This week the Club had a packed house as the Rotary Club of Trafalgar attended in a joint meeting for the resurrection of a debating contest between the two Clubs which had lapsed in recent times.
     Drouin put up a formidable team with President Sharryn as 1st. speaker, Paul Davine as 2nd. with Micael Ambrose doing the summarising and refuting. Drouin was also well coached by Rotarian Ian Brooks
     Trafalgar were equally well represented with impressive speakers, Peter Cook leading, with Holly Perriman, 2nd. and the well-known Michael Fozzard summing up.
      The topic to be debated was “We Have Gone Too Far!”
     Now for this humble Bulletin Editor this caused an interesting juxtaposition in that Drouin, who had the affirmative in the debate, had to be very negative in prosecuting their cause, whilst Trafalgar, with the negative, prosecuted their argument with positives.
     Leading off Sharryn outlined the team’s contentions that in social media, television reality shows and technology we were seeing distressing consequences of their current use.
     Paul gave numerous examples of the ills of our time, such as the lack of social contact amongst people as they were transfixed by their devices, reality television was far from everyone’s actual reality, and nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass destruction were a blight and threat on society.
     Micael ably summarised all points and offered a refute to many of the arguments proposed by the opposition.
     For Trafalgar Peter started with a song, (an interesting opening) and outlined the positives in technology, science and health that would form the basis of his team’s argument.
     Holly gave a splendid account of all the positives that we enjoyed through regular contact, life expectancy, entertainment and the tremendous advances made in science to improve our living. She struck a telling blow with the argument that Rotary had been involved in eliminating polio in all but 3 countries, she asked “Have we gone too far, should we stop and ignore those last 3, or should we go on?”
     Michael gave a very spirited final presentation. He said he was saddened by the “naysayer”, negative and doomsday mentality of the Drouin representatives, he felt that Drouin was far more positive about life and conceded that overall this was probably not a true reflection of the Drouin Member’s approach to life.
     The Debate was adjudicated by Richard Habgood and President of Warragul Rotary Peter Dell. In outlining their decision, both judges commented that it was a close result. In giving the outcome Richard said that they had applied the debating criteria of substance of argument, Matter in the presentation of a case and Manner, in which argument was presented. On this occasion they felt that Trafalgar won on the criteria of manner, but Drouin had more substance in their facts and in a debate, matter outweighs manner, so they had given the result to Drouin by a slender margin. However he added that with the fellowship and humour that filled the room on the night, Rotary was in fact the big winner.
And the adjudication brought three presidents together: sort of