Public Speaking Update

Youth Speaks Round-Up

 

 

Public  Speaking Update

 

The Bishop’s Stortford Rotary Club “Youth Speaks” competition is an event in which our students always enjoy taking part and this year’s was no exception.

For the first time in several years, TBSHS entered two teams in the Senior section (Year 10 and above), as did Herts and Essex and St. Mary’s Catholic School, with Bishop’s Stortford College and St Nicholas School, Harlow fielding one each. Our Year 10 trio was drawn to speak second and, undaunted by being among the youngest teams involved, did so with great confidence. James Frans made a very welcoming Chairman, introducing his team mates and the title of their presentation “Q?” very amusingly. He explained that Kashan Johar was going to talk about queuing rather than the boffin from the James Bond films.

Kashan’s speech was very well constructed and delivered with minimal reference to his notes, but just a little too quickly. Making good use of his voice and connecting well with his listeners, he explained the derivation of the word ‘queue’, weighed up the pros and cons of queuing and considered whether queuing is quintessentially British, demonstrating a pleasing range and depth of research. JJ Sathan then proposed a Vote of Thanks that, unlike several others on the night, fulfilled the requirements of his role perfectly. He rightly complimented Kashan on the originality of his subject and, in particular, his reference to Kashan’s answer to a question from the audience reflected his ability to ‘think on his feet’.

The TBSHS Year 12 team was fifth to take the stage with the title “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow”, referring to male pattern baldness. Chairman Dan Connor unveiled a list of expressions describing this, ranging from “slaphead” to “cranially enhanced”. He displayed a real warmth, but at times needed to project his voice rather more forcefully. Main speaker Tom Gee started by explaining the scientific reasons why many men go bald, before going on to enlighten the audience about pigeon droppings once being used as a cure for baldness. After a cautionary tale from the Bible, Tom ended by urging everyone to be more accepting of difference and, to embrace a lack of hair. This speech would have benefitted from greater variety of vocal expression, but was very well reasoned and the content was extremely engaging. The presentation was completed by what I felt was the best Vote of Thanks of the whole competition, given by Oliver Worthy.  It was beautifully paced and every word was crystal clear. Oliver dr