Washington state tournaments to use October Public Forum topic in November 2010

In Washington state, we'll use the October topic for November tournaments this year. Via email:

Coaches,

First off, I would thank to thank everyone for the great discourse of the last two days. I appreciate everyone's feedback and thoughtful comments. Based on the overall feedback from the community, opinions of the Public Forum Committee and tournament directors, we have decided to use the October Public Forum topic at the tournaments in Washington in November.

I know this will not make everyone happy, but I hope we can come together and make the October topic work. Thank you to everyone for enduring all the emails the past few days. At this point, please do not reply to all on this thread anymore. I think everyone is worn out, and I'm sure there are many who are not interested in this discussion at all.

If you have questions, please email me and I will do my best to get back to you.

This email also serves as the official announcement that the Gig Harbor Invitational will be using the October Public Forum topic:

Resolved: NATO presence improves the lives of Afghan citizens.

Thank you again for your patience. I think all of us hope that we can avoid this situation in the future.

Sincerely,
Chris Coovert
Gig Harbor HS

Thanks to Chris for taking the lead on this. The whole situation has been a great way for debate coaches (and teams) to talk about what really matters, to change minds through argumentation, and to reach a workable decision through discourse.