* The Debatewise Blog
Donklephant Post
Across the pond we’re still debating…‘From a British Perspective Have Obama’s First 100 Days Been a Success?’After the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency there was much ink spilt in the USA on domestic policy changes during this so called ‘honeymoon period’. In Britain, however, we are more concerned with Obama’s foreign policy, and have the advantage of distance (both geographical and theoretical) from which to give an assessment on that.
Obama has made changes to counter-terrorism policy, stating his intention to Guantanamo bay and renaming the ‘Global War on Terror’ with a softer phrase. But are these merely empty gestures and word games designed to placate those becoming increasingly uneasy at the U.S’s strong-arm tactics? Obama’s policy on Afghanistan, too, was a disappointment to many of us across the pond as he insisted an exit strategy was needed but failed to articulate one definitively.
However, Britain is probably in line with much of the rest of the world in viewing nuclear disarmament as a wholly positive policy step, and the fact Obama supported Brown’s ideas for the economy at the G20 definitely strengthened the relationship between the new premiers. This side of the Atlantic there has also been concern about Bush’s stance in the environment and it seems Obama is doing his best to allay these fears through tougher fuel standards and CO2 regulations.
Finally, in his first 100 days Obama seems to have succeeded in changing the overall tone of U.S diplomacy from one of unilateral ‘world policing’ to one of dialogue and co-operation. He has smoothed relations with Russia and has indicated he will do more to engage with the Arab world. This is perhaps the biggest positive step from a British perspective, as our special relationship with the U.S means that in the eyes of the world, U.S diplomacy is also our diplomacy. It remains to be seen whether this change in tone will be consolidated by a decisive change in actions, but for now we can hope this will be the case. It seems for Britain there have been many positives at the start of the Obama presidency yet a few things left undone. So far, so good, but Britain has bated breath…
This post was brought to you courtesy of Debatewise.com For a more in-depth discussion visit the actual debate!
[I am attempting self-syndication here, as I also posted this on Donklephant
]
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the debatewise week
what have we all been doing this week?Stephanie
1. Wrote a letter to Hazel Blears (as you do) to ask for support and told her how wonderful we are
2. Finished an application for a Trust Fund, using very intellectual big words, complex syntax and enthusiastic rhetoric
3. Took criticism very well on said application (Excuse tissues hid under the table)
4. Met up with Marcien from IDEA to discuss Fundraising a debating event 'debatewise IDEA exchange'
5. Sifted through a big, nay enormous, book of funds, categoried it in Excel and didnt go mad in the process.
Alex
1, came up with an idea for how we could meet critics of revisewise, David did not like it but I think I will write up the idea anyway just in case we need to go back to it in the future... no spoilers as to what it was!
2, wrote two up to date debates. One on Obama's first 100 days in office, I had hoped that it could be put on donklephant which at the same time could highlight Obama's policy towards Iran, torture against terror suspects and changing the name of the war on terror all of which are to do with Obama's foreign policy however I finished the dabate a few days late!. I also wrote a debate on should we be afraid of swine flu for which others here have been adding points.
3, more phone calls, only managed about 30, also got a few email addresses for debating societies
4, added a bit to some of the EU debates, need to do rather more on this though.
5, found the email addresses of some UK journalists who might be interested in our press releace on revisewise
Betony
Two major challenges/deadlines this week as well as more Revisewise marketing:
1. Finished annual report for OSI
2. Finished House of Lords People and Parliament Inquiry evidence submission.
3. Sent out 'pre press release' on Revisewise and got replies form the Guradian and the Telegraph
4. Contacted more universities and sent out more marketing materials.
5. Worked on European debates for Votematch
Pete
1 Found names of journalists to email
2 Added debates to the website on Football, Swine flu and added to a EU Debatewise
3 Reprised my role as postman Pete
4 Made more phone calls to promote revisewise
5 Had another Friday team lunch, I love those.
Dave
1. Finished the fundraising task list Yen sent, love deadlines
2. Emailed all my friends, clients and even vague associates to see if they could help us raise money.
3. Went to see the very wonderful Ade to cost for Express Yourself
4. Worked out more of how the World Online Debating Championship will work with Neill, that’s getting quite exciting
5. Got the newsletter out, despite a very loud Friday evening office making proof-reading a challenge
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Running the marathon
That has to go down as one of the best days of my life. Mickey Thomas scoring in the last minute of the last game to win us the title at Anfield was ecstatic. If I’m lucky and have kids I hear their birth is pretty good too. But running the marathon will be one of those rare experiences I’ll cherish forever and relive frequently. It was, quite simply, fantastic.I was nervous the week before but in a good mood on the day itself and sat on the tube making friends with fellow runners. This in-it-together atmosphere continued all the way to and in Greenwich Park, though by then my nerves had ramped up and I was feeling apprehensive about what lay ahead.
