In 2015, the Alberta Debate and Speech Association was in transition. There was a new executive director and I was a brand new member of the ADSA board. I became the Northern Alberta Regional Representative with the goal of changing the debate scene in Edmonton. My first action was to offer support to debate tournament directors all over Alberta.
Despite chutabs being roughly a decade old, excel files and google sheets still ruled the lands in Alberta. My first experiencing using chutabs was on my laptop to direct a really small Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate tournament called Ed Open in early 2015. I knew there would be issues related to redundancy, parallelization, and scaling if tournament relied on hosting their own versions of chutabs on local machines. Thus the idea to migrate to redtabnet was born.
I made a pitch to the University of Alberta Debate Society to cover my costs for the first year and they enthusiastically accepted my proposal. I am so grateful for UADS support in the early years of redtabnet.
My first Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate tournament hosted on redtabnet was Fall Open 2015 spanning from Friday, October 23rd to Sunday, October 25th. A British Parliamentary tournament for novice university debaters from Manitoba all the way to British Columbia. I actually used the original version of tabbie for this tournament.
My first Alberta Debate and Speech Association tournament hosted on redtabnet using chutabs was the Westminster Spook Tournament on Halloween Day, 2015. Traditionally, this Canadian National Style tournament kicks off the junior high season for Edmonton debaters from grade 7 to 9. A fun event that breaks the norms of debate. Debate is fun and nothing reinforces that like seeing debate partners Batman and Robin debating This House Believes That vigilantism can be justified.
My first tournament hosted remotely was the Ernest Manning Beginners’ Tournament 2015 on November 6th, 2015 in Calgary. Which was another Canadian National Style tournament.
Online debate was the standard during the pandemic but being online has been an element of debate and redtabnet for much longer!