Today's Excitement:
- Things started with the Debater/Judges Briefing and Administrative Announcements ... a little late this morning. So did I.
The briefings were good, highlighting a holistic approach to judging and the notion that there are always judgement calls without much "automaticity" ... something that needs to be said especially at Worlds. - Lunch was had
- Pre-Council took ~3.5 instead of 1.5 hrs, but according to Jens they managed to address already many things which would otherwise have needed to be discussed on 01 Jan - this includes the Bid Presentations for WUDC 2013 from Zagreb and Berlin. I have taken sides - I suppose Jens, too, has a private opinion but refrains from voicing that on account of his EUDC Council Presidency. We shall therefore keep the discussion out of here from our end until the voting has been completed ...
- A first round of the Masters Competition was held on the motion, "THW buy local" - I'm not sure on participants, etc., but we'll update latest on the Final
- The Welcome Dinner was held at night, incl. a welcome by the BW Education Minister
Awesomeness:
- + The weather is still divine ... those who complain really need to get a grip
- + The helpers/runners/volunteers are still amazingly friendly
- + There is beer on sale at the cafeteria (Note to self: Remember to get local currency tomorrow)
- + Speaking of which, the food is pretty good and plentiful
- + Up until now I rarely ever imagined that one day I'd be standing in the bathroom of a BW student dorm, with the only challenge at hand being to fix my bow-tie to socially acceptable standards
Potential for Awesomeness:
- - Apparently there were some visa issues, incl. nights spent at the ZA/BW border crossing ... Manos and Tuna have more
- - I like the food - but sometimes getting access is a little tricky ... the crew needs to catch up on crowd management techniques
- - Speaking of food, while I'll leave the ranting about special dietary needs to this gentlemen ... Halal were practically made Vegetarian, which not all appreciate
- - There is a case for a Lean Operations project to be sold here ... or something like that. Examples: Way too many entertainment items before all food on the dinner (guys, seriously, between main and dessert is the time), a buffet dinner (crowd management ... see above), and a conversation that included the statements, "we have run out of wine", "we are not sure as to other drinks", and "there were two departments kind of clashing over drinks responsibility, each thinking the other would organize"
- - They need to open the swimming pool
While there is a certain degree of what hopefully is turning into a steep learning curve, I'm still on holiday. In Africa. With beer.
Other People's Thoughts:
- Steve had the best tweets today
- Colm has it all on where the streaming of some debates will be happening tomorrow, and what the CA Team announced as "official results" of the Adjudication Test (Jens and I both differed on some counts ... clearly not a simple call)
Bring it on, 29 Dec!
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