But when you see four Wombles, three donkeys and a twelve foot nurse called Rob you tend to relax a little. I also didn’t have much time to think because five minutes after being in place the whistle went and we were off. Even if the thousands of people in front meant it took 25 minutes to reach the start.
I felt stiff and in mild pain for the first few miles, though knew it was the kind you run off. The crowds were thin, but even so I started to get a few of the magical things which saw me through to the end – complete strangers cheering my name.
One of the best tips I got was to print my name on my vest. When you do, and if you run close enough to the crowd (as I made sure I did), men, women, kids and grandmas cheer you on. What a feeling that is. What an uplifting, propelling, wonderful feeling to hear random people congratulating me and urging me forward.
The crowd was absolutely fantastic. They didn’t cover every inch but there weren’t many yards that were empty. The cheers were the best bit (and let me say again just how amazing they were), though we also had kids handing out sweets, firemen dousing us with water, bands playing us on, drummers proving a beat, people on balconies with house music backdrops, pubs with MCs shouting out names and other things I’ll probably only remember once I hit Send.
It wasn’t only the complete strangers who propelled me forward either. Mandy and Lily were at mile 7 somewhere near Dom and family. Romi was at mile 8, Mandy moved to Docklands to be at mile 18, Gian, Scott, Rob and Richard were at 22, Dave at 23, Paul at 24 and Natalie opposite Parliament.
Each person, each milestone, gave me something to look forward to. I only actually saw Mandy, Lily, the boys and Paul but knowing they were there was enough. Other things broke down the distance, crossing Tower Bridge, turning for home at Docklands, hitting the 20 mile mark, seeing Charing Cross and going up the mall.
The race itself went by in a bit of a blur. Miles 8-12 were hard in places because I knew the distance still to run, but the Lucozade sport and the cheers saw me through. Parts of Docklands were tough, but sports gels, more Lucozade sport and more cheers saw me through there.
The really tough miles were 20-26. My feet hurt every time they hit the road, legs were heavy and tired, I could barely throw a smile at the people calling my name, every mile took an age to pass and the people walking were very tempting to join.
But I even loved how hard it was because it was so hard. I knew I wasn’t at my limit and if I kept going I’d feel proud. Plus, walk then and I’d be walking till the end. So I gritted my teeth, pushed myself forward and managed to run every step of the way. And I was right, it feels great.
By no means was it all hard, in fact I’d say it was fine most of the time and wonderful as often as tough. There were many times the sheer spectacle of the event gave me goosebumps, I put on headphones for a bit and wanted to bounce for joy and frequently thought this is so great I’ve got to do it again.
I think the heat and my leg and the crowd meant a fast time was an impossibility. But I’m so glad I decided to take it slow and savour as much as I could. I ran past the outstretched hands of kids giving them high fives, grinned at my supporters, ate a few sweets here and there, congratulated other runners, took in the beauty of London and the magnificence of the event.
http://debatewise.info/images/misc/finishing-the-marathon.jpg
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Disappointment with revisewise so far
Having been working on revisewise for several months now, along with various other odds and ends, I am rather disappointed in the lack of people creating debates. While the vast majority of responses we get back are positive, think it is a good idea and is helpful no one seems to be using it... or while they might be using our debates they are not creating their own. As this is the main point of the project it is therefore not going too well!Possible reasons for this
1, students are being stubborn and like me do all their revision late!
2, students may well be discouraged at the work that needs to be done to put their debate online, or else think that they need to do a big long debate for it to be valid on revisewise.
So any ideas on what we can do about this?
Well not really... we are still attempting to market to student unions and lecturers so hopefully this will eventually bring results. We also don’t have any guides to writing debates on revisewise yet (one exists, and sooner or later we will have a screencast). We obviously don’t have the answers so if any of you can think of anything... or as you are reading this then tell us why you are not using revisewise then hopefully we can take any comments on board and improve things.
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Journalists
Having had the task of finding some education journalists I have been really surprised at how difficult it is to find email addresses for them. I would have thought the whole point of journalists would be that they would be easy to access by the public so as to give them potential stories, but this is not the case. I suspect that it is all hoarded by companies that sell the information through things like mediadisk. However these are not the kind of things either small not for profit companies like us can afford or that the general public has access too. Why are our journalists shielded from the public? Perhaps this is why ‘citizen journalism’ is taking off so fast; we need to tell our own stories on sites like twitter and youtube because we can’t find email addys to send our information to regular journalists!!Click here to add your comment
Friday Fiveday
Hey all, this week Betony has...1. Got 20 universities to agree to take marketing materials (and called over 80!)
