Altona City Rotary Club this month hosted a public speaking competition called Wynspeak, for secondary school students in Melbourne’s west.
Students participating in the Hobsons Bay Heat included those from Bayside P12 College, Footscray High School, Mt St Josephs Girls School, Williamstown High School and Victoria University Secondary College.
The competition was held at the Altona Theatre on 5 May, supported by a grant from the Victorian Government’s West Gate Neighbourhood Fund.
The Wynspeak competition is designed to provide a vehicle for young people to grow their self-confidence, build their creativity, critical thinking and leadership skills via public speaking. The winners of the prepared speech section gain automatic entry to the competition final which will be held on June 1 at Thomas Carr College, following the completion of eight preliminary heats.
Altona City Rotary Club Community Services Director, Marg O’Neill, said that:
“Tonight, I had the pleasure of adjudicating the Wynspeak public speaking competition, and I was blown away. Five different schools competed in 2 categories: Juniors years 7 to 9 and seniors years 10 to 12.
With teenagers of the calibre I heard tonight the future of our country is in good shape.
They spoke on topics from Climate Change, Child Marriage, Airplane Food, Facebook, Profit versus Environment, if you had an extra hour each week and lots more. First, we judged 5-minute prepared speeches followed by 2-minute unprepared speeches and not an Ummm or arhhh amongst them.”
The winners who will progress to the final were Erin Godfrey of Mount St Josephs Girls School and Stanley Webb of Footscray High School.
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