support of patrons, businesses and the public -- ensuring the Bermuda National Debating Pool has prospered.

Over the years, Bermuda has fielded teams at both the national and international level, previously under the direction of Elizabeth Virgo and Dr.

Chris Harris, and most recently under the leadership of Gladstone Thompson, principal of Southampton Glebe.

For many years, Bermuda has entered the World Schools Debating Championship and local students have had the opportunity to travel to foreign locations, including Israel, London, and Pittsburgh.

Bermuda hosted the championship itself in 1996. In order to help prepare the candidates for the 2001 competition in Johannesburg, South Africa, the Bermuda Debate Society and the English Speaking Union brought a team of university students from the UK for workshops at local schools and to challenge the National Pool in two debates.

The UK team was composed of Melanie Marshall, Peter English and James Probert.

Melanie Marshall is the current European Champion, James Probert is the UK Champion, and Peter English has represented England in several of world championships. Throughout their week stay, the group visited numerous middle and high schools to watch, critique and teach the students the skill of debating.

Ms Marshall said: "It was important to be continuously training young people in debating. It is not unusual for teams to suffer when the senior members move onto university. I remember when it happened to the Scottish team.'' Their coach, Marc Whitmore, is actually the education, debates and alumni officer of the worldwide English Speaking Union. The two debates in which they participated in were "this house believes that democracy is so good that everyone should be made to have it'' and "this house would allow governments to control population through legislature''.

The Bermudian debaters participating were: Jonathan Suter, Whitney Darrell, Christine Mayor and Samantha Flood from Warwick Academy; Christie Hunter and Aziza Ahad from Bermuda High School for Girls; as well as Sarita Ebbin and Erica Lipschultz from Saltus.

While the two debates provided an opportunity for the Bermudian students to demonstrate their skills, the real value of the debates was the opportunity to face new competitors and to look for new ways to improve upon their skills by working with experienced world-class debaters.

The group of four were judges at Bermuda's National Inter-school competition.

Judging in both the juniors and the seniors, the visitors commented that they were impressed with the standard and were looking forward to the World Championships, where some of them would be judges.

One of the UK judges said: "Judging is hard work, but debating, that's another story.'' The continuing support of the contributors and volunteers, combined with the hard work of local debaters and the expertise of foreign debaters, almost guarantees Bermuda's teams are destined to become stronger and more accomplished.

Christine Mayor, a school correspondent for Young Observer, was elected the top high school debater in this year's National Debating Championships.