2. Completed press release
3. Contacted student forum admins and posted notices on them about revisewise.
4. Wrote pitch to get people to contribute to votematch EU debates
5. Made interesting contacts at tuttle
6. Started referring to herself in third person...
Alex
1. Back to phoning (50 done this week)
2. Did several revisewise debates and have edited a few to have more citations in them – hopefully more usable to help with essays and revision
3. Found quite a few blogs on revision and elearning
4. Been looking up organisations that have views on European Issues for the European Elections
5. Sent off a whole load more marketing materials... unfortunately the PO has put the price up
(also got my historical debate up, found a couple of journalists who write things on elearning, extensively edited the America is the worlds biggest human rights abuser)
Dave
1) Went to Washington to speak at the Politics Online conference (blog coming soon)
2) Cornered Joe Rospars, the genius behind Obama's new media campaign to try and get him to come to the event we're organising in December
3) Were joined by a new intern Stephanie. Okay not something I've actually done but am particularly delighted by
4) Met up with Eleanor again to work out how we can create a sellable product from Debatewise to generate revenue
5) Met with the lawyers to work out how we can appeal against the Charity Commission's decision not to award us charitable status.
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What running has taught me - part 9
Running round other cities makes you feel like a local. Okay not in Istanbul, there they just think you’re a freak. And actually things weren’t much better in Amsterdam. However, in Washington you fit right in. Not only that but because my wonderful running partner/tour guide Anne and I had jogged past the White House, Capital Hill, a whole host of government buildings, museums and monuments to dead presidents I’ve come up with a new business idea. Running tours. Like the hop-on, hop-off buses you see except without the bus. Or the hopping.As you may be able to tell from my jaunty writing style it’s been a good week. Back on schedule for the first time in a long time I managed two speedwork sessions on Tuesday and Thursday, two easy runs on Wednesday and Saturday and twelve miles yesterday. Tuesday’s run was best of all. Twelve hill sessions, twelve times running up hills for two minutes at a time. Feeling exhausted at the top and exhilarated at the end; both because I’d finished and because my legs held up. Yeah for both of them.
Still not sure about making it round on Sunday though. Not a week on Sunday either, this coming Sunday, five short days from now. There’s not much more physical training I can do, it’s all about the mental stuff now: trying to feel strong and confident, coming up with coping strategies, visualising key points throughout the race and imagining the glorious, glorious, finish line.
Though to be honest, the whole thing about the finish line has never been a big part of my training. If I could take one thing from these past six months it’d be I understood the journey is the destination. This is not about the end but the expedition; the ups and downs, the pleasure and pain, testing myself and not always passing but always better for the attempt.
I have been in a particularly bad mood these past few weeks and think now the injury has been the cause. I’ve taken a huge amount of self-confidence from running, from being able to do it at all to being able to do it pretty well. The sub four hour marathon was supposed to be the cherry on the cake, incontrovertible proof of my ability, the cornerstone on which I’d build a future more secure.
Letting go of that goal has been more challenging than I’ve appreciated. It’s thrown up a great deal of self-criticism and doubt. It’s caused me to feel deeply frustrated and pretty damn angry. I’ve had to manage disappointment, loosen my grip on a outcome I thought necessary and emerge the other side feeling good about plan B.
Which I think I do. Plan B is to enjoy the race and not worry about time. It’s to understand getting to where I am from where I was is a good thing and enough. It’s knowing there can be other marathons, that I don’t have to do it all for this one, and to realise how old I’d feel in a few years if I got my best ever time now.
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At debatewise this week: our 5
It was only a 4 day working week so should we really have 5 things done? DEBATE!Alex
1, finished my part of the list of Humanities and Social Science lecturers... over 3200 emails, hope we get some response from them.
2, Spent quite some time working on a debate on the exclusion act 1679, trying to make it mostly from quotes of MP’s, more difficult than I expected partially due to the limited number of sources that are accessible to non-academics. (I will hopefully get it up over the weekend)
3, added a little bit to our email to professors asking if they could do debates themselves or suggesting it could be part of seminars.
4, making a list of historical societies (got somewhat overtaken with finding all those lecturers emails!) mostly have academic ones at the moment, however I think it is a good idea to expand my search to areas that may well have a broader memberbase such as historical magazines.
5, hurriedly put in a debate on the Global War on Terror to stop the onward march of the European Union on Debatewise!
Dave
1) Got the Twitter app up (www.debatewise.info/twitter). Tell us what you think
2) Emailed 2,200 lecturers about Revisewise
3) Finished the design for the new comments section
4) Started work with our new Fundraising mentor, so good to have your help Yen
5) That’s it this week, had to focus on the day job.
