Resources

The Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate (CUSID) has prepared three documents to help increase the accessibility of debate in Canada: 

• The CUSID Debaters Masterfile: This masterfile is meant to serve as a centralized one-stop shop for debate improvement resources for both individuals and clubs. The masterfile contains three main categories: debate fundamentals, specialized knowledge, and external sources. Debate fundamentals goes over all the key components and skills needed to successfully and properly debate, meanwhile specialized knowledge provides background information on an extensive range of topics commonly used in debate. Both of these sections consist of a reading list and training videos. Meanwhile, external sources include other resources such as blogs, podcasts, and Youtube channels. Within external sources, the information repositories portion highlights a plethora of archives and other masterfiles.
• The CUSID Clubs Masterfile: This masterfile is meant to serve as a guide to how to start a club, but still has many useful resources and considerations for emerging clubs. The masterfile contains four considerations clubs might have when starting a debating society: institutional, organizational, financial, and operational. Notably, this masterfile is not just for new clubs but rather has plenty of information useful to the operations of smaller clubs, such as an in-depth guide to training and hosting debate tournaments. Throughout the document, there will also be links to either external sources we have deemed as incredibly useful or templates—such as a mock constitution and financial documents—that CUSID has compiled for club use. 
• The CUSID Tournaments Masterfile: This masterfile is meant to serve as a guide to how to run a tournament, with a lot of useful information surrounding different types of tournaments that can be run and the necessary  people, materials and processes for each. It also has a number of really helpful resources including a built-in Tabbycat guide, exemplary briefing slides and other useful templates for forms and other tournament materials which can be useful for every tournament director.