Welcome to a new school year with The Society and an especially warm welcome to members of Year 8, who we hope will become keen debaters during their time at Per shore High School. We continue to take pleasure from our success in the 2006 Youth Parliament Competition, reported on elsewhere in this Newsletter.

We were also delighted with the success of our Debating Road show, which we took to each of our three feeder Middle Schools during the last weeks of term. Students in Year 7 (now our new Year 8) enjoyed debates on eating in class, carrying defensive weapons and banning 4 x 4s from the public highway. We began the new season strongly with two debates. The first was on the motion 'This House is glad it is not the Big Brother House' and explored the pros and cons of reality TV.

The second was on a much more serious and controversial topic: 'This House would prosecute Israel for war crimes'. Between them these two debates encapsulated the range of debating that The Society offers. The Society Annual General Meeting will be held in the Sixth Form Study Area at 1.00pm. At this meeting we elect the officers and committee of The Society for the coming year and begin to plan the programme for the new season. We hope that as many people as possible will attend the AGM so that everything can be as democratic as possible.

We are already looking forward to a number of competitions. At the end of September Hannah Evans, Luke Gordon, Nathan John and Stephen Maugham travel to Newcastle on Tyne for the Northern Schools Debating Tournament. We wish them well in that. We shall shortly need to make preparations for this year's Eyres-Monsell Debating Competition at the start of November. Remember that every member of the school is a member of The Society and welcome to come along to any of its debates. As usual they are held on alternate Thursdays at 1.00 pm in the Sixth Form Study Area. Details are available on regular posters and from your Form Tutor.