Betony
Mine has been a week of first drafts and the EU!
1) Wrote first draft if the debateiwse annual report
2) Wrote first draft of the submission for the House of Lords People and Parliament Inquiry
3) Wrote first draft of our google analytics report (investigation into what we can learn from stats about the site)
4)Had media training session with Joanne Mallon
5)Co-ordinated the EU debates ready for Votematch (as Alex mentions, we have been inundated - thanks to Judith, Samantha and Rebecca!
Peter
1) Achieved my target to get 500 university lecturers to contact for revisewise.
2) Started to write a debate on electoral reform.
3) Wrote a debate on Hillsborough, not really good im afraid, the issue makes me quite emotional, not good for debating.
4) Did various trips to post offices and post boxes to post revisewise materials.
5) Thoroughly enjoyed the debatewise friday feast.
And finally, we are sad to announce that Judith, one of our much loved interns, has been offered an internship with an MP and so is leaving us this week. Here are her parting words:
Working with Debatewise has been challenging, but also very rewarding and good fun. The workplace environment has been great to work in as it is a young, dynamic office with lots of energy!
What I enjoyed the most at Debatewise has been working on the website itself; it has been exciting to be involved in a project which empowers the public with knowledge on important current public policy debates. The most rewarding projects I have been involved in have been compiling judging criteria for the upcoming World Online Debating Championships and outlining lesson plans to be taken on by schools who wish to teach debating in order to enrich and engage school students in important discussions and debates as well as developing their communication skills and confidence.
What I will miss the most about working for Debatewise is the friendly, lively atmosphere, working on a variety of important projects, and playing with the office residential dog, Marley!
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My time to leave….
Well it has come to my time to leave Debatewise (although writing this I have already left). Being an intern has been fun, and it has helped me a lot, seems a lot has happened in the four months I have been here, which feels like a year. Though definitely in a good way.I remember Terence writing about becoming a human email machine when he left, it has been similar for me, except I was the human database management system. A little birdy told me that once I've left we will be getting real software... Sigh! It won't be as good as me though. Although it will always be on time.
Well anyways, thanks for reading and to Debatewise thank you for your help, and I will stay in touch!
Thanks and see you soon,
Dave Song
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What running has taught me - part 8
Progress. My leg is better; it’s still not right, but it is better. I managed three runs this week, one Wednesday, one Saturday and 16.5 miles yesterday. Although yesterday’s made me realise just how hard the marathon will be.The icing, heating, stretching and rest had all made such a difference I managed to make it down the stairs like normal people do for the first time in four weeks. I also bought a knee brace, new bouncy shoes and stronger anti-inflammatory painkillers and felt fine after Saturday’s four miler.
So typically I decided to push the long Sunday run. I thought if I could do 18 miles I’d be fine for the race. I probably would have made it too had I also not thought I needed to run half the miles at target marathon pace. Not my new target marathon pace, oh no, that’d would be way too sensible. My old target marathon pace. You know, the one I haven’t trained at for a month.
I did the first few miles slow and felt great. I was full of energy, free of pain and thought I could run forever. Seven miles passed easily and I strode on to the canal with the confidence of a Kenyan come down from altitude for the first time. Eight miles, nine miles, here we go…
At first I couldn’t work out why my minute per mile pace kept increasing no matter how much faster I went. Then I realised I was looking at my lap time. Ignoring the twinges in my leg I switched the iPhone to Five Star Dance tunes, turned the volume up and headed towards Ladbroke Grove.
You know you’re in trouble when you can’t make it up the sort of inclines that bridge canals. That and increasingly laboured breathing, more urgent nudges from my leg and ‘what-on-earth-are-you-doing-you-idiot’ looks from Marley. So I slowed down. Back to normal running pace. Back to reality.
It wasn’t enough. Marley looked tired so I dropped him back at the car, changed my shoes and headed back out for the last four miles. I made two and a half. The last little bit, as little as it was, was just too far. Trouble is, I’ve got to run ten miles more in just two week’s time.
Not so long ago I thought the marathon was ages away. Now it’s too close. Two weeks! I’m not ready, don’t feel ready anyway. I know the adrenalin and crowd and crystal meth will surely help. But if anyone knows anyone who can get it pushed back to the end of May there’s a drink in it.
Only one lesson this week really. Don’t be fooled by the first five miles. Oh and I’m not Kenyan.
