Benjir Abrar

Stamford Debate Forum (SDF) is the most active club among all the clubs performing in co-curriculum arena in Stamford University Bangladesh. This club is turning out to be one of the best debate organisations with the passage of time.
The dream started from January 15, 2004. The founder vice chancellor and chairman of current board of trustees, Hannan Firoz, is the pioneer of this club. He was aided by a courageous team that had a lot of love and interest for debate. The person whose name comes up automatically when it comes to foundation of this club is Abdullah Md Shukrana, who is very prominent in the debating community. He was the founder secretary general of this club and later elected as its president.
Some very motivated and proactive youths interested in debate with their extreme effort and organisational promptness established their dream SDF as one of the top four debate clubs in the country. The slogan of this club is ‘Juktir Aloy Khuji Muktir Shopan’.
Stamford Debate Forum is one of the very few debate organisations in the country to participate in international debate festivals.
Currently, SDF hosts five programmes in a year. First  one is held for searching fresh debaters at the very beginning of the year where newest members of the university participate. Up to now, SDF has successfully completed 8 Stamford freshers’ workshops and debate competitions.   
The second programme of the year is inter-departmental competition, here several faculties of the university compete against each other. So far, SDF has successfully completed 10 such competitions in the last 12 years.
Then SDF arranges pre-national debate competition. It is mainly organised for polishing their debaters to participate in national competitions.
The programme for which debate lovers of the country eagerly wait for all year is the Stamford national debate competition. SDF continuously shows its calibre by hosting Bangla and English debate competitions, with participation of top debaters of the country at school, college and university levels. The goodwill of SDF has rapidly spread in the debating community by accomplishing 8 national competitions so far. Then SDF organises mix-up debate competitions where renowned debaters from several universities debate in the same team. Very few clubs organise such an exceptional competition.
New members are added every four months in the club room, which is beside the university’s basketball ground. At present, more than 700 students are member of this glorious club. The executive committee of the club is announced every year. The best thing about this club is the election of chief coordinator which is on the basis of students’ opinion and university authorities don’t interfere at all.   
SDF has won the champion’s crown in various competitions of the country. Last year, ‘SDF Agni’ became champion in Faridpur debate festival, and runner-up in interclub debate competition organised by Dhaka University’s Mohsin Hall, university contest of Government Laboratory School, 3rd nationals of Daffodil University and Saint Gregory’s. Only last week, a very young team of SDF upset everyone by reaching the semifinal at ICT debate festival.
Every year, the publication department of this club publishes a magazine named Shottagroho, and also puts on a wall magazine every Pohela Baishakh named Charubak.
The assistant proctor of the university, Md Al- Mamun, is performing as chief coordinator of the club’s executive committee for 2016-2017. Mirazul Islam is the president of this current committee consisting 26 members. The chief coordinator said, “Speaking is an art, we believe the debater of our club will shine in future with their debate potentiality”.
We are eying the sky, although we are no way near it. The dream continues to stay in our heart. SDF family wants to cross its limit of success in the days ahead. Now it’s time to make the impossible possible.  Let’s dream.