Abingdonian 2018

24 The Abingdonian Lower School Public Speaking Competition 2018’s Lower School Public Speaking Competition was full of close matches, culminating in 2M’s victory over 1L in the grand final by a mere two points. The standard was very high this year with all the speakers doing extremely well. Standing up and talking in front of all your peers is no mean feat. A big thank you to all the boys and staff that made this year’s competition possible, either by participating, judging or watching. The format of each match was as follows. Each team had a chairman, a main speaker and a vote of thanks. The chairman introduces the main speaker with an attention grabbing, short address to the audience, underlining the central topics covered in the main speech. The main speaker then follows with a four minute explanation of any chosen topic. Topics this year included climate change, politics and the downsides of technology. Finally, the opposition’s vote of thanks concludes by thanking the other team for speaking and gives feedback on the speech, but isn’t allowed to criticise the opposition. Then the other chairman speaks and so on. Writing a good speech isn’t easy. It takes a lot of hard work and often many hours of researching and writing. In my opinion, the most challenging part of getting a speech ready is condensing it down to a suitable length. All the chairmen and main speakers this year wrote some excellent speeches. Considering that the vote of thanks isn’t allowed to prepare beforehand, this role is particularly challenging. Having to stand up in front of your classmates with next to no plan of what to say, and thinking on your feet, is a particularly difficult task. I think that everyone who took on the role of vote of thanks did very well and rose to the challenge. To conclude, this year’s Lower School Public Speaking Competition was a spectacular event with large numbers of students participating. Again, I thank all the staff and boys involved for helping to make this contest possible. Mark Taylor, 2SCVM