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Parents, friends and Rotarians were held captivated at the Schools Youth Speaks competition held at the East Kilbride Group Training Association premises on Thursday 13th Nov 2914.

There were eight teams entered for the event which is organised each year by East Kilbride Rotary Club. Teams were from Calderglen High, Duncanrig Secondary and St Andrews & St Brides High School with each team of 3 comprising a chairperson, speaker and proposer of the vote of thanks. The chairperson and proposer were allocated 2 minutes each with 6 minutes for the speaker. Penalty points were deducted from their scores for any overrun of the allocated time. Teams selected their own topics ranging from The Demise of Modern Languages to Technology 0 Pandora's Box or Treasure Trove.

Adjudicating the competitors were 4 members of East Kilbride Speakers Club, Ken Murray, Alex Rintoul and Ross Hammond with Isobel Dunlop operating the timing lights. It was a difficult night for the Speakers Club as they had to select an intermediate winner and senior winner form a very high quality group of speakers.

Alex Rintoul summed up the proceedings with some valuable advice for all the team members, commenting it was one of the highest standards of speakers he had attended and the extreme difficulty they experienced in selecting the winning teams.

The intermediate winning team was Duncanrig B comprising Chloe Currie, Maria Goodarzi and Hannah Murray with a topic on The Self Hate Craze, a talk about the adverse effects of peer pressure in the media.

Senior winners were Duncanrig C team of Megan Sutherland, Sandy MacLeod and Amy Cook and their topic was Can we trust our Politicians with the conclusion of our Politicians are not to be trusted.

Winner Trophies were presented by Counsellor Alice Marie Mitchell who also has an interest in schools debating and encouraged the teams to continue with speaking and debating.

Duncanrig teacher, Jo Whiteford, who trained and coached the successful teams, was delighted to not only retain the intermediate trophy but to add the senior trophy to their collection.

East Kilbride Rotary Club President Archie King closed the competition thanking the teams and teachers for their extensive work in preparing the teams, EKGT for use of the premises, Speakers Club, Alice Marie Mitchell and guests for helping to make it a superb night.

The 2 winning teams now go forward to the Rotary District competition being held at the Pollokshaws Burgh Hall in February 2015.

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