Once again the Rotary Club of Biddulph has organised the ‘Youth Speaks’ Competition for teams of young speakers from Biddulph schools.
The event was held at the Victoria Community Centre on Monday 25th November with 6 teams of three speakers taking part, representing James Bateman Junior High School, Biddulph High School and Our Lady of Grace Catholic Academy. The subjects chosen by the teams were both diverse and challenging, ranging from ‘Deforestation’, ‘Euthanasia’ and ‘Stranger Danger’.
The panel of judges consisted of, Judge David Fletcher, a Liverpool District Circuit Judge; John Robinson, Biddulph Town Crier; and President of Biddulph Rotary, Gerry Machin. In announcing the prize-winners David Fletcher commented on the extremely high standard achieved by all the teams in both the presentation of their topics and the underlying research that had been done, and said that the levels achieved this year were the highest he had known and did credit to the teachers and parents who had helped and encouraged the participants. He said that everybody, at some time in their life, will have to stand up and make a speech to a body of people and the experience gained by the participants will stand them in good stead for their future lives and careers. He did mention however that it was disappointing that only two of the participants were male, and he hoped that this trend would be reversed in future years.
David said that it had been extremely hard to judge the competition because of the very high standard achieved by all the teams and it was in most cases only possible to make a decision based on very slight differences in the presentations. Judging the individual prizes was even more difficult because for these, 9 year olds were competing against 16 year olds. However, despite the difficulty, they had been able to reach decisions.
The junior level prize-winners were a team from Our Lady of Grace Catholic Academy, consisting of Chairperson Taila Foster, Speaker Lochlan Chell, and Vote of Thanks presenter Makenzie Bell, who spoke about ‘Deforestation & Its Effect on the Environment’. They were presented with the Prize by Rotn., Steve Bolton.
The intermediate level prize-winners were a team from James Bateman Junior High School, consisting of Chairperson Elliot Byrne, Speaker Maise Wood, and Vote of Thanks presenter Lauren Horne, who spoke about ‘Pets! Why do we Bother’. They were presented with the Jit Bannerjea Trophy by Mrs. Pippa Bannerjea.
The senior prize-winners were a team from Biddulph High School, consisting of Chairperson Kayleigh Ball, Speaker Olivia-Paige Barry, and Vote of Thanks presenter, Katie Horton, who spoke about ‘Stars in Our Eyes’. They were presented with the ‘Jack Lund’ Trophy by Rotarian John Clewlow.
The Bob Sutch Trophy for the best individual performance was presented to Lochlan Chell, from Our Lady of Grace Catholic Academy, by Mrs. Jean Sutch.
President of Biddulph Rotary, Gerry Machin, presented Book token prizes for:
Best Chairperson Taila Foster, from Our Lady of Grace Catholic Academy.
Best Speaker Lochlan Chell, from Our Lady of Grace Catholic Academy.
Best Proposer Lauren Horne, from James Bateman Junior High School.
Gerry then thanked Rotn. Jim Tiffney, who had done most of the work in organising the evening. In particular he thanked the young people who had taken part and their teachers, the panel of judges, and Joanne Garside of Joanne’s Catering, who had provided a splendid buffet supper for the participants and audience.
He went on to say that it was very encouraging to see young people achieving such an extremely high standard in an event like this, which showed that only a minority cause problems and that there are plenty of young people spending their time in useful and rewarding activities. He also encouraged the teams that hadn’t won the trophies, which had prepared presentations which, in other years, would probably have been prize-winning and only failed this year because of the extremely high standard of all the entries.
He then presented ‘thank you’ bouquets to the teachers who had helped the teams prepare, and to Jean Sutch and Pippa Bannerjea.
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