Youth Speaks 2014-Summary

One of the highlights of the Rotary year is our annual "Youth Speaks" Competition in which local school teams compete for a chance to represent their schools and colleges in the national final later this year.

The standard in this year's competition was as high as it’s ever been. For any young person the chance to compete in a public speaking competition is a daunting and sometimes terrifying experience but even though only 2 teams went onto the District Finals, hopefully all students who took part will take away something positive from this experience. Next year we hope for even more teams to come forward and showcase their talent. It will be the Rotary equivalent of the X Factor-South West.

Thanks must also go to Rotarian Flick Evans for her calmness under pressure and her superb organising skills throughout this long six week event which her fellow Rotarians from Exeter Enterprise are proud to have supported. Enterprise President Elect Nigel Harvey said that he looks forward to a similar challenging competition in 2015 as we all have enjoyed this year.

Finally the results are as follows:

Winners of the Junior Competition were Alphington Primary School, and their subject was ‘Should we remember the First World War?’ The team was chaired by Connor Wellings, and Ashleigh Christie gave the Vote of thanks. The remarkable young speaker was Holly Hoban, who the judges feel clearly has a very great future.

The Senior Competition was won by Pilton Community College whose subject for debate was ‘Thank you for the Music.’ Pilton College had the best speaker, the best vote of thanks came from Kingsbridge Community College, and the best chair was from the Uffculme Senior team.

The winners of the Intermediate Competition were Uffculme School, and their subject was ‘Immigration,the real story’ they won the best team in the competition

The best speaker in the competition was from West Buckland school, the best chair from Isca College, and the best vote of thanks from Uffculme