University of Auckland Debating Society

On the 3rd and 4th of May we travelled to beautiful Tūrangi on the shores of Lake Taupō for Thropy 2025 — the North Island Novice Tournament! With 17 teams, 14 trainees, and 15 judges, it was a fantastic weekend full of learning, growth, laughter, and new friendships — both within our squad and with our friends from Waikato and Victoria!

We had so many achievements to celebrate!

Tung Tung Tung Sahur (Matthew Zheng, Jamie Pett, and Luca Ririnui) broke 1st and WON the tournament, taking home the Thropy!!

Bombombini Gusini (Zan Warren-Kazor, Giverny Miedema, and Sivakami Sathyendran) broke 2nd and were brilliant in their semi-final!

Trulimero Trulicina (Jenny Vu, Lucy Kilgour, and Joel Challis) broke 4th and gave a superb performance in their semi!

Big congratulations to Theo Masseurs, Stella Bloomfield, and Kayla Wilson from Victoria for an incredible performance in the grand final!

Our speakers absolutely smashed it:

Top Speakers Overall:

— Theo Masseurs (University of Wellington) — Top speaker overall!

— Luca Ririnui — 2nd overall!

— Matthew Zheng — 3rd overall!

— Jamie Pett — 4th overall!

— Zan Warren-Kazor — 5th overall!

— Joel Challis — 6th overall!

— Giverny Miedema — 7th overall!

— Sivakami Sathyendran — 9th overall!

Top Reply Speakers:

— Matthew Zheng — Top reply speaker!

— Zan Warren-Kazor — 2nd best reply!

— Jenny Vu — 4th in replies!

— Tia Deb — 5th in replies!

We were also thrilled to welcome new judges to the circuit: Robert Hoskins, Joshua Sampson, Saad Amir, Xandi Cooke, Cara Homewood, and Summer Hancock!

A massive thank you to our phenomenal adj core — James Boland, Ollie Gillespie, and Chris Barr — for their outstanding organisation and motions, to all the judges for making such a large tournament possible, and to Tongariro Junction Accommodation for being such generous hosts!

We’re already counting down the days until next year!