Last week Courtney Johnson and I participated in the Lions Youth of the Year. This program run through Echuca lions club is designed to “encourage and develop leader and citizenship qualities in young people.” Students from St Joseph’s and Moama Grammar also participated.
The competition was scored and split into two parts;
1. Consisted of an interview that was marked out of 80. We were judged on our leadership within school and the community, our citizenship and community involvement, general knowledge and our sporting and cultural achievements.
2. A public speaking competition held at Rich River Golf Club Tuesday 16th at 7:00pm. Scored out of 30; we were judged by how we answered the impromptu questions, our prepared speech and our overall presentation to the strong crowd of 40.
The judging panel of 3 were; Karl Stenning (South Principal), Annie Pinson (Secondary Teacher) and Philip Zandt (Manager at ANZ).
Everyone spoke extremely well, each of us had our own ideas and brought something new to the audience with each of our speeches.
After the delicious food and dessert, we impatiently waited for the scores to be calculated. With the combined scores from the interview and Tuesday night’s dinner, everyone was awarded a certificate of participation. I was both surprised and humbled when I was announced Lions Youth of the Year 2016. I now move on to the second round, regionals which will be held in Gigarre on March 20th.
Overall, even though it was a late night, it was a great one full of laughter and meeting new people, giving us new skills to use in the future.
Luke Judd