FAQ
The SER Debate Series is held each year in association with the Student Economic Review. This is a competitive debate on a topic in economics held with another university, and is always one of the biggest events of the year. Speakers are chosen via trials, which are open to students in any year and course. More information about trials will be available soon.
The Records & Libraries Debate (R&L) is a debate held every year which is run entirely by freshers. Freshers choose the motion, promote the debate, organise the reception and give all the speeches, including the fabled public business minutes. All new Hist members are welcome to get involved - it’s a great way to meet people and experience what it’s like to run a debate! Keep an eye out for more information from our RecSec department.
Chamber speeches are judged primarily on rhetoric, which is more based around style. Competitive speeches are judged on strength of argumentation, the points you make and analysis your provide is much more important than how you sound.
There are many different styles of competitive debating, but we primarily participate in BP (British Parliamentary) competitions, which have 4 teams of 2 speakers who give 7 minute speeches each. 2 teams speak in favour of the motions and 2 speak against it. The motion is announced 15 min before the debate starts, and you get this time to prepare with your partner.
For the moment we’re holding all our debates over Zoom! The chair, speakers and some of the Hist officers will be panelists on a Zoom webinar, and audience members can come watch and submit POIs through the Zoom link in the debate event page. The debates will also be livestreamed and uploaded to our YouTube channel, in case you want to catch up later!
Signing up for debates is a great way to start! It’s not as scary as it seems, I promise. If you’re looking to brush up on skillz the CorrSec department will also be running chamber workshops throughout the year on topics such as speech-writing, stage presence and public speaking. For a more relaxed introduction to public speaking the Robinson Subcommittee regularly runs Derbies of Rhetoric, where you can give a seven minute speech on the subject of your choice in a chill environment.
Once you’re selected to speak at a debate the CorrSec will send you all the information you need about the debate logistics. You should prepare a speech for your side of the motion of about seven minutes in length, leaving some time to respond to other speakers. Some people like to script their speech in full, some like a few pages of notes, and some like to work off a few words written on a scrap of paper and a prayer - it’s completely up to you. If you’d like any advice or help with speech writing, get in touch with Maggie at corrsec@thehist.com!
For the debate itself, you’ll be called on by the chair when it’s your turn to speak. You’ll have seven minutes to make your case and respond to other speakers, followed by rapturous applause from the audience.
A chamber debate involves a section called private business and a section called public business. Private business deals with some of the inner workings of the society, including voting on motions. Public business is the debate - a series of speeches for and against the motion of the night presided over by a guest Chair. Speeches are generally 7 minutes in length. During the middle five minutes of a speech, other speakers and audience members can offer points of information (POIs) to the speaker to ask a question or make a comment or correction. The aim of most chamber speeches is twofold: to convince and to entertain. A good chamber speech will make you laugh/cry/shake your head in indignant disagreement that anyone could ever think Blur is better than Oasis/smile and, most importantly, make you think a little bit differently about the topic. After all the speakers have spoken, the audience will vote aye or nay on the motion, and the Chair will deliver an address on the topic at hand, which will often include some commentary on the debate. At this point in previous years we would all go upstairs for wine and snacks at our debate reception where the discussion of the motion would continue more informally - this year, we’ll supply the chats but you may have to bring your own snacks.
You can sign up for any debate in our termcard by filling in the form for that debate on the page. If you’re selected to speak at a debate you’ll receive an email from the CorrSec the weekend before to confirm your attendance. You can sign up for as many debates as you like! You’re not committed to anything before the week of the debate, so don’t worry if you end up not being available on that date. Sign up forms for upcoming debates will also go out in the Hist’s weekly emails, so keep an eye out for those!
Our chamber debates usually feature a combination of student and guest speakers. Anyone can sign up to speak in chamber - no debating experience required. We generally aim to have a guest speaker on each side, with six to eight speakers in total.
Pro is short for Pro Tempore, basically if you hear the term Pro RecSec, that is referring to an MC who is assigned to the RecSec department. Same for all the other departments.
Yes! SMC stands for Senior Member of Committee, basically the manager of the MCs and is responsible for the maintenance of our rooms and daily workings of the society.
Our current SMC is Ben Mahon.
MC - Stands for Member of Committee, the committee is made up of officers and MCs, and the MCs are basically like our slaves. JK! They are an important part of our society and make sure it keeps running by helping out the officers, washing glasses and cleaning up.
Nope! Corrsec runs our weekly Chamber debates. Please don’t mix up DC with CorrSec!
The Debates Convenor, mostly known as the DC, is responsible for competitive debating in our society, which means they run trainings, send people off to competitions in other universities and even run two competitions in Trinity, the Trinity IV (in February) and the Trinity Open (in June). Also IV stands for Intervarsity, not the medical device.
Our current DC is Jack Williams.
Lib or the Librarian runs our schools outreach and they are responsible for our library, which we have! If you want to take out a book, talk to them! Everyone loves Lib!
Our current librarian is Laura Egan.
Yeah, its a mystery why Censor is called Censor but essentially they are essentially our public relations officers (other societies call them PROs). They run our social media, make posters and takes photos. We promise they don’t actually censor people!
Our current censor is Ellen McHugh.
The RecSec or the Records Secretary (yes, we have two secretary, how fancy!), is responsible for freshers outreach, which means running the maiden debating competition every year. They are also the person who reads out the minutes (a short, usually funny speech) before our debates.
Our current RecSec is Sean Gordon Dalton.
CorrSec is short for Corresponding Secretary, they are responsible for organising our weekly chamber debates we host every Wednesday night.
Our current Corrsec is Maggie Larson.
Auditor is essentially the chairperson/leader of the society. Technically the society has an President but much like the President of Ireland they are largely just a figurehead and the Taoiseach/Auditor does much of the work/has most of the power. The president tends to a significant public figure with connections to the society but is no longer a student. Our current president is Professor David McConnell, a former auditor of the Society and a preeminent geneticist.
Yeah, we know, the weird and confusing terms are such a hallmark of our society that often we completely forget that auditor would normally be known for being a leader in the outside world. The reason we have such weird and wonderful terms is because we are a hella old society and these positions have been around for years, some as old as 200 years old.
Franchise is whether or not you can vote in a Hist election. We run annual elections every year to elect a new committee and we also run by elections whenever there is an vacancy on Committee.
Currently to have franchise, you needed to have attended 3 Chamber Debates. This is why you sign in at the beginning of the debate by the Librarian (they are in charge of counting franchise). Whenever we have an election the Librarian produces a registry of electors, a document listing everyone in that session (or the last session depending on the time of year) who had attended at least three debates. You are able to refute the registry if you were incorrectly recorded as not having franchise.
A speak is essentially a unit of measurement for whether you speak with the society and how many times! At the moment, if you speak at one of our Chamber Debates or give a Derby of Rhetoric speech, that counts as one speak. Speaks are important because they are a requirement to serve on the Hist Committee. To be eligible to run for MC, you need one speak. As for officerships, speak requirements differ so here is a page explaining it more thoroughly.
You do not need speaks to serve as Equity Officer or on a Sub-Committee.
No! We have many members who don’t debate, in fact even officers of the committee have been elected who have outright said they hate debating themselves but love being surrounded by a community who enjoys discussions and challenging opinions.