From Loke Wing Fatt:

I am very happy to tell all of you that the Macau University Debate Team, comprising Ms Fiona Leung and Ms Mia Sun, were crowned Champions of the prestigious 13th China National English Debating Championships 2009 on 16th May 2009 at the Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press (FLTRP) International Convention Centre in Daxing, Bejing, China.

In the Grand Finals witnessed by over 2,500 people, Fiona and Mia won 11 votes out of the 13 votes cast by a panel of 13 international judges from Thailand, Singapore, China and America. On the way to the Grand Finals, Fiona and Mia achieved a perfect 8 wins and 0 loss record in the 8 Preliminary Rounds, scored an unanimous 5 votes from 5 judges in the Octo-Finals, 6 votes from 7 judges in the Quarter-Finals, and 8 votes from 11 judges in the Semi Finals.

For coming up first among 134 Chinese university teams in this annual English debating event, which employs the two-on-two American Parliamentary Style of debating, Fiona and Mia will represent China and the University of Macau in the Koc World University Debating Championships 2010 in Turkey in Dec 2009.

This achievement by University of Macau (UMAC) is remarkable as its debate club is only 3 years old. Though new to debating 3 years ago, the debaters were disciplined and dedicated to improving themselves. They were unstintingly supported by Mr Sitou, UMAC Head of Student Affairs, its former Manager of Student Affairs, Theo Cheng and its current officer-in-charge, Raymond Lio. Debaters from UMAC were sent overseas on sponsored trips to compete in all the major English international debating tournaments, including the Assumption University World University Debating Championships 2008 in Bangkok,Thailand where Ms Fiona Leung, the current President of the UMAC Debate Club, was adjudged as the Best Speaker in the English as a Foreign Language Category.

The UMAC debaters are ably coached by Theo Cheng and Ms Paige. The Society of Associated Inter-Tertiary Debaters (SAID) is grateful to be given regular opportunities to conduct debate workshops at UMAC for the past 3 years and is indeed proud to have made a contribution to this significant debating achievement in so young a debate club. No doubt, this achievement will be the start of greater interest in good debating in Macau.

SAID looks forward to helping UMAC and other Macau universities to proliferate the good art of debating and developing a vibrant debate culture of the highest standard.

Yours-in-debating,

loke wing fatt
President
Society for Associated Inter-Tertiary Debaters (SAID)
Singapore
website: saidsg.wordpress.com