Youth Speaks at The Beacon School

The first round of this competition was held at The Beacon School on Thursday 12th January 2023. The teams entered were an intermediate and senior team from Sutton Grammar School, and an intermediate team and senior team from from Wilsons School. The judges were Eileen Hannah, Wendy Phillips and Ros Rokison (Chair) who have all be involved in judging this competition in the past. Each team consisted of a Chairperson, Speaker for the motion and a Speaker against the motion. The Chairman and Speakers were allotted the same time each . Rotarians organised the event and Rotarians from two clubs were involved in running the competition - Banstead, and Sutton Nonsuch Clubs The first to speak were the Sutton Grammar School intermediate team. Their chosen subject was “The voting age should be reduced to 16”. Next to speak were the Wilsons intermediate team. Their subject was “Animal testing should be abolished ”. After this came Senior Team from Sutton Grammar School, the talk was on “ No subject should be mandatory at GCSE”. Finally came the Wilsons Senior Team. The subject was “Abolish the Monarchy”. The winning team of the two intermediate schools was Wilsons and the winning team of the two Seniors was again Wilsons! The winners were each presented with a certificate and cash vouchers by Nonsuch Rotary President Chris Hughes and will go on to the next round of the competition. The judges said it was not easy to chose the winners as all the teams spoke well. The Beacon School provided tea and coffee for the interval while the judges made up their minds about who was the winner. Ros Rokison spoke for the judges and gave an excellent critique of the performance of each speaker.