Youth Speaks 2022

Youth Speaks 2022

            After an enforced three year hiatus due to Covid Bexhill-on-Sea Rotary Club once again organised the ever popular Youth Speaks competition. It took place at St Richard’s Catholic College with eight teams taking part from four local schools, St Richard’s Catholic College, Bexhill Academy, Battle Abbey School and Claverham Community College.  

            The Principal of St Richard’s, Miss Doreen Cronin, welcomed the teams and audience and Graham Dawson, President of Bexhill-on-Sea Rotary Club, introduced the judges and teams before handing over to Rotarian Rodney Gadsden who was Master of Ceremonies for the event.

            Each school entered an intermediate and a senior team and was able to choose their topic to speak about. Subjects ranged from ‘Should We Rethink Exams post-Covid?’ to ‘the Psychology of Slogans’ and, as usual, the standard was very high. Each team had a Chairperson, a Speaker and someone to round off with a vote of thanks. Timekeepers James Slinn and Dave Tollett kept an eye on the allotted 5 minutes for the main speakers and the adjudicators were Rebecca Irving, Robin Barnett and Andrew Gill who gave a judgement and some comments and advice to participants at the end of the evening.

            There was a universally high standard of presentations and answers to questions posed from the audience and teams were applauded enthusiastically by the audience. The judges had a difficult undertaking in selecting the winners but Claverham Community College teams won both the Intermediate and the Senior Competitions with all the other participants being highly commended. 

            President Graham presented certificates and book tokens to all the students and expressed his thanks to Miss Cronin, the judges and all the teams with their supporters whilst hoping that this annual event can now resume after the pandemic and a return match can be held next year.