Lasallian Speaking Challenge

Lasallian Public Speaking Challenge

On a particularly damp night at St Bede’s College in September, the annual Brother Quentin O’Halloran Lasallian Speaking Challenge was run, pitting boys from St. James, St Bede’s and De La Salle against each other in competition to be named the best public speaker in their age group. The chosen De La Salle students had won the right to represent the College after beating other competitors in their year level and, after weeks of rehearsal with Ms McIlroy, were ready for a strong display. Trent Puddy (Year 7) kicked the campaign off with his speech, ‘Let us work!’ Trent was confident and set the tone for strong De La performances all evening. Adam Crestani (Year 8) demonstrated how much he had grown since representing the College in the same competition last year with his speech, ‘Mobile Musts’, while William Wright (Year 9), gave an impassioned plea on the topic of refugees. A recent St Bede’s convert, Matthew Mottola showed why he is such a valuable acquisition for the school with his speech on ‘The Political Circus’. Matthew also worked with the younger students helping them prepare their speeches in the lead up, which was pleasing to see. At the senior level, Michael Hoareau (Year 11), and Jerome Lugo (Year 12, pictured left), faced stiff competition — one of their St Bede’s competitors had recently won the Plain Speaking award for the whole of Victoria! Both delivered extremely confident speeches and more than held their own in the competition. At the half way point in the evening, the prepared speeches were complete and the boys had given a good account of themselves. In the second half of the evening, the boys were given the impromptu topic, ‘Breaking the Rules’, a challenging topic for any De La Salle student. The boys were once again impressive, presenting structured and thoughtful responses that showed a good sense of humour and a capacity to think on their feet. In the end, however, the judges favoured St Bede’s on the night and it was only De La’s youngest representative, Trent, who claimed victory, taking home the Year 7 award. It was a positive story overall, with plenty of optimism amongst the staff and students about future events. The leadership shown by some of the older students bodes well for coming years and the younger students’ enthusiasm and confidence was excellent. Congratulations to all of the boys and we can now look forward to our chance to claim home victory when De La Salle plays host to the event next year. James Walton KLAC English