Last week saw the return of the annual Rotary Senior Public Speaking Competition, which we hosted after St Ninian’s won the competition last year. This year, our fabulous team was comprised of Year 9 students Vicky Thompson as Chair and Dilara Nergiz as speaker. They placed third, on a night when the standards were extremely high across the board. An excellent result for the team!
Dilara’s speech was entitled ‘Is The Isle of Man Manx Enough?’, and took us on a journey of Manx language, culture and traditions to discuss the many things to be celebrated about the island in this modern world, as well as how we should keep our traditions alive as a nation. The judges commented on how well-structured and interesting the speech was, and the strong teamwork displayed by Vicky and Dilara.
New to this year, was an introduction given by a student, and Penny Lavery, also in Year 9, gave a very professional introduction to the proceedings and welcome to the audience which included our Lieutenant Governor Sir Lorimer, and Lady Lorimer, as well as the Mayor of Douglas. Both Vicky and Penny opened in Manx, which fitted in perfectly with Dilara’s topic.
During the break while the judges deliberated, we were lucky enough to be entertained by the wonderful cast of the upcoming school show ‘The Little Mermaid’ who performed two numbers which were extremely well-received.
A huge thank you and well done to all of the students who took part and made it an entertaining and thought-provoking evening.