Secondary Public Speaking

Amano held its Secondary Inter House Public Speaking Competition in the evening of Wednesday 16th July. This year comprised a new set of subjects and a completely different set of speakers, three from each house representing the three levels of competition: U14, U16 and U19.

House captains and their speaking teams

In the U14 category Samuel Kirk spoke with confidence on "the dangers of credit cards" and which the judging panel of Mr Towse, Mr Andresen and Mrs V. Grove deemed to be the best presentation. Representing Kasompe house was Taliesin Lund who ably educated us on the life of "Winston Churchill" and came in second place followed by Nisarg Patel who with somewhat accidental humour talked about "how to use a musket".
  In the U16 category Joshua Phiri spoke and sang on "African music" with good passion and understanding and faced a few challenging questions from the musically minded with good answers. Natalia Reed was the only girl this year and was very informative on the life of "Mahatma Ghandi", though don't ask me what his real name is. She won first place for Kasompe house.

Natalia

Then finishing off for Musenga house was Fungai Chanda with why "being young is over rated"! All the pressures of youth that adults don't need to worry about or something like that!
  Finally it was time for the U19's to begin and Luano's Jean Candy presented the pros and cons of "public vs private schools". A tricky talk to present to educators but done very well nonetheless. The Kasompe representative was Ben Ferguson, who came in first place, with his sermon on "the media determines how and what we think". As always with Ben a methodical and thoughtful presentation was well received and finished with the judges offering the speaking slot at church this weekend! Williamson Walker wound things up with his talk on "don't get married till you're 25!" As you can imagine this raised some emotions, but good thoughts too, on the need for maturity and God's guidance. He took second place.
  I am very grateful to Jean and Nisarg who stepped in on the final days preparation to represent their houses where you must stand on your own in the spotlight. This is not easy but it was not obvious to the audience.
  Thanks must go to the judges and also Mr Boatman who entertains us in between speeches and runs the evening excellently.

Mr Boatman

 It was clear on the night that the popularity of the subject is not what wins the event. The skill of the orator is their ability to use their mouth as a tool to best convey what is in their mind. To enthral the listener, even with a boring subject and win over your objectors with words.
Well done everyone.

Contributed by: Mr S Grove