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What running has taught me – part 7
I don’t make it easy on myself. First long run after a weeklong rest was on the treacherously uneven pavements of Istanbul. It truly is a beautiful city, but I wish they’d done some work on the cobblestones in the last, oh I don’t know, 1,000 years. Still, I managed 13 miles and, more importantly, made it to the bathroom this morning with barely a grimace per step. Progress!I changed my attitude towards the injury this week, I took it seriously. Until now I’d adopted the twin strategy of hoping it would go away and pretending it didn’t exist. Which might work for the bogeyman but wont for a problem that requires attention and rest.
The old approach saw me doing some of the stretching my new Olympian buddies told me to, but I didn’t ice or heat the thing, didn’t stop when it started hurting and didn’t even bother to work out the difference between a sports masseur and physio; I just thought one beat you up for twice as long but didn’t charge twice as much.
In my mind my magic body would heal itself without me doing anything different and that I had to keep running now or I’d collapse mid way round Canary Wharf on the 26th. But last Monday, after the pain refused to go away, I went to the Runners World forums, looked up “how quickly lose fitness” and found it takes at least three weeks and even then not very much or very fast.
Phew. No need to panic then. Have another week off and I’ll still be fine. Get some proper, stress-free, rest. Add a new this-is-not-going-away-so-take-it-seriously approach with ice packs just before hot ones, stretches twice a day and even sleep in compression tights (proper male sporting ones, with stripes down the side and athletes on the box and everything).
But why did it take me two weeks to go to the forums? They’re always where I tell other people to go, hell I even had a business that told big corporations to treat the views there seriously. So why can’t I take my own advice? First because we never do, do we? Second, because when it comes to problems like this I can be a little on the
ostrich side.
I have a tendency to try and ignore a problem I don’t have a solution for, don’t think I’ll find a solution for, or for which I don’t like the solution I’ve found. Of course, life has a wonderful way of placing the solution in front of your face, and an irritating way of forcing you to take it whether you like it or not.
I increasingly find these solutions on the internet, but I’m sure all the Buddhists out there will claim a good long look at a leaf will provide similar insight. Regardless how it comes, I’m going to take this week as proof that seekers find and focus works. Can’t tell you how fantastic it was to be running (almost) pain-free again.
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Weekly 5
5 Things I have done this week:1. Written press release on revisewise
2. Wrote debate on G20 protests as they were happening
3. Started preparing report for House of Lords People and Parliament enquiry
4. Researched using social networking for PR and marketing (and got 4 #followfriday mentions on twitter and counting
! )5. Managed to maintain calm and not run round in little circles when site went down (briefly) while Dave was incommunicado!
Betony
1; Helped edit the Press Release.
2; Done some moreeee calling!
3; Sent off some more Marketing Materials.
4; Edited and wrote some more debates.
5; Thought of 4 things I have done despite only working 2 days this week
hahaDavid Song
Alex: I have managed to do a sum total of one thing all week! So I will split it into bits. Storyboards for David’s presentation (I imagine that he will blog about it once its over so I will not expand) and for a video we may put on the site explaining how to create debates.
1, Worked out a plan for the steps needed to create a debate on debatewise, took some screenshots... turns out this is not really what David was wanting at this time.
2, Thought of ideas and planned out storyboard to illustrate the WODC
3, Did the drafts, drawing, colouring of the storyboard – many thanks for the masses of help to my brother Colin.
4, Scanned them in... and ultimately after what seemed like ages it saved onto the dropbox so I could email it to David.
5, Finally something different, I edited and added points for ‘The US creates Mexico’s drug trade problems’ and ‘Housewives make better mothers than career women’ so that they could be highlighted on the newsletter.
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Debating can make you rich! (Money for gassing away)
These last two weeks have been rather stressful outside of work – British Gas have tried to bankrupt my housemates and I, and we are having problems renting a room as one of us is moving out. Thankfully the gas saga is now sorted (a few calls to the press office from a freelance journalist, and a letter from my MP later, instead of us owing over £1,700 BG now owe us £270 – go figure!). But I have learned a lot, and not ony about laws regulating suppliers and Landlords obligations to tenants!The main thing is that i've learned the value of the skills debating has taught me - my skills at contesting things. If we hadn’t kicked up a fuss we would never have discovered that the ‘estimated readings’ our bills were based on were completely incorrect. Taken from the wrong meter in fact! It’s rare that I make any tangible financial gain from my debating skills, but this is a definite example of that. Through numerous letters and phone calls I argued my case calmly and politely and presented facts and figures in a clear, comprehensible fashion. British Gas saw sense in the end, changed their argument, and apologised.
