The Mayor of RBWM, Cllr Neil Knowles and Richard Allen, CEO of The Green Room joined me last night to judge the Trevelyan Middle School entries for this year’s Rotary Youth Speaks Competition.
Nothing warms the heart more than hearing our young people debate a subject that matters to them. What a great night, as it always is…
Team A went first, after the toss of a coin, debating The Rights of Smokers and Freedom of Choice. The harms, the cost to the NHS, the potential loss of tax revenue, how would you replace it, freedoms to choose, who decides? Back and forth, financial data supported by scientific data, facts balanced with moral and societal considerations… an individual’s opportunity and autonomy to perform a chosen action unconstrained by external parties.
So topical right now… great debate which won the day because it was slightly more polished, only slightly, than Team B.
Team B spoke about rules and whether they should be broken, or not, even if life was threatened. A very emotive debate touching on current and historic wars and if action hadn’t been taken, would others have stepped into the breach to ensure the same end result with those breaking orders suffering the ultimate consequence. Heavy duty, arguments well made but it wasn’t to be their night.
As a Rotarian I have been hosting the competition for over 10 years and am never disappointed with the talks / debates brought forward.
Sadly the current pressures on teachers means that something has to give… we probably need to evolve a community model moving forward to ensure our young people are given the opportunity to learn debating skills which naturally give them “the edge” in the real world where these skills are highly sought after by potential corporate employers.
Great work by Team A and onto the District Finals in Reading next week and hopefully if successful in the Regionals at the end of March, the National Finals it will be their destination in April.
Good luck and thank you to all the young people and teachers for taking part.
After the debate the Mayor and Richard were able to compare bling. I was able to present Richard with his medal we’d created for our last competition at Eton College, videos of which can be found here. He’d dashed off after so it had been sitting in my shed for a couple of years 😉
Our Chair of judges, Richard praised the teachers commitment, “It was, as ever, a warming experience to see our young folk challenging themselves in a hugely beneficial area. We need more ‘Mr.Kings’ who can offer some time to help the other schools get some resource behind it!”
The Mayor loved the debate, “The standard of rhetoric was fabulous- presentation across the board polished and the finest of margins separated the teams.” But thought there was something missing, “Sadly no cake!”
Thank you both for joining in and encouraging our young people to be the best they can be…
Jon Davey
Youth Speaks Chair
Windsor & Eton Rotary Club
District 1090
