Youth Speaks Competitions 2023

Senior Competition

Fantastic evening last night, Monday 13th November, at Bishop’s Stortford College, for our 2023 Youth Speaks Senior competition. Five teams - two from BS College, two from The Bishop’s Stortford High School and one from Herts & Essex High School competed for the trophy. Subjects ranged from ‘The Sky is Red’, about AI, to ‘The Joy of Cricket’. Judges Rosie Howatson (Chair), Polly Mead and Nick Hyde had a difficult task in choosing the winning team, but decided the trophy should go home with The Bishop’s Stortford High School Team ‘B’ (Chairperson - Oliver Worthy, Speaker - Henry Aylett and Vote of Thanks - Emily Precious (a last minute substitute for India Parton) who did a brilliant job! The team’s subject was “Have you hear this Speech before?”, on which Oliver Worthy gave a fantastic 6 minute oration.  Joint President Hugo Richardson presented the trophy to the winning team.

Intermediate Competition

Following on from the Senior competition, we held the Intermediate Youth Speaks event on Wednesday 22nd, again at Bishop’s Stortford College, with two teams from The Bishop’s Stortford High School, two from Herts & Essex High School and one from Bishop’s Stortford College. The teams again chose a wide range of subjects on which to speak, ranging from ‘The Power of the Underdog’ to ‘How can we gain true happiness?’ The same judges - Rosie Howatson (Chair), Polly Mead and Nick Hyde - had returned for this week’s competition, and had an equally hard task as before in choosing the winner, but decided to award the trophy to The Bishop’s Stortford High School Year 8 Team, comprised of Chairperson - Joshua Tsang, Speaker - Noah Brown, and Vote of Thanks - Felix Evans. They spoke impressively on the subject “The Magic Numbers” and received their trophy from Joint President Bernie Cotton. Youth Speaks is just one of a number of Rotary youth competitions the Club organises for schools in the town.