It’s been a fantastic case study of why debating isn’t just middle aged politicians in an old fusty chamber, or swotty students in after-school clubs, but a real skill for dealing with day-to-day issues. If I hadn’t had the ability to articulate my argument I would have been considerably out of pocket. That’s not to say I’m recommending ‘contesting’ the price of milk at your local shop, but I think on some occasions you do need to stand up and voice your argument, and debating is a great way to get good at this.
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What running has taught me – part 6
It’s been a tough week. Apparently running 19 miles on a bad leg is not the cleverest thing in the world and I spent most of last week in pain. Well actually that’s not true, I was fine provided I didn’t move. Stairs were worst, the only way I could navigate them was by doing a little Palomino-style kick with my right leg. I looked great.Back to the clinic then. This time to be treated by the driver of the New Zealand Olympic bob sled team; no, not the driver of the minibus, the bloke at the front who steers the metal tube down the ice chute at 70mph. He beat me up a little in the name of making me better and told me to run the next day if I wanted to. I wanted to.
But I couldn’t. Had to walk back from the Heath after a short, slow, run in a lot of pain and a very bad mood. Had to face the prospect of the rest of March off. Wondered if I’d even be fit for the end of April. Realised I was probably being a bit of a drama queen and should get round. Don’t like missing training though.
My thinking goes like this: the only way to hit my target is to reach or exceed every milestone from here to marathon day. Which means I’ve now either got to let go of the idea of a sub four hour race, or adopt the belief that I can still do it, even if I have to miss a few speedwork sessions and a long run or two.
My dad once showed me our 70 year-old gardener slowly scything through long grass. “Watch him”, he said, “he might not go as fast as younger men but he can keep that up all day and will end up doing more than they”. This advice has stayed with me ever since. I’ve never actually lived by it of course, but I have always remembered it.
Guess now’s the time to try it; necessity being the mother of doing what you absolutely don’t want to and all that. Truth is I don’t have much choice. I was supposed to run for four miles on Saturday, I managed two. Yesterday was another 19-miler, I managed five. And that’s on top of missing two runs mid-week.
But as the wise bob sled driver man said “the point of training is to get you better than you were before, not worse", so there’s no point me pushing through now and being laid up even longer. Tried that, didn’t work.
As I write I realise just how obvious the solution is and, because I’ve only just realised it, how much I resist it. Well I guess there’s nothing else to do but rest till I’m ready the build up slowly and see what happens in four weeks. The countdown has begun.
Talking of which, a few people have said they might come down to watch me run and I thought now would be as good a time as any to say, YES PLEASE. Can’t tell you how much a lift it would give me to see a friendly face at different points round the course. It’s supposed to be a great day out too, one of those rare times when London gets together. That should be celebrated in itself.
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5 alive
Does anyone remember that? I think it was a drink? (Don't mind me, i'm approaching my 5th dry week and the lack of Friday afternoon alchohol is clearly affecting me!) Anyway...My five things i'm proud of for the week (plus a bonus one!)
- Hosting the Russian delegation (see last entry)
- Writing an academic debate
- Attending useful Stepping it Up conference hosted by Social Enterprise London (note to self must write that up!)
- Set up an account at Donklephant.com expect blog posts soon!
- Finished revision Do's and Don'ts for the professors leaflets
- Took photos of Dave in his running gear for the Sailor's society 9the charity he's running the marathon for)* maybe i'll post those up...:p
And big drum roll please, Judith's first five:
- Composing a lesson plan to teach school students how to debate (ongoing)
- Researching the benefits of debating (ongoing)
- Going to the Social Entreprise Exhibition in Angel, where I got to learn new things and 'network'.
- Compiling packages of marketing materials about Revisewise to send to universities/colleges.
- Phoning marketing departments at colleges and universities to tell them about Revisewise
Keep them going, 'cos Pete's joined us too and here's his first five:
- Started my new job with Debatewise, definitely the biggest achievement of the week.
- Started writing a pitch on WODC to be sent off to debating societies.
- Working with Alex on creating a storyboard for how to use the website.
- Posted 88 letters to various universities containing the revisewise information. Met a right character of a wee boy while we where there which was funny. He did make fun of my current acne problem which was less good L. Kids can be cruel!
- Went to a meeting about the BASH buildings recycling policies, different plastics have different gradings don’t you know?
DC's
- Got the Charity Commission form off to the Charity Commission. Three months in the doing, 70-odd pages of material. Done. At blooming last.
- Got the Twitter app styled, it’s still a bit broken but I’ve done all I need to
- Got a report on idebate.org out to Idebate on time
- Got a new idea for a British Online Debating Championship, should probably get the World one going first though
- Got Revisewise up.
