On Friday 15th January, the Rotary Club of Andover returned to Harrow Way Community School to host the 2016 Youth Speaks Competition. A formal speaking competition where teams of three, a chairperson, the main speaker and a proposer, are marked on portraying and develop a subject matter across to the audience, for elocution and audibility and using their subject knowledge to answer a question.
The evening is split into two parts; starting with the Intermediate Round, in which there were four teams competing. To begin Harrow Way spoke on the subject ‘Being Me’, how in today’s society most people are concerned with their image and being part of the norm. Harrow Way speaker Abbi Loader said “we should embrace being individual and be yourself”.
John Hanson discussed the topic of ‘Books versus Films’. Asking is it right for directors of films to change the way a character is portrayed from the original in the book and are authors happy for books to be made into films as it increase book revenue. Test Valley said that we should be more curious and not stop asking questions, as most of the people who made great discoveries were curious people as they spoke on the topic ‘Curiosity killed the cat!’. It’s natural to be curious as it starts from birth onwards and makes us bolder and wiser.
To finish the intermediate round Rookwood spoke about ‘Helpful Hobbies’ and that this generation of hobbies are tarnished as most activities have moved from outside to in, but is this due to parents being more cautious.
Only two teams competed in the Senior round, Harrow Way and Rookwood. Harrow Way stated that education is the most important part of a person’s life and if you work hard with your education you open up many job prospects. Their topic of ‘Educating Britain’ ask are the government doing enough to ensure all children receive an education and not just treating each person as a number.
Rookwood looked at the function of a role model, saying everyone is a role model to someone but don’t forget that you are individual and you don’t have to be someone you’re not.
This year the judging panel was made up of The Worshipful Mayor of Test Valley, Councillor Iris Anderson, Chairman of the Rotary club of Andover, Mrs Vera Hughes and actor Mr Evan Locke. The awards were presented by the Mayor to:
Intermediate Winners
Best Chairperson: Annabel Anderson (Test Valley)
Best Speaker: Ben Arnold (Rookwood)
Best Proposer: Jess Mcinnes (John Hanson)
Overall Winning Team: Rookwood
Senior Winners
Best Chairperson: Georgina McShane (Rookwood)
Best Speaker: Theo Youds (Rookwood)
Best Proposer: Gareth Brooker (Rookwood)
Overall Winning Team: Rookwood
A gallery of pictures can be viewed here.