On Friday the 26th of August, a record seven Margaret River SHS teams participated in the Southwest round of the annual Evatt Trophy mock United Nations Security Council debating competition at the High Street Hall, West Busselton. After a qualification event at the Augusta Margaret River Shire Council chamber in June, the seven representative teams demonstrated their outstanding debating skills from the start. The prepared resolution (Resolution 3260 (2022): The Question of the Solomon Islands) saw a dominant performance of the Margaret River teams China (Mia Helenius and Abbey Lentjes), the USA (Eleanor Taylor and Mali Rosman), Gabon (Edward Bancroft and Jack Holzer) and Brazil (Avaz Wilson-Mirzaei, Stella Tucci and Nelle Clocherty-Coumbe) in Chamber 1. In Chamber 2, the outstanding preparation and skills of the teams representing the UK (Tom Hage and Ella Mulvey), Albania (Annabel Banroft and Will Dallimore) and India (Emma Heyink & Cedar Orkin) shone forth. The impromptu resolution after Morning Tea (Resolution 3146 (2022): The Question of Aid to Sanctioned States) saw a flurry of amendments by the teams and resulted in an animated debate of high standard. Due to early departure requests by the Bridgetown team, the students were given the unique opportunity to workshop with the UN Youth presenters and learnt about the operations of this most prominent not-for-profit youth organisation in Australia. One of the facilitators was 2021 Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations Lucy Stronach. Lucy spoke about her experiences in Geneva as Australia’s youth ambassador to the United Nations. Afterwards, the students and UN Youth delegates joined for a combined ball game in the hall. All Margaret River students had another wonderful day of learning and debating skill application, and wish to thank UN Youth for this unique extra-curricular event.
Video of the event: https://1drv.ms/v/s!AuMd_nVaQVa4ifxhoOI33Nn9laWzYw?e=AgWxYo
BREAKING NEWS
Dylan Storer, Regional Director of UN Youth WA just informed me that FIVE teams from Margaret River have qualified for the State semi-finals of the 2022 Evatt Trophy debating competition. The judges were most impressed with the quality of preparation and skills demonstrated by the Margaret River teams.
Emma Heyink & Cedar Orkin, Annabel Bancroft & Will Dallimore, Tom Hage & Ella Mulvey, Edward Bancroft & Jack Holzer, and Mia Helenius & Abbey Lentjes will represent the school on the state debating level on Saturday, 10 September with a chance to make it to the Western Australian State final in Parliament House.
Dylan wrote: “The results from your students are outstanding, I believe this is the most teams selected from a single school for WA semi-finals since Evatt began. MRSHS alone makes up 20% of the entire semi-final contingent.”