Alex's Somewhat late... sorry
- finally got off the marketing materials... hopefully just in time, most unis and colleges break up for easter in the next week or so
- did more research and gave more ideas to betony for the article, dont think they were ultimatly needed though :(
- been writing debates for revisewise, we need it too have examples or no one will use it, I fear some of mine are rather long and make better examples for essay preperation than revision! (no surprise I got the debates out of essays as I no longer have my revision notes!)
- starting storyboards for WODC, trying to make them as interchangeable as possible so starting with a generic 'how to' for debatewise and will then fill in bits that are different later
- started a debate on the war on drugs in mexico (keeping up to date basing it on comments made that day by Clinton) and went rather overboard on the no arguments about democracy (sorry Judith!)
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Nobody expects the Russian delegation!
I only found out yesterday that we had a Russian delegation arriving at Debatewise HQ this morning. One day, of course, we hope that Debatewise will be a global organisation with offices in all major countries, but it's not really that way yet, so their visit was an exciting cultural highlight of the daily grind.It's not every day you get a text on your way into work asking you to pick up milk because the Russians are coming!The delegation was a group of students from Tomsk University and their tutor Oleg who had come to England to learn about British Parliamentary debating. If you've looked at the site (which you should have!) you will realise we don't work by anything as formal as British Parliamentary format. We're pretty much what would happen 'if Wikipedia met British Parliamentary Debate in an internet chat room'. But I sensed this may confuse them. So I called upon vague memories of BP format from my Cambridge Union days and explained as best as I could. Unfortunately niether Dave or I felt well placed to demonstrate it to them. But we did have tea and croissants and chatted about the differences in Debating styles and techniques in our two nations (apparently we are too emotional, and anyone waving their arms around and shouting 'here here!' would get ridiculed in Russia. I sort of hope they meet Boris
) I was even shown the Russian version of Facebook and a video of Russian debating.We were presented with gifts of ornamental plates and tasty chocolate (and as Alex discovered to his slight panic they also gave his laptop a propensity to type in Russian, but we soon rectified that!) Overall a very pleasant experience all round and I hope the delegates took something away from their time with us. Perhaps Debatewise 'ru' isn't too far off! 
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What running has taught me - part 5
Last week I said I wanted to be more like my dog. This week my wish came true. Only it wasn’t that the ladies found me more strokable (I’ll probably never have ears as soft), or even that I managed to take the running in my stride. The opposite in fact, we both developed a limp.His seems to have been cured by a couple of days not running, mine may need a bit more work. I tried his medicine, skipped two runs and had what amounted to three days off. This helped, I soon missed running and used the morning walks on the sunshine-bathed Heath to get my head around work problems.
Even so, my knee still hurt and I decided to see a physio. Luckily for me the person I was allocated turns out to be an athlete who has represented Jamaica in the long and triple jump in the last three Olympics. Well I say luckily, I think her pain threshold is perhaps a notch or two above mine and I spent most of the half hour trying not to wince too visibly as she pummelled and pounded away.
There were other good and bad points too. Can’t tell you how good it was to hear her say she’d admired me for running a marathon. That’s an Olympian, admiring me. However, she wasn’t so complimentary about my cool down routine and told me, very strictly, that I needed to have a cold bath after the long Sunday run.
Of course before I could experience that joy I had to actually run. Not something I was looking forward to given my last big outings and the whole pain thing. To get round I decided I’d use the heart rate bit of my heart rate monitor and stop being so obsessed with my minute per mile pace.
One of the things that has taken the joy from running, and caused the injury too I bet, has been the constant focus on time. I’ve gone from just wanting to finish to wanting to finish in under 4:30, then under 4 hours and lately it’s even crept to around 3:45. Give me another month and I’d be angling for a place with the elites.
Or not. I decided it would be better all round to download a different schedule, set my maximum heart rate and then run to 76% of it. Whole different story. I don’t have to run up hills as fast as down and can be more sympathetic to fluctuations in my natural rhythm. Which I do have, despite any evidence to the contrary.
I started this yesterday and whilst my knee hurt from the very first step and stayed that way for just about every step thereafter, I did feel a lot less tired and managed to complete the 19 miles, yes 19 miles, in a decent enough time. 3:20 if you’re interested.
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End of the week again
its the end of the week again, so its time to put our new 5 of the week up!Alex
- Decided on categories for revisewise topics
- Loads more research for article
- Written and rewritten article... betony sent off the 1st few to student newspapers yesterday, hope they use them!
- Written another possible short article, may well add into our 1st article for any long articles
- The marketing materials arrived \o/, so today we have all been stuffing envelopes all day
DC's
- Got the Twitter app up – needs styling tho: http://debatewise.info/debate/
- Sent our submission in to the Youth Citizenship Foundation about how we could help improve democracy, create more youth engagement and increase the amount of sunshine Britain receives in an average year. May have over-promised.
