Rotary hosts public speaking competition in Narrabri

The Rotary Club of Narrabri hosted a regional public speaking competition at The Exhange on Sunday.

Two St Mary’s College, Gunnedah, students topped the competition.

Lewis Donaldson was announced as the winner and will progress to the competition’s semi-final.

Fergus Hunter, Boggabri, was announced as the runner-up and could also end up speaking at the semi-final.

Fellow St Mary’s student Millie Taylor was also among the speakers along with Gunnedah High School students Isabelle Moore and Josie Gallagher.

Seven speakers spoke to the audience about a chosen topic, with adjudicators praising all students on their delivery.

In addition to the five representatives from Gunnedah schools, two students – Reese Boughton and Michelle Dunlop – also participated from Moree Secondary College.

The speakers were assessed on a five-minute prepared speech.

The only rule imposed was that somewhere in the speech, students had to make a reference to Rotary’s four-way test.

The speakers were introduced to the audience by assistant area governor and past president of the Rotary Club of Narrabri, Darrell Tiemens.

Lewis spoke of the value of learning a second language and delivered part of his speech in French.

Fergus spoke of the advantages of a unified world government, while Millie’s topic was ‘you only live once’.

Josie’s topic of choice was the benefits of dance, while Isabelle spoke about passion.

Michelle spoke about history while Reese’s topic was reading.

Rotary area governor, and member of the Rotary Club of Gunnedah West, Kel Walls praised the students on their confidence.

“To see that we have young people willing to better themselves and keeping this competition going is great. They are all champions for participating.”

Following the speeches, the speakers and guests enjoyed lunch provided by the Rotary Club of Narrabri while the adjudicators deliberated.

The three adjudicators were Margaret Slack-Smith, Narrabri, Teresa Boyd, Gunnedah, and Natalia Stanojevic, Moree.

Mrs Slack-Smith praised the students on their confidence.

“Everyone of you spoke so confidently. It was hard to decide,” she said.

“You will be able to speak in front of an audience for the rest of your lives.

“You were all so passionate about what you were talking about.”

Fellow adjudicator Mrs Boyd echoed similar comments to Mrs Slack-Smith and particularly mentioned the speeches that used real-life examples.

The Rotary District 9660 public speaking competition semi-final will be held via Zoom in the new year before the final is held at the district conference in Tamworth in March.