Inter Schools Speech Contest Winners

Here are the winners from last night’s Venture Southland Inter-Schools Speech Contest at Aurora College. Well Done to everyone who participated. It’s no easy thing speaking in public, in fact it’s widely regarded as one of our greatest fears. A good way to overcome it or at least come to grips with it is to join one of the Toastmasters Club’s here in Invercargill.

Years 5/6

1^st Grace Duthie, Mossburn School—The Science of Stupidity
2^nd: Matthew Smith, Waihopai School—Why Karate should be in NZ Schools
3^rd: Rylan Cooper, Limehills School, My Little Brother

MC’s Choice Award: Rylan Cooper

1^st: Darcy Herrick, James Hargest College, Language Revolution

2^nd: Jake Tither, Fiordland College, Teenagers

3^rd: Kiera Ferguson, Longford Intermediate—Why do we call destruction progress?

MC’s Choice Award: Jake Tither

The best young speech writers in the region went head to head last night to decide the winner of the annual Venture Southland Interschool Speech Contest.

The competition has been a feature on the southern academic calendar since 2003. During the contest years five to eight students were assessed on their speech making and delivery.

61 Southland schools were involved this year.

Venture Southland Creative Projects Manager Angela Newell says it’s been a pleasure to gather the very best speakers from all over Southland to celebrate excellence in the speech making process.

“All 18 students that made it through to the final stage of the contest have been placegetters in their respective parts of the region. It was a great final. All three judges agreed that the standard was extremely high and that the placings were very close”

Judges were: Darren Ludlow, Miriam Erikson and Fliss Crossley-Pritchard.

Venture Southland Speech Contest co-ordinator Angela Newell says 61 schools were represented in the contest with the best 18 featuring in the Grand Final Competition

She says the experienced judging panel of Miriam Erikson, Darren Ludlow and Fliss Crossley-Pritchard all commented that the standard was extremely high and the placings were very close.