HCS recorded a double win at the English Speaking Union’s Public Speaking Competition Regional Final.
Up against the best public speaking teams from the West Midlands our novice team of three scooped the awards for Best Chair and Best Questioner.
According to the judges, Kemi A, as Chair, “had a really fantastic summary and introduction, showed awareness of current affairs and managed to imbue the proceedings with a friendly and good-natured sense”. She had the unenviable task of introducing a speaker from Pate’s Grammar School who she had never met and did it with great panache.
Sunaina R, Best Questioner of the evening was praised for “broadening the scope of the speech“ and “taking the speaker into areas not covered in their speech”.
Our own speaker, Natasha P, took on the ambitious topic of Rousseau’s famous dictum that ‘Man is born free but everywhere is in chains’. The judges loved the “fantastic background to the speech” the “really good reasoning and argument” and the “lovely use of language”.
Natasha’s speech raised many interesting ideas about the chains that hold us back as individuals, but also the ones that secure us to our families, culture and communities.
The team are raring to have another go next year when we will hopefully be able to break free of the screens and be back to properly ‘public’ speaking.
