Feature

It was the precise moment to look back at the weeks of hard work and enthusiasm that had culminated to this moment. The tiniest length of time it takes to declare the name of the winner felt like an eternity, enough for the brain to flashback through all the events and happenings that had occurred. All the happiness and sorrows, camaraderie and excitement came back to me in the window that the moment had gifted itself with.

Stamford Debate Forum (SDF), the most active student group of Stamford University had started its journey about 2 years ago. Little did the fistful of friends who started this journey realize that one day it would go on to organize a national level tournament all by itself, that too at the tender age of 2 years. But the members and dedicated volunteer group has done just that. Not just a minor blip in the calendar of the debating fraternity of Bangladesh, but a full-fledged national level championship, with more than 30 or so teams participating from all over the country. My mind is passing through a whirlwind of exciting memories that had occurred prior to the staging of this memorable event.

SDF had just successfully organized its second Intra-University Debating Competition. It was a tough task, and perhaps the first time that a private university had arranged such a debating event. Teams were sent from all the different departments of Stamford University. After the successful staging of the university wide event, covering all the campuses and the departments, our Vice Chancellor Prof. Hannan Feroze organized a dinner event where he promised to assist the forum in all the future endeavours and instilled the dream of organizing one of the largest event in the debating calendar of the year. Now we could not only dream but also dare to make the dream come true.

The newly elected governing body of SDF sat together with its chief coordinator, the amazingly energetic and vibrant Tahsina Yasmin and rock solid Mahbub Sir, who had been the president of BUET debating club during his student years. The forum president Abdullah Md. Shukrana presented with the idea and for some time we debated amongst ourselves whether this would be a university level, or club level competition. Later it was decided that it would be called a national level tournament, combining university and club teams along with college teams. It maybe odd to see a school level team fighting out against a university team, but then, may the best team win and victory be deserved. Decision being finalized, a tentative date was set. Now it was time to get set go and manage a sponsor.

At this point Mahbub Sir set out a team plan to go about knocking at various corporate powerhouses for the title sponsorship of this event. But alas, the political situation of the country couldn't have been worse. With hartals almost every day of the week, the event was threatened to be put off or delayed. All the political unrest forced us to have a minor setback. We changed our initial tentative opening from late November to late December. The pages of calendar never turned any faster. Plans and ideas were slowly coming alive. SDF were allocated a large control room in the Siddeswari Campus equipped with computers, scanners, printers and internet connection. My good friend and designer Nazir designed the attractive logo and poster for the competition. The bags and t-shirts were imprinted with the official logo. Shukrana and Nabin, the club president and VP went around making connections with various teams from all over the country. Deals were made with Media partner STV and radio partner Radio Today. Around this time, the burden of work was so much that some of us organizers started to even spend nights inside our headquarter, nick named 205, the room number of the control room. Posters arrived and the whole town was covered in the light blue hue of the poster bearing the slogan “Hey Shomoy Gronthi amake Jagao”, which when translated roughly means, “Oh the sands of time awaken me”. The large 8 ft by 5 ft banner arrived, and after months of hard work and speculation, it was going to happen finally, the 1st Stamford National Debate Championship 2006.

As with all things in life, some things are always left for the last moment. We found out that everything was done except for the Official Souvenir from the program. In the meantime, articles and submissions were sent in by many eminent writers including Abdun Noor Tushar and Md. Zafar Iqbal amongst many others. The task was mammoth, considering that we had to complete the editing, design and layout in just four days or so to be sent to the printers.