- Put a job ad on a Rails site in our ongoing quest to find developers for the site
- Almost, almost, almost got the application in for charitable status
- Helped the guys write an article for student newspapers, Revisewise is coming baby
Betony
- Collaborated with James Graham from Votematch and recruited new RRT members through his newsletter
- Reached new record of pageviews (according to google analytics)
- Got student newspapers to agree to take article, and even provided 'rush' article in time for next day deadline!
- Co-ordinated and help stuff 100 envelopes!
Davd S
- Helped stuff lots and lots of envelopes
- Got more colleges and Unis to accept Revisewise marketing materials
- Got Unis like LSE and Durham on board
- Edited more debates
- Gained even more phone confidence
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What running has taught me - part 4
They call this the Monster Month. The task is to get more miles on legs and to hit target times. Which means longish runs on Wednesdays, very long runs on Sundays and fast runs on Tuesday and Thursday. I like Mondays mornings a lot these days.The running, not so much. The big improvements are behind me and the marathon a long way ahead. I’ve gone from being delighted I could keep going to being resentful I still have to. Given I’ve got more than 200 miles of running to do between now and the 26th April what I need is a new attitude.
I’ve tried pessimism before, thought I could protect myself from disappointment by keeping myself so permanently. Doesn’t work of ourse, a pessimist is no less disappointed when things don’t work out, but an optimist finds the silver lining in all clouds.
However, this approach doesn’t work when it comes to expectations. Expect something to be easy and you’re profoundly disappointed when it’s not. Moreover, the disappointment frequently gives way to a voice which moans about things being unfair, or unduly hard or, worse, tells you that you’ve failed somehow.
On the other hand, expect something to be hard and it turns out to be hard, well that’s just right, the natural order of things, the way they’re supposed to be. In fact, if they’re not hard either you feel great about your prowess or push a bit more until they become so. Win/win either way.
Before I started this someone told me that running was mostly psychological. This helped me go further the first time and the second time and just about every time since. My expectation was it would hurt, so I wasn’t surprised when it did, in fact I even started to like that it did. I flipped from seeing pain as proof things aren’t working to proof they are.
The opposite is also true. I always expect the smaller Saturday runs to be a piece of cake and then deeply resent being just as tired as on ones twice the length. Then there’s the paradox of being able to run a half-marathon faster than for the bus. Compare that with the
expectation-free Marley who seems to take all runs in his very graceful stride.
So what gets me through this? Clearly it will help to expect this period to be tough, to realise I’m at a plateau, to dig in and knuckle down and to try and be more like my dog.
Dave
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The new five of this week!
David Song's five things of this week...- Beating Betony in the who can get the most University and College addresses to send out marketing materials to, woop! Plus gaining a tenner from that!
- Got some more phone confidence, and discovered I actually don't mind doing it, in fact kind of enjoyed it!
- Sitting in on an interview, which was a really good experience and I learned a lot as well.
- Put my first debate up on the site (about time really haha)
- Managed four days of work here, as well as working my bar job. I'm absolutely knackered! Was worth it though...
David Crane's
- Committed to doing two, count them, presentations for the IDEA Youth Camp in April in Istanbul
- Met with three different people who we could help and who could help us: Vote Match, The Electoral Reform Society and the Ministry of Justice
- Got the revisewise.debatewise.com subdomain working. Not a big thing for someone who knows their stuff, but for me…
- Ordered (and paid for!) all the marketing materials for Revisewise
- Got the grant money in for the World Online Debating Championship. Thank you IDEA, again.
Alex
- Been phoning and emailing student newspapers about what they would like to see in an article on revision, with little success - however sounds like they would be willing to put articles in the paper, I was expecting loads to say ‘no sorry go to advertising’ who would effectively say ‘pay us Xhundred pounds please!’
- Wrote my first non academic debates for the site on topical issues of Northern Ireland and Tibet \o/
- Written up some ideas on the article and passed them on to Betony – more research to do though
- Written a possible guide to putting academic debates on the site – may be a bit long, I should probably condense them into bullet points to keep the attention of the students
- Contributed to discussion on what is needed for the site
Betony
- Arranged (and attended!) two very productive meetings with Electoral Reform Society and Votematch (unlock democracy)
- Honed my minute writing skills to a fine art!
- Got 18 people universities/colleges to agree to accept marketing materials (not as many as David S but i'm still pleased)
- Interviewed interns to fill Terence's place (some very promising candidates and more on Monday)
- Reached 100 twitter followers and was RT'd by resident twitter guru @monchips (high praise indeed :p)
- Learned some html!
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