motion against Logan Park 1. Individually the speakers had great success with Ella Richardson and Jenny de la Harpe both making it into the senior development squads. Juju Moharram was awarded Best Style and selected as a reserve for the Otago Regional team. The team is pictured with Logan Park 1 and their mascot, the octopus, Motion of the Ocean.

All teams showed great school spirit and supported each other through the tournament! We wish them all the best for the remainder of the Dunedin inter-school competition.