ONE school almost swept the board at this year’s Youth Speaks competition, held at the Kenton Theatre in Henley on Monday last week.
Sixteen teams took part, the highest number in the contest’s history, with competitors from The Henley College, Shiplake College, Gillotts School, Henley, Chiltern Edge School, Sonning Common, Reading Blue Coat School and St Lawrence Saints youth group.
The annual competition is organised by Henley Rotary Club.
Pupils spoke on topics ranging from marriage and perfection to DNA and musicals. Six teams of three battled it out in the intermediates section and 10 competed in the seniors section.
Reading Blue Coat School, Sonning, carried off five of the six trophies, which were presented by Henley Mayor Elizabeth Hodgkin.
The school’s C team won the intermediates section for a talk on pessimism and its chairperson, Shamus Butt, 15, won the David Walden Cup as best overall chairperson. Its B team speaker, Harry Ashcroft, 12, won the Gabrielle Derbyshire Cup as best intermediates speaker.
The seniors competition and Rotary Shield was won by the school’s B team, who gave a talk entitled Flying High. Team member James McKean, 16, was awarded the Irene Tapp Cup for best main speaker.
Saskia Temple, 14, from St Lawrence Saints, was awarded the John Luker Cup for giving the best vote of thanks.
Ken Fitt, one of three adjudicators, praised the competitors for their clarity, variation of tone, vocabulary and sense of authority on stage. He said: “The teams gave us an absolutely splendid evening. The intermediate teams looked incredibly confident. They used humour very well and, boy, that’s a difficult thing to do.”
Karl Kuhnke, president of the Rotary club, thanked the adjudicators, sponsors, teachers, parents and participants.
The event was Rotary District 1090’s heat of a national competition and the winning teams will go forward to the next round at Marlow Christ Church Centre on Thursday.
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Published on 08 February 2010
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